On Knowledge and Change

I recently finished reading Amitav Ghosh's genre-bending novel, The Calcutta Chromosome. Is it science-fiction? Is it a historical novel? Is it a mystical thriller? Why not all three? The book held me in spellbound attention and left me with the aftertaste of philosophy. An epistemological insight that is oft-repeated in the novel is the inherent nature of Knowledge to cause Change.

"Knowing something, changes it."

"One can only know history because the act of knowing something, changes it so that what one just learnt is already obsolete."

If knowing something changes it, can one make something change in "a certain way" by making it be known "in a particular way"?  That is a guiding premise in the book.

Isn't it a wonderfully fascinating idea? It gives me goosebumps to even imagine it.

When I first encountered this premise in the book, a few disconnected ideas flashed in my mind like shooting stars. I remembered an echo of a long-forgotten lesson in quantum mechanics of how the act of measurement or observation ("knowing") alters the object under observation into just one (a rather mundane unary) manifestation of its otherwise plural possibilities.

Almost immediately, my mind train chugged along to other stations of knowledge induced change. Why, I was reminded of the childish game of Chinese Whispers. Convey a secret message to the first person in a long human chain and have them convey it to their neighbor. By the end of a long train, the secret is often altered into an unrecognizable mess, albeit a bit funnier.

Is it a fundamental nature of the human mind to change what it knows? Is it impossible to make something be known and yet make it fool-proof to change? I was instantly reminded of something I read in Frits Staal's book, Discovering the Vedas. This primary challenge of passing knowledge without change transfixed the Vedas's earliest composers. As eternal truths, it was paramount that they not be allowed to change from mouth to ear to mouth. And hence, they codified error-detecting and error-correcting codes within the texts themselves and the teaching methods of the text. As any Veda-paatshala student can attest, the emphasis in Veda learning is initially of rote-memorization; of not just the words, but primarily the tone, inflection, and spirit. The text themselves are composed to certain mathematical meters and any destructive change that affects the meter can be instantly recognized and fixed. Perhaps here at last is a rare success story of knowledge not leading to irretrievable change.

But is such knowledge-driven change necessarily a bad thing? If preventing change needs a lack of action, then why know anything at all? Is the world to be a museum of wonders held behind bullet-proof, sky-high glass walls? Sights to be admired from a distance, but never to be touched, rolled on the floor, handled among friends, stained with the accidental spill of coffee or wine, or changed and altered in even a microscopic way? Are we to be relegated to the roles of bit-parts in this vast world and never aspire to create wonders of our own to be left for the progeny to admire? Isn't newness, by definition, a change from the usual? If change through knowledge is a terrible idea, how can any newness come into the world?

If you are of the analytical bent of mind, imagine the following flow-chart. There exists a "Thing" in a circle. An arrow of "knowledge" emerges from the circle and leads to a second circle, "Action". An arrow of "change" emerges from the "Action" bubble and hurtles towards the first bubble "Thing". What happens to "Thing" now? Why, of course, it becomes a "New Thing". And the cycle continues, ad infinitum.

One can trivially imagine examples of highly destructive cycles of change. Man learnt about the usefulness of river sand to create mortar and concrete. The knowledge resulted in action that created incredibly useful newness in the world  – schools, bridges, temples, office complexes – but also immeasurably destroyed rivers and riverine ecosystems through the plunder for river sand.

Perhaps a happy compromise is that knowledge-driven change is A-okay as long as it is channeled towards something moral and honorable. In the river sand example, the change towards bridges and schools is great, but the change towards dry rivers and sunken river-beds is to be avoided. If the analytical mind begs for another flow-chart, imagine the previous one and make two minor alterations. The arrow of "knowledge" is now replaced with the arrow of "knowledge guided by moral worldview". The circle with "New Thing" is now termed "Better Thing". And thereby, we have a virtuous cycle of change.

And hence, perhaps the only thing worth preserving against wanton change or mischief is this sense of morality or a moral worldview that can guide the application of knowledge towards actions that can result in constructive change. Perhaps the only things worth preserving are rules or edicts that can timelessly apply to every scenario and guide the knower into selecting better actions and avoiding destructive ones. The only things worth guarding against the winds of change are the moral principles that can midwife better change in everything else. Perhaps, now I better understand why the Vedas are so zealously preserved against change.

A Reading Challenge ramble

Goodreads is not for everyone. The website isn't the most responsive, the reviews are mostly unorganized, and the iOS app can be clunky... and yet, I have stuck with it for five years now, despite not logging in for several months at a stretch. The reason is that Goodreads has become a place to chronicle my personal reading habits and preferences. On Goodreads I reflect upon my past readings and discover new things to read. My social interactions on the social network begin and end, for the most part, through additions to the 'Want to Read' and 'Currently Reading' shelves.

One aspect of Goodreads that has enriched my reading over the years is its annual Reading Challenge. The idea is simple: at the beginning of the year you set a personal goal of reading some number of books during that calendar year. The rest of the year, through a combination of personal drive and fear of public shame, you try to read enough to meet the goal. Nobody wants to be the person who aims to read 60 books in a year and yet stands at 3 books read by the beginning of December. 

Despite reading being a mostly private affair, a reading habit is often flaunted in very public ways. When I first signed up for the challenge in 2014, driven partly by this desire to flaunt, I set myself a target of reading 50 books – a ridiculous reach considering I was to join grad school midway through the year. Unsurprisingly I failed to hit my target, but I didn't fail too badly. I managed to read thirty five books that year – the most I have ever read in a calendar year. The quality of my reading was fairly high as well. From Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose to Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea; from Amartya Sen's Identity and Violence to Hamid Kureishi's The Black Album, I was exposed to a wide breadth of ideas and writing styles that year. By the end of 2014, I was inspired to write this about my reading that year. 

2015 was a regression to the mean. I could read just seven books, albeit books of remarkable note such as Fahrenheit 451 and Donna Tartt's The Secret History. This was also the year I truly discovered Salman Rushdie, despite having read some of his works back in India. You see, to realize the magic of his words one must have experienced the life of a cultural transplant, lost between two cultures, forever in known places and yet never at home. Shame, his book on Pakistan, ranks in my all-time top five. To me, Rushdie and Arundhati Roy are in a league of their own. They are like glass-blowers with words, they make language weave and twist in mesmerizing ways that one can't fully understand but still recognize as beyond one's abilities to mimic. 

The poor showing in 2015 lowered my expectations for 2016. A book a month was all I asked of myself. The score at the end of the year was a very healthy 15. One book that stands out, in hindsight, from that year is Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day. I have always fancied melancholy in literature, especially when it is tied to a good plot and relatable characters. 2016 was also the year I was introduced to graphic novels, thanks to my friend Clint. 

If 2014 was my Steven Spielberg year – voluminous – then 2017 would be my Daniel Day Lewis year. I read half as many books, but each one was a hit out of the park. Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses will rank as one of the most involved reading experiences. The North Water was chilling and brutal. Zadie Smith's On Beauty was wise and cool. I was breezing through incredibly complex works and my writing improved, including my technical writing at work! At one point I was reading over two hours a day. 

Sadly 2018 was another regression. I was still spending time with the occasional gold nugget, such as Salman Rushdie's Two Years Eight Months and Twenty Eight Nights, but the bulk of my reading during the year consisted of Tintin on my iPad. For most of the latter half of the year, I didn't touch a physical book. This continued into the early months of 2019. Eventually in March, I logged into Goodreads and saw Reading Challenge progress updates from many of my friends. I was very disappointed with myself and set myself the lowest bar yet. I challenged myself to read merely six books in the remaining nine months of the year. 

When you are coming back to reading after a long layover, it doesn't bode well to start with an award-winning literary work. My incipient attempts at reading The Narrow Road to the Deep North or the Moor's Last Sigh quickly failed. The books were too deep and the language was too convoluted. I needed an easier read that could keep me engaged. Around this time, I ran into my school friend Radhika who highly recommended The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh. She gifted me her own personal copy, rife with her underlinings. The gift became my motivation and I plowed my way through the book. It was a work of non-fiction that ruminated the lack of climate change as an actor in contemporary literature. While Ghosh's searing insights into the depredations of the western model of economic growth was enjoyable, the bits I loved the most were his anecdotal passages that bore resemblance to his works on fiction. Fiction will always remain my first love. I followed it up with Sing, Unburied, Sing. It was a weird book; a mishmash of the scars of racism in the deep south and the unquenched thirsts of spirits roaming in the afterlife. It was marvelous, dull, and terrifying in parts. Next came When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. As expected it was a tearjerker. Paul's life reaffirmed something I have long believed in – it is through the confluence of disparate ideas and interests that the greatest writing is born. Paul's deep interests in literature, philosophy, medicine, and morality was evident and inspiring. 

My rapid progress encouraged me to rise my target for the year to ten books. Let's see if I can achieve it. I am currently reading Shrilal Shukla's Raag Darbaari, and John Le Carre's The Honorable Schoolboy. I will be tweeting about my reading this year on Twitter chain. 

You can find my Reading Challenge scorecards here:

2014 Reading Challenge

2015 Reading Challenge

2016 Reading Challenge

2017 Reading Challenge

2018 Reading Challenge

2019 Reading Challenge

Past mistakes: my thoughts on Ian McEwan's Atonement

While I was paying for a musty copy of Ian McEwan's Atonement, the pretty girl behind the counter looked at my purchase and remarked wryly, 'It's for school, isn't it?'. I shook my head, beeped my Apple Watch against the payment machine and left, not trivially pleased at having been regarded as young enough for school 😉

Atonement is not an obscure novel. The book generated Booker buzz when it first came out and the 2007 film adaptation staring Kiera Knightley was nominated for several Oscars. And lastly, as my tattooed shopkeeper's remark would suggest – the book is part of humanities curriculums across the world. My own copy had clearly been through the hands of a very diligent student who'd scribbled copious notes on the margins, underlining (often with double strokes!) several passages dealing with the inner turmoils of female characters – fodder for a feminist essay perhaps? I love a book that has been inked by a pen or two; it takes a special book to invite such attention.

Atonement begins in 1930s at the idyllic English home of the Tallises that is preparing to entertain family and friends for a special dinner. It is a muggy summer day and the simmering heat induces a general sense of lethargy in the household, but fate is at play. Thirteen-year-old Briony, an aspiring writer, is struggling with the debut production of her play -- Arabella -- to mark her elder brother Leon's homecoming. The play's cast,  the three Quincey cousins -- 15-year-old Lola and the 9-year-old twins, Jackson and Pierrot -- are threatening to ruin the show. Briony's elder sister Cecilia is having her fair share of frustrations as she confronts a newfound love for Robbie Turner, her childhood friend and the cook's son. The romance between Cecilia and Robbie doesn't bloom, it erupts. Briony stumbles upon these confusing scenes and mistakes Robbie to be a sexual fiend from whom her family must be rescued. Her naïveté and charged imagination color her judgement later that evening when she rescues Lola from being raped by a man in the dark. Briony is clear, it had to be Robbie.  The remaining sections of the book deal with the repercussions of this lie.

Part II is a gripping war novella about the 1940 Allied retreat from Dunkirk described from the point of view of Robbie, who had been released early in return for joining the military. This is easily the best part of the book. Adrenaline-charged scenes of Luftwaffe bombing of the fleeing British forces are juxtaposed with chilling descriptions of a war-torn people clinging to a sense of normalcy. This section of the book, in my humble opinion, puts Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk to shame. The film may capture the corporeal splendors of war, but McEwan's writings captures its human elements. The third part features Briony's stint as a trainee nurse during the 1940-41 London Blitz. She has realized her role in ruining Robbie's life and seeks atonement. The theme is how the present is held hostage by the past and sometimes, there is nothing that can be done about it. The last part is set in the year 1999; the surviving characters, frail and aged, come together for the long-delayed opening of the Arabella.

Ian McEwan's mastery of his craft is evident in this book. His portrayal of misguided innocence is as heartbreaking as it is infuriating. He breathes uniqueness into every character and blends a love story, a war story and a redemption story into a sumptuous read that will keep you hooked from the first page.

Patriotism through parody - my review of Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel

I consider Shashi Tharoor to be one of India's finest contemporary minds. His genius shines through in his every enterprise - be it oratory, writing or political commentary. I recently discovered another arrow in his intellectual quiver, comedy. The Great Indian Novel is a work of comedic genius - a grafting of the Woodhousian tradition of wry, hyperbolic humor over loud and noisy 20th century India. For fodder, Tharoor takes two of India's grandest stories, the Mahabharata and the Indian Freedom Struggle and fuses them into an irreverent comedic masterpiece. The idea to merge these two drastically different stories is a spark of pure magic. In retrospect, these tales possess remarkable synergy that makes this fusion very natural and spontaneous.

In the grandest sense, both these stories ponder the 'Idea of India'. The Mahabharata asks the question whether Bharat is the land of the usurping Kauravas or the Dharmic Pandavas. The Freedom Struggle asks whether India can aspire to be more than a grubby gem on Imperial Britain's greedy crown. And yet, neither of these tales is black-and-white. They are filled with morally compromised characters and possibly adharmic actions that stain every victory with a whiff of scandal. Far too often 21st century India is tempted to ignore these complexities and impose a binary cleanliness to these multifaceted stories. Tharoor picks out these gray undertones like a blood hound and lays them out to dry.

Tharoor's characters are surprisingly well-etched for a work of comedy. Prominent characters from the Mahabharata are paired with ones from the freedom struggle. Bhisma is Mahaguru Gangaji, the enema-loving sage on the hunt for absolute Truth. Dhritrastra is the favored Fabian Socialist disciple of the Mahaguru. Pandu is the Mahaguru's spurned disciple who flirts with fascists out of love for his country. Priya Duryodhani is Dhritrastra's daughter whose political philosophy takes from the proverbial iron hand in a velvet glove, sometimes discarding the glove altogether. Karna is the aristocratic, scotch-loving lawyer who convinces the Mullahs of his religious pedigree and carves out the Islamic state of Karnistan out of India. The five Pandavas reflect different aspects of the Indian story. Yudhistir is India's obsession with the notion of Dharma. Bhim is India's kludgy, but immensely powerful army. Arjun is the blessed, but perennially conflicted Indian media. Nakul is India's bureaucracy for whom life begins and ends on quintupled forms. Sahadev is the consummate Indian diplomat, capable of examining every aspect of a problem without ever coming close to solving it. Tharoor manages to make fun of all these characters while simultaneously bringing out their best traits. This book deserves to be read and re-read for the complexity Tharoor imbues into these characters.

As much as I enjoyed the book for its humor, I was forced to ask myself whether this book will get published without controversy in 2016 India? I doubt it. Superficially this book mocks too many of India's vaunted religious and political figures. Tharoor's subtextual or contextual praise for these characters will not be appreciated by many. There is a high chance of the saffron brigade using this book to hammer another dent on the Constitution's 'inconvenient' freedom of speech guarantees. And in the current political climate, I wonder whether the pillars of Indian democracy will do the right thing and protect this work. There is too much political mileage to be obtained from letting a prominent opposition MP get roasted by 'righteous' offended masses. Perhaps it's a good thing that this book is less well known than it deserves to be.

To get back to the book, Tharoor sprinkles it with ruminating passages that ask moral and philosophical questions, primarily through the book's orator V.Vji. I found the last few pages to be its most introspective moments. Yudhistir is about to die on top of a mountain and gets repeatedly tested by his cosmic father, Dharma. Yudhistir successfully clears each test but is left empty-handed at the end. He then wonders on the whole point of these dharmic tests. What is the point of Dharma if it's sole purpose is testing for its existence in every deed? Tharoor leaves this question unanswered to some degree. I think it's the right question to be raised. India and Indians love raising the specter of Dharma in everything. Dharma is almost a kitchen-sink for our every action and inaction; remember the doctrine of strategic restraint? I consider questioning the usefulness of dharma to be a most dharmic rite.

To summarize, I learned more about my country from this work of comedy than from all my school history textbooks combined. I urge every Indian to grab a copy at the earliest.

My review of Papillon

Papillon -- the semi-autobiographical account of Henri Charriere's escape from a French penal colony -- was a rage when it first released in 1969. It had a little something for everyone; a swashbuckling hero's escape from a corrupt regime's clutches, set in exotic tropical locales. True to his name, Papillon rises above his inner demons like a delicate butterfly, seeking redemption. 

My 2014 in Prose

The start of any year is a good time to take stock of one's life. Books are an integral part of mine, and in this post I hope to review my 2014 in reading. I will not be talking about any particular book in depth, instead will focus on the general trends in my reading preferences. I will also put forth my reading goals for 2015. In short, 2014 was a great year for my reading (yay!). I ploughed through 35 books, most of them veritable tomes (500+ pages) and this journey introduced me to new authors, styles of writing and hidden tastes.

1Q84? More like IQ 84

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

As a first year graduate student, time is like money to me. Actually, I take that back, money is money, but time is a close second. Despite my hectic schedule, I recently managed to finish Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 in less than a week. This should tell you what a readable book this is, completely engrossing in some parts - especially the first volume. If you have been following my blog, you'd have noticed that I only review books that I utterly loved! There are some books that simply DEMAND of me to share my thoughts on what I loved about them. 1Q84 is the first book that I HATED that demanded the same from me.

Murakami is the toast of the world right now. He is the Chetan Bhagat of the people who hate Chetan Bhagat. My first experience of his works was through Sputnik Sweetheart, possibly his least famous book. It was a short novel about an aspiring writer who disappears while on a journey through Europe. It was as incomplete a book as you would ever read, but I was mesmerized by Murakami's ability to weave magical places that look and smell like reality, but somewhere in your gut, you feel this is not our reality. I read Sputnik Sweetheart cover-to-cover in one night and read it again the next day. Hence, I'm sure you would understand my excitement when I learnt that Murakami had written a three-volume tome called 1Q84 that dealt with similar questions on reality. At the first opportunity, I plunged into this book.

1Q84 takes place in the year 1984. About 100 pages into the book, I grasped the significance of the year. Much like Orwell's London, the Tokyo of 1Q84 is a gargantuan megalopolis which seems to be driven by an unknown force. The protagonists seem to be the only characters who notice something amiss in this world, while everybody else go along their mundane lives. Despite being a vast book spread over three volumes, 1Q84 has just a handful of noteworthy characters. This is the book's first major flaw. The two protagonists are Tengo Kawana and Aomami. Shorn of all its philosophical airs, this book is a love story of how these two people find each other after twenty years of separation. Their story plays out amidst  a cast of secondary characters such as Komatsu, Tengo's hardened editor, Fuka Eri, the enigmatic 'perceiver' of 1Q84's dark forces and others.

Each character in 1Q84 is a tired caricature of stereotypes without a whiff of fresh air to save your life. Each character seems to have a few key traits which are incessantly repeated/revealed from various point of views. For example, Tengo was supposedly a child prodigy in everything. This is affirmed by almost every character from Tengo's past, but the adult Tengo seems anything but a prodigious talent. His thoughts and actions are as boring as a gorilla lazing around after a full meal. About half the book is devoted to Tengo and once you get tired of him, his chapters make for excruciating reading.

The third volume introduces a new POV character, Ushikawa, for no apparent reason. This character is ugly ... so ugly that people literally flinch every time they cast eyes on him. This humiliation at every turn has obviously hardened Ushikawa and turned him into an endless cynic. But Murakami's writing is so repetitive that in EACH SCENE with Ushikawa, there is at least one reference to his ugliness or his imbibed anger. Such needless repetition is everywhere in this book - every chapter with Aomame ends with her pining for Tengo. Every chapter with Tengo ends with, you guessed it right, him pining for Aomame. Blurgh.

However, I believe all the above sins are pardonable. The biggest failure of the book is the concept of the Little People. I must admit, I was initially fascinated by this concept of demi-gods that periodically visit our reality through certain channels, their true purpose unknown or unknowable. There were even hints of an opposing force that will rise up whenever the Little People arrive. I would literally have goosebumps when Murakami would intersperse dialogues of the Little People amidst seemingly mundane conversations. But as the book entered the third volume, the entire plot of the Little People and Fuka Eri disappears. The same can be said about Sakigake, the mysterious farming commune turned into a xenophobic religion. Instead, Murakami doles out extra servings of Tengo getting Aomame pregnant despite not meeting her for two decades! No, I'm not kidding.

In spite of this horrendous work, I still believe Murakami is an excellent writer! The first volume in particular was quite good! Murakami's writing has a lot of contemporary & literary references which are very rewarding when you get them. For example, Ushikawa's internal monologue comparing himself with Raskolnikov was just sheer brilliance! Sadly such moments of brilliance are too few and far in between and cannot save this shoddy, unrewarding book. Best avoid it, unless you want to complete your Murakami collection.


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My Review of ... Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a must-read book. Written in really simple language, that even a school student can understand, this book has two distinct parts - each conveying a different idea.

The first part, under the guise of introducing the Reader to Flatland, is a brilliant satire on Victorian society. Retrospectively, one can supplant several obnoxious historical concepts to Flatland society - Nazi's Aryan supremacy & eugenics, India's rigid caste system, slavery etc. The obnoxious traits of Flatland society are narrated amiably by the narrator, a 'Square'.

The second part sees our two-dimensional narrator encountering a Sphere - a celestial body from a three-dimensional world, Spaceland. The Square also peek into lesser worlds - a one-dimensional 'Lineland' and a zero-dimensional 'Pointland'. Through these encounters, the Square postulates the presence of infinite dimensions. This part is remarkable! Keep in mind that this book was written way before Einstein's theory on time being a 4th dimension.
The second part also cautions humans against complacency - for the point, it was the Universe ; for the Monarch of Lineland, the Line was the Universe ; for the Square, Flatland was the Universe ; for the Sphere, SpaceLand was the Universe ... Who knows what the Universe really is?



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My review of The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Name of the Rose is not an easy book to read, but read it, one must. I finally finished this book yesterday, on my third attempt. The first time I gave up within the first 50 pages. The second time, I half-heartedly reached the 300th page and realized that I was not doing justice to the book, so gave up.

And I am really glad I did not try to finish this book on my second attempt. I am sharing some thoughts on how I finally managed to read this book -

The first 100 pages make for torturous reading. I read somewhere that Eco made it such that uninterested readers will stay away! Nevertheless, I urge you to make some notes while you are reading the first 100 pages. A list of characters will be very useful till one gets used to the medieval names. It was also useful to jot down the major power factions and who is for/against whom. The plot of the book unfolds in a politically charged environment and a lot of dialogue references the political changes afoot. It will help one to have a chart depicting the various power plays.

The book revolves around two Orders of medieval Europe - the Benedictine Order and the Franciscan Order. A number of 'fringe' elements of the Franciscan Order are also often referenced. Read up and make some notes on these entities before crossing the first 100 pages. This will be very useful to understand some nuanced dialogues between major characters.

There are two major plots in this book - the first deals with the mysterious murders in the abbey and how William tries to solve them ; the second deals with more profound questions such as inductive vs deductive reasoning, whether universality is feasible in a random world etc.
The first plot is obviously the more enjoyable one and by itself, it makes this a great book. The second plot is harder to appreciate in just a single reading. I had to read some passages several times just to get a high-level picture. The book deserves to be read multiple times solely to meditate on the profound questions raised in the second plot.

This book deals a lot with Christianity and several ecclesiastical questions such as the importance of poverty, relevance of humor in faith etc. At first glance, these may appear to be irrelevant to a reader like me (a Hindu living in India). However, I feel that, at a philosophical level, the questions raised by this book are valid to everyone. For example, the passages on the poverty of Christ and His Apostles throw up several ideas on the relevance of money on a spiritual quest, the idea of possession in a physical and spiritual sense etc. Similarly, the abbatial library, so central to the plot, raises several implicit questions on judging and preserving Knowledge and even on the purpose of any Knowledge.

A significant chunk of the dialogues is in Latin. Initially I spent a lot of time trying to find their English translations. I will urge you to avoid wasting time on that, at least in the first reading. The preceding or following lines usually give you a good-enough idea on what the Latin dialogue meant.

To summarize, this is a once-in-a-blue-moon book. Don't let the vocabulary, the Latin and the convoluted writing style dissuade you from a superb book. I plan to revisit this book once every few years.






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Writer's Block - sighting the kraken!

I have always wondered if there are any patterns in my own behavior that will help me predict my bouts of writer's block.
A few days of retrospection revealed - there really are!

Read more, here. 

Why we need to be Woosters...

So, it's time for a new post on Medium!

https://medium.com/what-i-learned-today/fa5476089d62

How to start writing?

People express themselves in various ways. Some sing themselves hoarse, some dance their hearts out, some cook and decorate their food with painstaking detail, some collect rocks that look funny, and some write. 
Writing is something each and every student has to do at some point of time in school. Anything made compulsory quickly becomes an object of hatred among kids and hence, a lot of people consider writing to be a chore, something they need to do from time to time to get the job done. Writing for joy or for emotions sounds alien and strange to them. 
However, there are tons of people who write simply because they love it. I am one such person. 

I write only when I am truly inspired to express myself in a certain way. Writing this blog is probably the most important thing I have done in my 22 years; it is a living, breathing scrapbook of my emotions and thoughts over the last 5 years and I am proud of it. 

One question a few people have asked me is how do I write? How to get into the mindset of writing and what are the tools required to write effectively? These are common questions and I am sure there is no right answer to them, rather there are several good answers. But I would like to share a few thoughts on my approach to writing. If you have different thoughts or views, please do share them in the comments - I would love to know them. :) 

Reading
A lot of people consider reading to be the first step in writing. They assume that being well-read is a necessary requirement for writing. I beg to disagree. Reading is *important* and *vital* for writing but definitely not *compulsory*. Reading and writing are two different strands but they intersect at several places. 
Reading helps writing in two key ways:

1. It builds your vocabulary, arsenal of idioms, phrases etc. These lend to the richness and vitality of your writing. Good writing and great writing are sometimes differentiated only their difference in choice of adjectives and adverbs! Reading good authors will help you enrich your own tool set for writing, but this is a sub-conscious process which occurs over a long time. You definitely should not read just to write! That will deprive you of the joy of reading and writing! 
2. Reading gives you content for writing. Let's be fair to ourselves, we don't have a lot of things happening in our lives. Most of us are students or employees and a major chunk of our day goes off in getting through to the next day in one piece. We don't get opportunities to travel or observe as much as we would like. Reading can provide with the much-needed fodder for writing your own content. Reading good newspapers, blogs and books will enrich your mind and give you a chance to build on those. You may do so through 'reply' articles or letters or even 'fan-fiction'! 

Write what you know! 
A lot of people love reading murder-mysteries and whodunits from a very early age. I am also a part of that list. I love reading tense, terse action-thrillers (think Bourne) and historical mysteries (think Angels and Demons), but if I try to write such a book, I highly doubt if I will want to read it myself! The reason is, I don't *know* how a murderer feels when he plunges his knife into his victim! I have not had the opportunity to talk to convicts or detectives to know their mindsets. I don't know how a helicopter flies or how it will explode when struck by a missile! If I try to write a book about a murderer who attempts to flee from the cops on a helicopter, it will be a childish rendering of what I would have read from numerous other whodunits. There will be nothing uniquely *me* in that book. So, I generally aver, don't write what you don't know. 
In its own way, my life has been full of challenges and excitements, so I try to write about things I can relate with - my past, my hopes, my concerns at the state of our nation etc. 
I don't publish any post unless I am sure there is at-least a tiny part of me in it :)

The Word Processor
Please don't write on MS Word. Please, just don't! It is one of the most depressing experiences in my opinion. Every time I open MS Word to start writing a post, I am reminded of the hundreds of school and college assignments I was forced to write and it totally spoils my mood! Word also has too many options for font, color, scaling, background blah blah. For writing all you need is a screen and a keyboard. Go for a minimalistic word processor like Q10. Trust me, you will be amazed at how much you can write in one sitting with a no-nonsense word processor! 

The Font
I know I just said, a screen and a keyboard are all you need for writing, and I stick by it. However, I am a fool for fonts! :| I love the typographical features of various fonts and they help me focus my thoughts better. If I am writing for office or work, I prefer a more serious *getting-it-done* font such as Calibri. It is crisp and literally has no frills attached. But for my blog, I prefer Helvetica or Trebuchet. I feel the elegant notes of these fonts give the blog post the personal warmth I want my readers to feel when they read my articles.

The Music
Simple advice - turn it OFF! People love listening to music when they read or write. I detest both. Reading and writing are for me - uni-functional tasks. You must give them your full attention, otherwise you are just wasting your time. Music has a great power to transport you to different states of mind in no time. While that is a magical thing when you are stressed out or bored, that may not be good when you writing. Imagine that you sit down to write a polemic about the garbage problem in Bangalore and you plug in your headphones to listen to classic country music (think James Taylor). If you are anything like me, your anger would instantly fly away and get replaced with a sense of wonder at the power of such simple lyrics. If you still strive to write your angry article, you will end up neither enjoying the song nor relishing the righteous anger etched into your words. 
There are innumerable places where music helps, I feel writing is not one such place. 

Whom are you writing for? 
Target audience is an important thing to consider when you are writing a blog or a book. Whom are you hoping will read and savor your words? Your peers? Young children? Women? Or, are you planning to write just for yourself? 
Any answer is fine! As long as you know your target audience, it will help to focus your work. If you are writing for your peers, you will automatically gravitate your article towards references or implications of their affinity. If you are writing for children, you will obviously refrain from certain avenues and topics. Like me, if you write largely for yourself, then it is an open world for you! You can write anything you want and there is a sweet sense of freedom in that. 

When to write?
Time tables help me get through my day. I assiduously compartmentalize my time into several chunks of productive work. Being a geek, I use tons of apps and websites to help me increase my productivity. But the one thing I can never organize is my writing time. If I sit down at my desk with the intention of writing, I usually cannot. Or worse, I will write such absolute drivel that I will get depressed for the next hour. Like most forms of expression, writing is inspired work. You may never know when it will hit you and you certainly can't predict it. For example, once after getting drenched to my bones in the rain, I came back home and after having a bath, sat down and wrote 3 chapters of a novella, no questions asked. The words just kept coming out! 
However, if you are just starting to write, it is always good to practice writing regularly. Don't expect your articles to always be at the best of your potential but regular effort will attune your mind to the patience and rigors of writing. 

Popularize
If you plan on writing a blog, even if it is a personal blog like mine, you will eventually want more people to read and share your thoughts. Obviously, like any form of expression, writing also demands attention and nourishment from informed audience. Popularizing your blog, however, can be an uphill journey. In this age of twitter and facebook, a lot of people don't have the discipline to read a full article. So it will take time and a *lot* of persistence before you assemble your band of dedicated readers. My blog, despite being 5 years old, is still an infant in terms of reach but I have managed to put in place a group of people who always read my posts and give me invaluable feedback. It makes me feel appreciated and inspires me to write better! So, don't shy away from popularizing your works. 
There are several techniques for promoting blogs - Search Engine Optimizations, Social Networking, Blog Directories like blogadda etc. Just Google it!

Editing
A very important part of writing is editing. You must keep reading and re-reading your own work to ensure that it is absolutely of top-notch quality. You don't want embarrassing grammatical mistakes or silly play of words to spoil the flow of thought in the article. Sometimes, reading your post after a day or two will give you a different perspective and aid the editing process. Never shy from butchering your work till it is *just* perfect! 

Respect your limitations
Just like anything else in life, you won't become a Gabriel Garcia Marquez after writing for a year or two. It will take time, effort, discipline and limitless patience before you reach a level that you will be proud of. But don't write for the sake of becoming better at it, instead write because you enjoy it. That will make the journey towards perfection a breezy ride. Respect your limitations but constantly strive to overcome them!

Happy writing!  :)

Why I bought 'The Great Gatsby' and why I ought to have bought it just now.

Browsing through the endless racks of books, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, with my friend Jincy at Blossoms in Bangalore, I came upon a tiny, Penguin Books edition of F.Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. I have always wanted to read that book. In fact, I had already purchased a copy on Flipkart a few years back but found the first few pages so depressingly boring that I gave up! I do that sometimes! Catch-22, Ullyses and Wolf Hall - all books of staggering repute that I simple could *not* get! 

But I immediately took to this tiny edition of The Great Gatsby! It had that fresh, crisp feel to it that only a newly minted book can possess. Plus, the upcoming release of Di Caprio's film adaptation of the book was an added incentive.For I have this idiosyncrasy where I don't watch a film unless I have read its book beforehand. Lastly the low price tag of Rs.200/- sealed the deal and that night, I started afresh on The Great Gatsby. 

And it changed my life. 

Not really. That was an exaggeration, but it certainly spoke to me in ways that I did not expect it to! 

At its heart The Great Gatsby is a story of thwarted love between an ambitious man and an aristocratic girl. Sound like a 1980s Bollywood film? That was what I first thought. But over time, I began to realize that nothing in this book is really what it seems. Face-value is a mist in this work and when that clears away, you start to scratch the surface of the real book. It is amazing how a small work of ~200 pages manages to touch on so many questions and better yet, raise even more of them. 

Any book worth its salt, will mean different things to different people. A book is a conversation between the writer and the reader, spanning across hundreds of years and thousands of miles and like any conversation, it has its private moments, where unuttered thoughts are planted and unexpressed opinions are shared. 

The Great Gatsby though is a little different. It does not attempt to talk to a single individual - the reader. Instead it tries to talk to an entire generation of individuals who are on the threshold of watching their collective dream of a happy, healthy & prosperous life, crumble into the dust due to excessive, unrelenting pursuit of materialism.

The book portrays many motifs to signify how fast & easy money can erode social and moral frameworks and also how, even those raised with sound values can fall prey to them. 

The Great Gatsby is as much a commentary on today's social hierarchy as it is of the 1920s New York. 1920s was a time of extravagance in New York. The end of WW1 and the ensuing economic surge bumped up an entire generation of people up the economic ladder. Bootlegging of liquor and related criminal activities provided ample options to young men to earn the quick buck. As a result, New York was teeming with people with fat wallets and slim morals. This class of people are symbolized by the 'West Egg' village, a geographic protrusion along Long Island.

The residents of West Egg stand in sharp contrast to the aristocracy of the 'old wealth' who inhabit the identically shaped 'East Egg'.  However, the similarity of the two classes in terms of money does not hide their gaping differences in avarice and sleaziness. 

A particular feature of the book that I found deeply disturbing is its usage of symbols to convey deep thoughts. Such as the ashen heaps outside New York - large lands that had gone barren due to interminable discharges from surrounding industries. It was a chilling reminder that growth and wealth can spoil our moral ecosystem just as much as it can devastate a physical landscape. 

Thee green light, that shone from the end of East Egg's dock, faintly visible across the waters from Gatsby's home in West Egg, is a fundamental symbol of 'The Dream'. The one thing, each and every one of us wants to achieve. Each person may have his/her own version of The Dream, but we all possess one. Gatsby's dream was to be re-united with the love of his life - Daisy who lived in East Egg. He resents the proximity of the light to his Love as much as he longs to be near it; for nearing the light meant nearing Daisy. But when he is finally reunited with Daisy, that light, the very same green column across the waters ceased to be a marvel. It was just a tiny green speck across a dark bed. Do all our dreams lose significance once we achieve them? Or in the pursuit of our dreams, do we attach inordinate importance to them, which they eventually cannot live up to? 

And who can forget the haunting passages involving the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg? A fading advertisement in which only the large, bespectacled eyes of its former star remain - the eyes seem to keep a vigil over the ashen heaps. To me, the eyes seemed to represent God. The all-seeing eyes that are silently watching the devastation we wreak upon ourselves in the name of growth. Even the though the book does not signify the true meaning of the Eyes, they are a potent part of the narrative. 

The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece of a book by any measure. In that sense, I have totally understood the veneration that it commands from legions of historians and literature enthusiasts. But the book had a very personal message to tell me too - the urban young of 21st century India. It seemed to tell me, 'Don't get too easy'. And it made sense! 
My life is ... a little too simple. At 22, I earn a lot more money than my parents did and for work that is hard, but not hard enough to make me feel like I have earned it! I seem to be on a highway towards a financially-secure future and that, unsurprisingly, gives me this sense of freedom, this conviction that I am in-charge of my life and that I can wade through these calm waters  using my moral compass and my intellectual abilities. 

The truth is that anything can happen. The same dream of a secure future could turn toxic and destroy our very identity. The same vision of a happy future could turn into a limbo where we don't recognize ourselves and cannot recollect how we used to be. 

Money is dangerous. Power is dangerous. Fire is dangerous. When we show so much caution with the last, why not with the first two? 
The Great Gatsby. A book I am glad I read at this point in my life. 

 

Finding a city along with a bunch of books..

A man's identity is seldom defined by him alone. It is largely influenced by his tastes, his friends and quite importantly, by his place of stay. The existing social and cultural mores of his place of stay deeply affect the mental and emotional pipelines of an individual. Unsurprisingly, this link that we share with cities and villages has been glorified on numerous occasions by authors and film-makers across the world.I am a metro-man. I have never lived in a village for more than a few months, so I can never relate with the flowing peacefulness of sleepy paddy farms and gushing brooks behind the street. As much as I can love them for their ability to recharge my mind and body, I can never connect and more importantly emote with them on the long term. I love the frenetic pace and hurried lifestyle of the city. I know it's bad for me, but it is the set of cards I was dealt with and I am largely happy about it.

Hence in every metro I have lived in, I try to identify myself with a certain aspect of the city. I try to alienate what I love and hate about that city. This process of 'getting to know' the city underpins my relationship with it and determines how I will remember the city after I have left it. In Chennai, Calcutta and Trichy, I could find that little part of the city and its cultural scene which left a deep mark on my psyche. And last weekend, I decided to search for that connection with my new home - Bangalore.

As with most good things in my life, my search began with The Hindu. Saturday's edition shared a sombre article about a famous Bangalore bookstore 'Page Turners' of Penguin shutting down in December and offering great discounts as a final punch.A s someone who has been concerned with this worrisome trend of 'bookstore deaths' (and blogged about it too!), I wanted to visit this store at least once before it shut doors for good. So after my morning cuppa, I left for a long journey, traversing across the town to reach this store in M. G.Road. The journey reminded me of my first and most frustrating opinion about this city - the transit times. Agreed, I do not stay in a very fortunate place. Office timings demand of me to stay very far away from Bangalore City itself, hence every time I want to visit the City, I need to plan for at least two hours of Travel Buffer zone! While this is undoubtedly an irksome thing, its unavoidable nature makes me try to spend that time in a fruitful manner. I now use these long bus journeys through concrete jungles to catch up on my favorite podcasts or with my reading. Thanks to the luxuriously comfortable A/C buses, these bus journeys provide with a very comfortable setting for some 'alone' time. Hence, I no longer cringe at these long bus rides.

I finally reached M.G.Road after more than one and half hours on two buses and found a place that defied Indian stereotypes. Undoubtedly the most 'happening' few streets of Bangalore, M.G.Road and its adjoining Brigade Road were a sea of tourists and foreigners shopping door to door at stores

boasting the latest international designs and brands. Even though I have traveled and shopped abroad, this exotic scene of international-ness transplanted upon crumbling buildings, garbage on the street and awful traffic, lent a very awkward smell to this scene. But I was star-struck none the less. While these streets do not remind one of the 'Old Money' of Parrys Corner at Chennai or Marine Drive at Mumbai, they did have a very vibrant and pulsating sense to them. One could clearly see the 'New Rich' that Bangalore has incubated as part of its meteoric rise from a sleepy, retirement city into India's Information Age capital. These are people who have broken into the upper echelons of money and status through their education and hard work alone and are eager to show it off!! Amidst this wave of nouveau riche ITians, I could also see the staple images of India - beggars and street dogs. But none the less, M.G.Road and Brigade Road gave me plenty to see and admire.

As I was searching for 'Page Turners', I ran into an old friend - 'Higgin Bothams'. Anyone who has lived in Chennai or has traveled through

Central Station or Meenambakkam Airport, would be familiar with Higgin Bothams.

One of the first and most aristocratic of Chennai book stores, its iconic store

on Mount Road is as much a part of Chennai's important sites catalogue as the

Egmore Museum and Marina Beach. I vividly remember traveling to this store once a year with my

father and my elder sister for our family's annual books purchase. We used to

rack up on a number of books on finance, accounting and such for my father,

Nancy Drews for my sister and some Tinkles for good old me. Higgin Bothams

Bangalore reminded me of its Chennai cousin. It had the same nonchalant, humble

exterior with a disinterested store clerk and dull settings. It this age where

even book stores are demanded of to be 'pimped-up', Higgin Bothams presents a

refreshing sense of disdain at whether you buy a book or not! Very refreshing

indeed!

I finally found 'Page Turners'. In fact, the store was very crowded! Clearly a number of Bangalorians had read the same article and had shared my enthusiasm. I weaved my way through the crowds and discovered some amazing books! Penguin being one of the largest publication houses, 'Page Turners' had the best titles across all genres! I simply could not help myself and ended up splurging a sizable chunk of my just-received monthly pay!

After my book drive, I resumed my walks through the side roads and gullies. One might wonder why I did not make this trip along with a friend or a bunch of friends. To be honest, I had already visited M.G.Road and Brigade Road on more than one occasion with my friends, but I have this theory that the special bond that one shares with a city can only be found when alone. When you don't have the constant interruption of conversation, thoughts and bantering, your mind tends to explore the surroundings and your senses start to perceive more than the bare minimum. This lends into this ethereal connection that we feel towards any place. To exemplify, when I used to live in Calcutta, I used to take the Metro often by myself to travel to my mom's office near Park Street.

As a middle school student, these trips were very exciting times as I fancied myself to be a 'Big Man' to be allowed to travel alone. After reaching the 'Maidan' Metro Station, just as I used to get out through one of the exits, I used to run into this vendor who sold baked beans, puffed rice and onions in the form of a local delicacy called 'Jaal Muri'. Every time, I used to stop and buy a small pouch of this delicacy and eat it on the way to my mom's office which was a couple of blocks away. To this day, I remember the vivid smell of slightly old onion and masala of the Jaal Muri. It is one of the many images that come to my mind when I recollect my times at Calcutta.

After walking around for a few hours, I decided to travel back home through a circuitous but more fun route! I took the Metro from M.G.Road to Baiyapannahalli. The Namma Metro Project, although a work in progress, should be a source of pride not just for Bangalore but for the whole of India! It is a beautifully maintained mode of transport with a friendly and helpful staff and well thought-out logistics. It was concrete evidence of India finally taking her baby steps towards a superior way of public commutation. One thing which really fascinated me during my Metro ride was the attitude of my co-passengers. Unlike the usual disdain and arrogance with which Indians treat public transport, my co-passengers seemed to regard the Metro with a certain respect, even fear one could say. A father severely reprimanded his son for jumping on the leather seats and trying to pull a poster on the wall and another person even offered his seat for an elderly gent, all very new and unusual scenes in Indian public transport! Although it is early days for Metro Project, I really hope that people continue to maintain this sense of deference towards the Metro.

I finally reached home after another bus ride from Baiyapannahalli. I was tired and my legs were sore from walking for more than four hours but I had come back much wiser about my new home. Bangalore is a really beautiful city. It is a city filled with young people like me, filled to

the brim with ambition and in some cases with compassion. It is a city with money flowing in from all quarters and it is a city which is opening her horizons to the world. It is no longer just the IT Capital of India but also the Youth Capital of India. The infectious sense of optimism and happiness that the young educated Indian possesses is evident in every shopping mall, multiplex and office in this city. It is a city where its hard to be unhappy. Yes it suffers from crippling traffic problems and some law and order concerns, but as with young people, you tend to move on and look beyond these flaws. Bangalore is at the vanguard of a New India, one that is rising with each quarter of positive growth. But I would like to believe that they are not just interesting in piling money, they are also giving back through their money and time! Bangalore newspapers are valiantly pushing for the views of this new class by demanding better garbage-disposal, traffic control and policing from the Municipality, NGOs are flushed with volunteers who are willing to give back on weekends and holidays and finally millions such as me are blogging and documenting about the rise of this city and about the New Indians who are fueling growth so that the rest of India can shrug off its slumber and become a part of this rise.

On memory and ...errr... other things.

I just finished reading a marvelous book by Julian Barnes, the 2011 Booker Prize winning novella, The Sense of an Ending. After the rather disappointing experiences of previous Booker books such as Life of Pi, White Tiger and Wolf Hall, I did not have much expectations on this one. But wasn't I pleasantly surprised? 

Not only was this an incredibly funny and smart book but also it raised some deep questions about the nature of memory and its loopholes. 

When I was small, my grandmother used to tell me that an elephant could remember everything right from its birth. Back then, this did not seem like a great skill to have. Why would you want to remember all the mundane things that happen every day in your life? Also, I expected that I would always remember the important moments of my own life, which made my human mind far more superior than that of the elephant. Now I do not know whether the Elephant's memory hypothesis is correct or not, but I definitely know that my hypothesis about the human mind is wrong. 

The functioning of the human memory is a great frontier of science which is yet to be fully scaled. While scientists come up with numerous theories and hypotheses, each one more finer than the last, we still do not fully understand how the human memory works. 

As a student and now an engineer of Computer Architecture, I fancied myself with the idea that the human memory was a really advanced version of the D-RAM in computers. A place where data could be stored and be retrieved later on when required, akin to the read and write operation of computers. The loss of memory that accompanies old age could be because the memory cells holding those datums could have gotten corrupted or the location in memory where the address book of the memory cells is located could have gotten corrupted. The latter idea appeared particularly ingenious to me as it accounted for many of my own experiences where it would have seemed like I had forgotten something, but later on when I was doing something completely irrelevant, BAM! the memory would come back to me! In this way I used to come up with some of my own ideas to further solidify this DRAM-like theory for the human mind. 

But Julian Barnes killed my theory! In a short book of 140 pages, he not only demonstrated the vulnerabilities of the human memory but also showed its uglier, manipulative self. I realized the fundamental concept that human memory = events + emotional reaction. Quite often, depending on the associated emotional reaction, the mind alters the sequence of events. When I look back at some of the highlight moments of my life, I must admit that I do not remember the environment, the sounds, the smells or the looks on people's faces. I do not remember if it was a rainy day or a hot day. All I do remember is this strong sense of triumph or happiness and upon this pole the rest of the tent is built. I imagine people cheering,  I imagine an air-conditioned auditorium and I imagine a smiling chief guest. These memories are compromised, they may even be mainly untrue, but within a small framework of what-happened and when-it-happened and using my emotional reaction as the yardstick, the human mind deconstructs the rest of the memory. Could it be a really advanced encryption-decryption algorithm? That is a question for scientists and neural doctors. 

Nonetheless, this just goes on to show how much we still do not know about something that we take for granted everyday. 

My thoughts on : Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

*Contains Spoilers*

I must first admit one thing - I am not a big fan of Ken Follett, even though I have read most of his famous works. Back in college, I had a few friends who used to dote over him and introduced me to World Without End and after which I read The Pillars of the Earth. I really liked both books. Even though each one was the size of a big pillow, I found myself finishing them in no time. Real page-turners indeed.
Fall of Giants, in true Ken Follett tradition, is a healthy 1100 page mammoth of a book. But I ended up reading it in less than 5 days (weekdays that too) I cannot recollect any other author who can make 1500 pages so palatable and yet pack so much quality content into it.

Fall of Giants is the first book of the so called 'Century Trilogy'. the second tome titled Winter of the World has just been released. In the three books, Ken Follett is attempting to capture the highlights of the 20th Century - undoubtedly the most tumultuous 100 years in the history of mankind.
Fall of Giants focuses on the decade of the First World War, starting with its build up and touching upon the October Revolution of 1917 and finally the capturing of power by the Labour Party in Britain for the very first time. The underlying theme of the book is the fall of traditional power structures in major countries after the First World War and the emergence of new forces. An impressive amount of historical content is packed into this book and anyone unfamiliar with this time-frame will emerge much wiser after reading this book.

Since he is dealing with so many POVs and events spread across many countries, Ken Follett has opted for 5 families as his POV entities. These characters include the Earl Fitzerbert family of Wales, the Peshkovs of Russia, the von Helberts of Germany, the Dewars of the USA and the Williams, mining family from Wales. A notably absent point of view would be that of the French who were so central to the First World War. Within these four families, Follett has managed to present just about every major perspective of that time frame. Through the characters of Maud Fitzerbert and Ethel Williams he has portrayed the budding feminine movement of the UK finally coming to the center-stage. Earl Fitzerbert presents the classic English aristocracy, always conscious about British pride and Gentlemanly behaviors. The von Helberts represent the starkly different POVs from within Germany. The military older generation, still beaming with pride over the subjugation of France in the war for Alsace and Lorraine  fifty years back and the younger generations who yearn for growth and prosperity. Sadly, the older generation's thought process wins in the end as we all know. The Peshkovs represent two sides to the Russian story. While the elder brother Grigory is central to the Bolshevik capture of power in 1917 and presents a grim picture of the failures of the Tsar regime, the younger brother Lev runs away to England and eventually to the USA. A classic player and a charming con man, Lev was initially my favorite character in the book, but sadly Ken Follett failed to build this character into something more than his face value. A pity indeed. The Dewars represent the Old Money of America and give a brief gist of America's involvement in the War. Lastly, the Williams represent the working class of Britain. Tired of the overbearing aristocracy and grown inure to the failures of the Conservatives and the Liberals, Williams highlight the rise of the Labour movement in Great Britain. You could say the characters of Billy and Ethel Williams are the closest to central protagonists of the book. Despite getting a lot of coverage of their POVs, I did not connect with either character and was largely let down by them.
To summarize Ken Follett has put together an impressive array of varied characters to tell a story over such a vast canvas. But the characters who showed a lot of depth and potential for growth were not focused on and the ones who got a lot of focus did not reveal any new side to the story. Coming of age is a great story on most occasions, but does not work out on this one.

One major drawback of this book is that none of the major characters undergo any major character-changes over the course of the First World War. A strong, independent, rich English woman becomes a strong, independent, poor German wife. A womanizer, charming con-man remains a womanizer and charming con-man.
One would expect that an event of the magnitude of the First World War would leave some lasting scars on some of the characters and maybe even cause a twist in the story line. Sadly, there was nothing like that. After reading the first 100 pages, if you made a gist about each major character, it will mostly look the same even after reading the remaining 1000 pages. That made the book seem a little weary towards the end.

While i have been focusing a lot on the drawbacks, that does not mean that it was a bad book. Far from it, I really enjoyed reading this book. And within the 1000 odd pages were some really fascinating lines which are a testament to the ability of Follett to paint pictures with words.
One particular segment that I enjoyed a lot was this quote about Petrograd a few weeks before the Russian Revolution. It was a tense time when the masses were slowly stirring from their centuries-long slumber, but they were not arising fast enough for the Bolsheviks!

"Petrograd was like a pan of water on the fire, Grigori thought: there were wisps of steam and a few bubbles of violence, and the surface shimmered with intense heat, but the water seemed to hesitate, and the proverbial watched pot did not boil."

It takes an author of great ability to write like that.

To summarize, Fall of Giants is an impressive historical novel that packs a lot of information into a neat end product. While it is by no means a definitive account of this period, Ken Follett has done a ton of home work into this book and that clearly shows. Ken Follett fans will undoubtedly love this book as it has all his standard touches.
If you are looking to start reading a Trilogy that is voluminous but really easy on your attention span, then you should definitely check this one out.

Save the bookstore!

For my last birthday I had gotten a 1000 rupee gift voucher of Odyssey book store from my aunt. Normally I would have used the coupon and bought a couple of books within the week, but that was a brief period when I felt my time was too important to be spent on reading books. How mistaken was I?
Any how, I ended up not using the voucher for almost 11 months and managed to find it today when I was going through some old stuff in my cupboard. It was about to expire in a month.
Since I was back to my book-loving ways, I eagerly google-mapped for the nearest Odyssey bookstore and discovered one quite close by in Nungabakkam.
A share-auto ride later, I was at the exact same spot where google maps told me to expect the store, but all i could see was 'Mermaids - underwear for fancy women'.
Confused and slightly unnerved, i tried the phone number given in google maps, but it turned out to be a dud. I tried to visit the store's website, but it was down due to maintenance. with no more information online, I spent about an hour roaming around trying to run into Odyssey's once familiar red interiors and signboards.
finally i gave up and came back home, but my neurotic self just could not stop and i contacted just-dial to get the latest contact numbers for all the odyssey bookstores in Chennai. Of all the ones i got, all but one turned out to be useless. Finally i got through to a store manager of the Odyssey bookstore on ECR, which is really really far away from my home. He told me that the store in Nungambakkam, Anna Nagar and Egmore had been closed over six months back. Now only two stores were operating, one in Adyar and his own store.
i dont know why but this made me really sad. I cannot begin to count the number of hours i would have spent in bookstores such as Odyssey, Landmark, Oxford and Higginbothams. in fact, i have spent whole days just sitting in a corner of a bookstore and going over a novel. Some of my best childhood memories are from such shops. and today to see them falling, one at a time, just makes very sad for the coming generation of kids. Dont mistake me, i do not expect reading to decline, as some scientists fret about. au contraire, i think that in this age of ceaseless multimedia inputs, kids will quickly realize the slow and relaxing pleasure of a book.
the thing i worry about the most is the process of buying a book. You see, before the age of the internet, one found out about great books from the newspapers. In my case, the Literature Review section of The Hindu. I used to read the reviews of books and decide which ones i wanted to buy. the next step would be the trip to the nearby bookstore and go over the book, the author and most importantly, the price. If i had a birthday or Diwali coming up, i would note the book's price and inform all my relatives about it so that they would give me the moolah to get it.finally, once my coffers were overflowing, i would rush to the same bookstore and buy the book, only to start reading it even while waiting in the billing queue. This whole process would be spread over days or weeks, sometimes even months. During which, i would have spent many an hour, lounging in the book store, looking through new titles and authors, sneaking a peek at prohibited books or just marveling at the sheer number of books that i had not read yet. i think half the pleasure of reading the new book was in idling around in the book store.
Sadly today, the process of buying a book has been made indecently easy thanks to online portals such as Flipkart and Amazon. In all fairness, i love the convenience of these sites and now that money is not an issue for me, i have bought over a hundred books from flipkart, most of them spur of the moment purchases. After a wait of a few days, I get my book with utterly non-Indian efficiency.
But if the death of cherished bookstores is what it takes for online bookstores to succeed, then i am not too sure about that.
We cannot just let the quaint little bookstore die. I know that in a capitalistic market, it is always the survival of the fittest but when it comes to matters of the heart, such as the joy of reading, sometimes you have to stand for your beliefs, even if they dont make commercial sense.
In my opinion, bookstores are a vital fabric for a fulfilled life, but they will have to adapt to these newer times. just as online food deliveries have not killed off fine dining restaurants, book stores too will have to change. book stores must now offer things that flipkart and amazon cannot. the answer is easy, the human element. book stores need to give that human touch to the process of selecting and buying a book. maybe organize informal book meets, call in trending authors for an afternoon chat, have more informed sales personnel who can do more than just pick out the book from the top shelves.
There is much that can be done by bookstores to survive and flourish in this digital-shopping age but they can definitely use a helping hand from folks like me, who have got a lot out of them. Maybe if we made sure that every second book we buy is not from the net and from the neighborhood bookstore; maybe if we decided to reserve the net only for the difficult to find, rare editions; maybe if we can take our kids, nephews and nieces to the nearby bookstore and let them experience the joy of reading and exploring the vast stacks of books then maybe and just maybe, we can save the physical bookstores from getting gobbled up by their virtual cousins.

Who is Morgoth?

LOTR is undoubtedly one of the best stories that has ever been seen in the literary world. it has all the elements essential of a classic, war, drama, emotions, courage, valour etc. but very few people know that LOTR is just one small incident in the history of the fictitious universe that Tolkien invented. it happens over about 20 years, a speck of sand comparing to the timeline of Middle Earth.

So i read up a lot (A lot lot) and here i am writing an article about how things started in this world.

Many many many millenia ago there was a God named Eru Illavatar. he is the all powerful one in this universe. how he came into being is not known. he was known to exist in the outer void between matter and he has no physical shape. he is like a thought.

he decided to create a universe which he called "Ea". he created this universe by composing a song called "Music of the Ainur". he did not physically create the planets, stars etc but instead created angel like spirits called "Ainur". the job of the Ainur was to go to each and every planet, star etc and physically create trees, mountains etc according to their intepretation of the music. hence Eru just gave a sort of an instruction manual. the ainur intepreted the verses of the Music in his/her own way.

to aid the Ainur in their work, Eru then created weaker spirits called "Mair"

Now most of you guys must have heard of the biggest bad guy in this story, a creature called Morgoth. in LOTR it is once said that Sauron himself was just a servant to Morgoth.

so who is this guy?

The first Ainur that Eru created was called Melkor. At that time Eru made a mistake and granted this Ainur all his powers. whereas for the other AInur he gave only a few of his powers. so Melkor was the most powerful Ainur ever created. but Melkor soon realised that he has all the qualities to be another Eru. but that was not accepted by others. so he fell over to the dark side. Melkor was the first Ainur to come to Earth and on Earth he started intepreting the Music in his dark and evil ways. so started creating orcs, dragons, balrogs etc. using these creatures he started attacking the other Ainur who came to Earth.

So melkor became the bad guy on Earth. now initially he was just a thought like other Ainur and he could take up any physical shape that he wanted. but as started using more and more of his powers to corrupt the very fabric of Earth, he became weaker and was forced to take up a physical shape(see diagram)

Melkor was the strongest creature on Earth. so many animals and spirits came to his side. one of the Mair who was seduced by the dark side was Sauron. Sauron soon rose to be the principal lieuphtenant of Melkor.

so how did Melkor come to be called Morgoth?

now when the elves had just come into existence, the good Ainur created two large trees. one in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern hemi. these were the only sources of light then. the sun was yet to be created. now Melkor destroyed these trees and the world was plunged into darkness for a long time. now one elf cleverly captured some of the light of these trees into three jewels(gems) called "The Silmarils". the Silmaris became the most powerful weapons and source of energy in the world. Melkor stole these gems with the help of traitors and wore them on his dark crown. the elves then called him "Morgoth" which means Black Enemy in the Elf-tongue.

Many centuries later Morgoth was finally defeated and he was cast into the outer void. that means that he can never return into this dimension. his servant Sauron then took up the mantle as the Dark Lord.

Morgoth was destroyed because of his own actions rather than the powers of his enemies. unlike Sauron who wanted to just control the actions of all creatures in Middle Earth, Morgoth wanted to control their very existence and their thoughts. he used all his powers to corrtupt the Music and this led to a gradual decline in his powers till the point where others could defeat him in war.