Book Review #94: 31 Miles:Can we ever win against ourselves? by Vinita Bakshi

Title: 31 Miles: Can we ever win against ourselves?

Author: Vinita Bakshi

Publishers: Rupa Publications India

Genre: General Fiction

Pages: 220 (Paperbound)

Source: Advanced Review Copy by Publisher

There are certain epochs in one’s individual life where it takes a substantial twirl and the whole thing happens so fast that one cannot fathom the rationale or judgment behind it. And undoubtedly, it poses some vital consequences when this happens in the middle of the life. The book “31 Miles” precisely narrates the midlife crisis of a woman who has lost a sense of control over some events that has changed her entire life.

The protagonist of the novel is a middle aged woman, Manasa, aged about 40 years. Growing up in a traditional orthodox family left her no choice but to give her consent for an arranged marriage at a young age. Now, she is well over 40 years, blessed with two beautiful daughters Malvika and Shonali and an ever loving husband, Abhijit. She considered herself as a regular Indian middle class home maker with the sole intention of taking care of her family and giving the best of her abilities to keep everyone happy. She grew up with no concerns whatsoever. But, an ill-fated episode made her to lose trail of her life and go into deep crisis which occupies the next part of the novel.

Sitting at home doing mundane tasks made Manasa to distaste her life. One day she decides to join a cuisine course. There, she befriends some affluent people that changed her perspective towards life. She now considers establishing her own company that specializes in the nutritious food, new food recipes and everything related with food. In order to keep herself in this advanced technical world, she learns computer and most significantly she decides to make her presence in the social media world. She opens her account in one of the popular social media websites and to her surprise she sees many of her childhood friends. One among them was Rajan Chopra. Though she was quite familiar with that name in her memory, she couldn’t relate this person to any of her childhood friends. Within few days, Rajan Chopra introduces himself as Manasa’s elder sister classmate and befriends her on social media. Slowly unanticipated events started to unfurl between them.

Rajan Chopra, the strange character from the novel starts to communicate more candidly with Manasa. He started sharing couplets, poems and Bollywood songs with Manasa to win over her. This is the important part of the novel as far as I can see. Now, readers shouldn’t judge the protagonist as too naïve and pretentious that falls for a guy at this age. Manasa never experienced this kind of admiration even from her husband. She felt surreal to hear Rajan’s swaying words every day. As the days progressed, Manasa was absolutely immersed with this outlandish man. She started to develop feelings towards him.

In a general sense, befriending strangers online is not advised. Teenagers at present are the most affected people. So, what would possibly happen when grownups, who are new to this social media circle, that doesn’t know the consequences it would have on their life, befriends strangers? Things can get hideous if they start interacting with them. There can be many appalling experiences. Our protagonist exactly faces the same experience in her life.

The next stages of the novel are the main part which I am not including in this review. 

Manasa became too emotionally involved with this man and she started to feel culpable towards her husband and daughters. Was she able to meet this mystery man? What was her thought process when she decides to meet him in person? Was this man as genuine as he appeared to her in social media? Was Manasa ready to give up everything to get back to this person? What happened at the end? Has everything become normal again? To know the answers, read this book.

Overall, the book is quite impressive. As a debutant author, Vinita has done a brilliant work. The language is simple and narration is lucid and engaging. The best part of novel is the emotions expressed by the protagonist Manasa. You can vividly capture those moments while reading. Personally I felt that the novel is bit stretched. It could’ve been reduced by 20 to 30 pages. Apart from this, the novel is quite brilliant and I enjoyed reading it.

P.S: There is a sequel to this novel coming up in future!!

My Rating:

4/5

Note: This book was given to me by the publishers in exchange of an unbiased review.

Book Review #93: Thinking, Fast and Slow By Daniel Kahneman

Title: Thinking, Fast and Slow

Author: Daniel Kahneman

Publishers: Penguin

Genre: Non-Fiction/Decision Management/Cognitive Psychology

Pages: 512 (Paperback)

Source: Personal Copy

How often do we really think we are making the right decision? Or, do we really think that whatever we have assumed or professed as true indeed? What about all those decisions we have made all these years? Does it always make us more contented that we’ve made them or was there any slight doubt that we would’ve thought a moment before we made that decision? Does being regretful is anywhere related to the decision we make or does that not at all related to our thinking minds? There are thousands questions for a questioning mind when you begin to read this book. In first few pages itself all our so called beliefs that we held dear to us all these years will be shattered brick by brick. That doesn’t mean that, this is a book that changes your thinking overnight and you can be more assertive and cognitive in an instant.

A book like “Thinking, Fast and Slow” is not a one time affair to read end to end. It has more to do with the assessing our minds in each page we turn. The decisions we make consciously or unconsciously have a profound impact on the overall journey of our life. Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel laureate, has crafted a well analyzed, well researched, well documented book. Each and every experiment or survey that he has conducted throughout his life about decision making, cognitive assessment, character forming, opinions that we have on all and sundry has been articulated exceptionally in this book.

One such example where I liked the most is, when the author and his associates conducted a survey on “was Gandhi older or younger than 144 years when he died?” Obviously, the answer the public gave was less than 144 years. When the same set of people asked a different aspect of this question like “how old they thought when Gandhi died?” and this time people picked up the answers as between 80’s and 90’s. On the next attempt when the people were asked “if Gandhi was older than 44 when he was died?” the expected answer was older. When he asked “how old Gandhi was when he died?” most of the people picked up the answers in late 50’s and 60’s. This particular experiment shows that, people tend to come up with their own set of beliefs in answering a question that had nothing to do with the reality and certainly had no impact on their choices. This is just a tip of the ice berg when it comes to convincing people. The people at marketing department knew the nerve of people and they try every way to manipulate its target customers by feeding information subtly and manipulate them into making decisions in favor of them.

There are sections from the book where the author deals with the concepts of forming an opinion on persons. What do we really think when we decide about a person as so and so? Do we really care about going to the deeper level of research before deciding the character of a person or do we just form an opinion with the vague information that is available before us? One such example that we can read from the book is about a female who is banker and a feminist. So most of the opinions formed on this particular case are, either the woman is a banker or a feminist. The question of she being a feminist banker seems an absurd opinion. But why do we make such assumptions? What runs in our mind when we read bits of information on a person and we have a picture of themselves with all the characters that we assumed that fits into that person? Author expressed his opinion that, most of us will use limited information to make decisions on someone. The questions we ask ourselves most of the time is, “Can we trust them?” “Are they friendly enough?” “Are they going to be a good human being?” “Are they competent enough?” etc…

This brings us to the main argument. Are we really making our decisions emotionally rather than rationally? Author explains in simple two system concept. System 1, in which a person reacts to almost everything instantly. It is devoid of mind body co-ordination. This is explained with a simple 2X2 multiplication. And, there is System 2, which is more rational and laid back. It never responds to events in a jiffy. It consents our mind before blurting out the response. A simpler example to this is, computing the results for 17X34. System 2 always monitors the System 1.

In conclusion, reading this book has shaken me greatly. I am convinced by the vast amount of research work about the psychology of the decision making that most of my choices so far in life have been taken without having a second thought. “What if?” reactions were always ringing in my mind while I was rummaging through the pages. Taking a decision in haste and try to rationalize it later is what we have practiced in all our lives. We try to come to terms with it than to analyze in the beginning.

Author was right on when he convinces his argument that people are incredibly quick to jump to conclusions, make decisions without enough information, and have their decisions greatly influenced by the bits of information they have in their hands. This book will certainly makes you think twice about how you make the decisions. Slowing down the process and thinking right is the one take away from this book while you read and savor it.

My Rating:

5/5 

Book Review #92: The Laughing Skull By Ruskin Bond

Title: The Laughing Skull

Author: Ruskin Bond

Publishers: Rupa Publications

Genre: Short Stories/Children’s stories

Pages: 112 (Paperbound)

Source: Review copy sent by Publisher

Ruskin Bond is a well acclaimed author and most loved children’s writer in India. Most of our childhood days have been filled with the stories of Ruskin Bond. His short stories with little added horror and humor have always been a fascinating experience for any children then and now. One would always wonder how Ruskin Bond manages to write such simple, joyous tales all the time. Each and every story that he has written is refreshing. Stories that are mild horror and filled with fragrant smell of nature makes anyone wants to read again and again.

This book is one of those books where you can just sit on a lazy day in your cozy chair and start rummaging through the pages and go nostalgic all over again. Frankly, I stopped reading children books a long time ago. But still, when I was approached by the publishers to review this book on my blog along with three other titles from Ruskin Bond (Which will be reviewed shortly), I couldn’t say no to it. This is Ruskin Bond. My whole childhood was filled with the tales I’ve heard, read from his books. I just enjoyed this book like I always enjoy any books from Ruskin Bond collection.

The Laughing Skull, though it is the title of the book, it is the first story. There are nearly over 30 such short stories. Some are little horror and some humor. Additionally, other stories which are of funny ghosts, stupid ghosts, scary ghosts and what not.

The Laughing Skull is a funny story of a Skull that the author received from his doctor nephew. He put that skull on a mantelpiece at his home. Slowly, he felt that he was being watched by this skull. Feeling little strange, author decided to put that skull in a cupboard. After few moments, the cupboard started shaking violently, and the skull just popped out of cupboard and started bouncing up and down. Feeling little scared, the author wraps this skull in a box and tries to send it back to his nephew and goes to post office to deliver it. Within minutes of dropping this box at the post office, the skull started chasing the author straight out of the box. Author then decides to put that skull inside a football and gave it to a school. Felt relieved for few days, author started to miss this skull. It was an odd feeling. So, he decides to search this skull and get it back to his home. In his quest, he goes to a fortune teller and was surprised to find his skull lying with him. With enough persuasions and monetary compensation, author was able to successfully retrieve his skull from that fortune teller and kept that skull on the same mantelpiece in his home and felt an odd relaxation that he has never felt before.

There are few other stories which we might have already heard off. Susanna’s Seven Husbands for example. This little tale of a vicious woman, who supposedly married seven times and directly or indirectly killed all of her seven husbands one by one. This was an interesting tale that was narrated by a servant to the author. This story was made as a Bollywood film under the title “7 Khoon Maaf”.

We also get to read stories that are paranormal. One such story is the story of two sisters and a single brother. Usha is the eldest among her siblings Binya and Suresh. This is a story when one day Usha decides to visit town nearby. She had to cross the deep forest from her home to get to the town on the other side for the essential purchases. But there was a strong rumor among the village that, the forest is haunted during the night. One day Usha went across the town to make purchases and while returning there was heavy downpour in the forest and she couldn’t able to cross the forest before dusk. She decides to take shelter in the abandoned house in the forest. During night, she hears strange voices as if someone is calling her. She found out that, it was her brother and sister who came finding her all the way from village. So, all three of them decides to stay till morning. During their stay they were hearing many haunted voices, people calling their names etc… Once it was dawn, they started to village. Usha hears a voice saying goodbye. She thinks it was her brother or sister. But both of them walked silently. Then all three of them again hears the same voice shouting goodbye, goodbye.

The book is full of such suspense filled stories. We also get to read few stories like two brothers story that is full of morale. Story about an idiot husband, vicious wife and a helpful ghost. Story about a haunted swimming pool. Story of a paranormal pillow, etc… It is quite fascinating to go back in the days when such simple stories were filled with enough horror, suspense and thrill. I had similar experience even now while reading this collection.

Overall, a definite guide to go back to those childhood days. Reminisce all those beautiful days where you just want to read Ruskin Bond all day under your blanket. I would highly recommend it for everyone. Live you childhood once again.

Note: A review copy of the book was given to me by the publishers in return for an honest review.

My Rating:

5/5

Book Review #91: Johnny Gone Down By Karan Bajaj

Title: Johnny Gone Down 
Author: Karan Bajaj
Publishers: Harper Collins India
Genre: General Fiction/Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 324
Source: Personal Copy

Rarely few books keeps us engaged from page 1 till the end. Especially with the new age Indian authors, who write mostly the college romance, marriage and such similar stuff? This has become a mundane affair to see every tom, dick and harry who claim themselves as authors and writers. There is no fresh perspective whatsoever with it. 

Johnny Gone Down, by the author Karan Bajaj is nothing of that college romance as such. Though it has its fair share of college story but, it’s just at the beginning and the novel takes an entirely different route. I liked this novel. It has all those elements that a reader expects. If I may say so, it has more than what one would expect from a relatively new author.

The plot of the novel seems quite unusual from the page 1 itself. We see the protagonist in a gun duel bet, where he can lose his life in any moment. At the pull of each trigger, the protagonist imagines what transpired his life to this end. He imagines his happy days, his sorrowful days. His other opponent, a cancer patient, who is in a need of money to perform his daughter’s wedding is ready to give away his life in a snap. This gun duel is quite impressive as it helps the story to move forward. 

The readers will be in a strange quest before even starting with the initial few pages. As the title by itself is more intriguing. Why the hell this book is named Johnny and why he has gone down? The readers begins with this question in their mind. The protagonist of the novel is Nikhil Arya or Nick. Born to a wealthy NRI parents who moved out of India to settle in America. He lost both of his parents while he was young. As charming and studious as he is, expectedly Nick gets his ticket to MIT, Boston. 

Well, the story does start from his last examination day. He and his friend Sam begins their unplanned trip to Cambodia. But what awaits at Cambodia is a surprising factor. The country that is torn by the rebels uprising had made it worse for the civilians. Expectedly, the protagonist does gets stuck in Cambodia, but the fate had other plans. While Nick rescues Sam by showing his passport as his friends. And, he gets caught by the rebels and story takes it first major turn.

As one reads through the pages, more or less, the story goes on in a predictable mode. The readers could guess what might happen. The protagonist was captured and made to rot in closed jail for about two years. By somehow, he escapes from there and finds himself in a monastery in Thailand. 

In Thailand, our protagonist Nick, thought of staying for a long duration than he was anticipated initially. He learns meditation, he becomes a teacher and a monk as well. The quest continues further as we read through. Nick, now travels to Brazil to set up their meditation school. There he finds a different life altogether and he ends up being a drug lord and money launderer. He meets Marco, a drug lord, who happened to get saved by our protagonist Nick. There is a special love track in this part of the novel that might shape the future of our protagonist.

As the book progresses in each page, we feel a sense of urgency to see what is in store for Nick. From Brazil, his journey takes him back to USA. There he is homeless, cashless and even identity less. The writers can actually construct the most unbelievable events that makes no sense in real life, but still, in this novel, like any regular novel, the unthinkable happens. At the age of nearly 40, the protagonist Nick learns to code and builds an alternate virtual life game. Now here is the overdone part in this novel. How much ever the readers tries to comprehend the luck factor of Nick, it doesn’t become a convincing factor. He finds himself in the most horrid situations, but he has this extraordinary luck factor, that binds his fate in safe hands.

So, as the novel inches in for climax, we feel a sense of relief that, something good will happen to this Nick or let him die peacefully at least. Quite expectedly, he meets his childhood friend Sam, now a big tycoon of media industry. They meet and greet each other and share their whole bunch of successes, failures and stuff, like a reunion. There, our protagonist, changes his name from Nick to Johnny for a better future, but decides against it and let the JOHNNY GO DOWN!!

Overall, a good attempt with the contemporary style fiction. The story is quite unthinkable. Readers should come to terms with many events in the novel, because it happens only in fiction world. Language is simple and lucid. Can be read within few hours. Not highly recommending stuff, but yeah, you can give this book a shot. Worth it.

My Rating:
3/5

Book Review: #90: The Battle for Sanskrit: Is Sanskrit Political or Sacred, Oppressive or Liberating, Dead or Alive? By Rajiv Malhotra

Title: The Battle for Sanskrit: Is Sanskrit Political or Sacred, Oppressive or Liberating, Dead or Alive?

Author: Rajiv Malhotra

Publishers: Harper Collins India

Genre: Non-Fiction/Language & Linguistics

Pages: 488(Hardbound)

Source: Personal Copy

This is a must read book for every Indian who is a courtesan of Sanskrit. Rajiv Malhotra has established an authoritative argument in this book by enunciating the rejoinders and refutations in the most erudite way and confronted the western narrative of the language Sanskrit.

It has been proven time and again that, we Indians, have a propensity to consent the views of a western or white man whenever they come up with any works on India. We believe every word of their elucidation, as if, it is the most sought and well acknowledged work. It is a common trait, because, when a western mind has shown interest to study India or Indian culture, we believe that these people are appealed to our culture and practices. Well, the veracity is far-fetched.

This book “Battle of Sanskrit” discourses the very same dispute in a comprehensive manner. Apparently, this is a significant work for the many Indologist scholars that are doing their research on Sanskrit since several years. Atrocity literature is not a new phenomenon for our country. It has been an instrument for most of the westerners, politically leftists and communists to perpetrate the abhorrence towards some class of people. Here in this book, the author refers to those westerners that has worked relentlessly to tarnish the importance of Sanskrit and devalued the language as oppressive, politically incorrect, and dead.

The author exclusively engaged the works of Dr. Sheldon Pollock, a distinguished Indologist as he claims and did extensive research works on Sanskrit since many decades. The author has presented us to the terms called “Outsiders” vs “Insiders”. The readers must not take into consideration that an outsider means a non-Indian and insider means an Indian. The metaphor mentioned here is basically unpretentious, an insider is someone that believes Sanskrit as a language which is sacred, liberating and alive, and this person can be an Indian or a foreigner. Whereas, an outsider means someone that believes Sanskrit as political, oppressive and dead. Again, this outsider can be someone from India or a foreigner, plainly can be mentioned as Leftists, Communists.

As per the title of the book advocates, this book mainly debates on the prominence and germaneness of the language Sanskrit. Author has asked those questions in the title of the book itself.

Political or Sacred?

Oppressive or Liberating?

Dead or Alive?

As many western minds have premeditated the language Sanskrit and made a noteworthy contributions in their own way. Amongst them were Ingalls, William Jones, Sheldon Pollock and many such peoples. But what is most troublesome in their works is, their interpretation of the language as socially oppressive, barbaric and dead. Author Rajiv Malhotra has exclusively selected several works of Sheldon Pollock and tried to give a perfect counter narrative. As per Pollock, our Vedic scriptures, Puranas, Kavyas and Upanishads were mere works of common people and that too it all happened in the Buddhist era. He also argues that, the great Ramayana essentially illustrates the social oppression and encourages violence. Rajiv Malhotra has carefully analyzed these claims and provided a completely substantial retort on why Pollock is erroneous on so many levels.

The book gives us a rational perspective of seeing the things in a diverse way. It encourages the readers to adopt the Purva-paksha. It is a call by the author to reverse the gaze of the westerners and see the Sanskrit in a more Indian way than a western way. Author also emphasizes the point that, translating Sanskrit or regional text in to English is a risky affair. This is basically because, a western vulture would take up any significant work and hand picks the bits and pieces as it suits him and presents a version that is totally devoid of what the original critical Sanskrit edition was supposedly intended to achieve. Thus the ownership of the text passes from an Indian to a westerner just because it is in English and widely read!!

This book is not a rabble rousing of Grammar or literature. It is about the politicization of Sanskrit scholarship. It reveals and studies the production of knowledge and intellectual control mechanism in a globalized modern western world. It documents the vested interests of the American orientalists that are wielding control over the Sanskrit tradition from the helpless Indian pundits and thereby break the backbone of Hindu tradition. From the Pollock’s argument it seems clear enough that, Sanskrit is something Nazi. He argues that, Sanskrit in fact encouraged the Hitler of Germany to perform the Jew holocaust.

An additional frightening aspect that Malhotra expressed is that the funding that these authors are getting globally. Even the Indian billionaires that are well established globally is establishing the organizations that funds these western scholars to execute their works. One such example is the is wealthy Infosys industrialist Narayan Murthy’s gift of millions of dollars to Sheldon Pollock of Columbia University for overseeing the translation of 500 classics by US-based Sanskritists under the umbrella called “Murthy Classic Library”. If any learned Indian doesn’t educated these billionaires about their wrong doing, then it is imminent that, we will witness more atrocity literature in the coming days that would make any Indian self-loath.

Apart from donating millions to these western vultures, the spending of Hindu funds on non-Hindu interventions to do research work is unworthy and dangerous. Pollock’s approach to Sanskrit studies is what he calls “political philology”. His sole intention is to destabilize the foundation of the country that was built on. He sees Greek, Latin and Sanskrit under the same lens. He has consistently undervalued the spiritual dimension that Hindus associate with Sanskrit, and portrayed it as a language of oppression and barbaric. This is not out of malevolence, he deserves the benefit of the doubt regarding his motives (he has for instance deplored the decline of classical studies in India, leaving a void which he now steps in to fill).

Pollock’s political motive is clearly visible from his works. To add a cherry on the cake, Pollock actually expressed his dissent over Narendra Modi. He has signed various petitions asking several dignitaries, universities, associations for inviting Modi to certain events and inauguration functions questioning them to reconsider their decision citing the very same reason that many leftists and communists and pseudo-seculars in India have been doing since a decade and a half. His motive is clear from his behavior. Pollock not only wants any Indians to interfere in his so called claims of Sanskrit authority, but also, he doesn’t want any able India minds to challenge a counter narrative. Do we want that aversion for Hinduism to have control over the Sanskrit heritage?

Overall, a well-researched book. Rajiv Malhotra had given hope for the serious Indologist and Sanskritists to take a step back and observe what they are putting themselves into. He has taken a powerful stand on the self-respect of Hindu tradition. Every Hindu should and must join hands with him in facing these atrocity literature producers.

My Rating:
5/5