Hi! A real short travel (though account is not so brief) is the first post this year. Here's the link. BENARES

Mixture as Before Somerset Maugham was acutely mindful of the criticism his books received. Luke warm review of his short-story collection Cosmopolitan was published in Times under the title ‘The Mixture as Before’. He promptly adopted this as the title of his next short-story collection. Maugham, a hugely popular writer, could use this mildly disparaging term to highlight the variety in his collection. I shamelessly borrow these words, but only to apologise for the unvarying cocktail of books I have brought to your notice in all these weeks. My only excuse, ill-founded perhaps, is that these are the books I like and read. Consequently, I can write honestly only on them. Need for free thought and fearless debate in human society is eternal. But it was never felt so deeply as in present times. I bring to your notice a collection of brilliant essays by Ramachandra Guha titled Democrats andDissenters . Kashmir has been in news for long, it seems for ever. I was always awa

*** 1/2 /*****                                                                                                                                      Essay/Anthology Democrats and Dissenters Ramachandra Guha Ramachandra Guha trained as a sociologist, but is known mostly as a historian amongst readers. His most popular book till date has been a contemporary history of post-independence India ‘Indian after Gandhi’. But it’s difficult to straight jacket Guha’s considerably vast oeuvre of writings into a narrow category. He has written on environment, tribals in India, biographies, sports, history and politics. This collection of his essays portrays his wide-ranging scholarship. Essays are divided into two sections: politics and society, and ideologies and intellectuals. Through these varied topics, what shines constantly is Ramachandra Guha’s unstinted commitment to liberal democracy, his vehement opposition of narrow jingoistic, popular, and chest-thumping, hyper-patriotic nat

***/*****                                                                                                                                                           History   War and Diplomacy in Kashmir-1947-1948 C Dasgupta                                 Kashmir is one of the most incendiary region in South Asia in the present times and has been a tinderbox for almost seven decades now. Deliberate lies, allegations and counter allegations by the involved parties have enveloped the kernel of truth in innumerable layers of obfuscating details. There has been a plethora of books on the issue. Each author has an opinion that is difficult to dissociate from his nationality and basic creed. Like any other long running controversy, truth is now hidden and what is peddled in its place is a popular myth that has as many versions as the opining minds.                                 In this foggy air, where one cannot see clearly the events of merely a few years back, not to sp

****/*****                                                                                                                              Novel The Quiet American Graham Greene             Story is set in Saigon, Vietnam of early 1950s. Thomas Fowler, middle aged (whose paunch has begun to make buttoning of his trousers difficult), dyed-in-the-wool cynic and a seasoned journalist covering the war in Vietnam for his British paper, is comfortably settled in the city with his Annamite mistress Phuong. Young, beautiful, obedient Phuong and the war-ravaged Indo-China territory provide Fowler a soothing company and shelter away from the suffocating confines of a failing marriage back at home, from which his wife is not willing to release him. This inner peace of Fowler's, in the tumultuous war-ravaged country, is shattered when Alden Pyle, a young American, arrives in the city and falls in love with Fowler's girl. Pyle is an idealist and sees the world through the eyes of

*** 1/2 /*****                                                                                                                                                      Travel The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island Bill Bryson About twenty years ago Bill Bryson moved to America, his native country, after having lived in Britain for more than two decades. At that time, he decided to travel across Britain in public transports to gather the feel of the country that he loved dearly. Notes from a Small Island emerged from these travels. I read this book a couple of years back and noted that ‘It’s the funniest book I’ve read.’  Bill Bryson returned to Britain after two decades. He decided to take the roads of the country once again as he wanted to see the changes that had come about in those years. And also, because his agent wanted him to write another book on Britain. This time he traveled across the country from Bognor Regis in south to Cape Wrath in nor

**1/2/*****                                                                                                                                                      Science Dr Tatiana’s Sex Advice To All Creation-The Definitive Guide To The Evolutionary Biology Of Sex Olivia Judson                 Dr Tatiana, an agony aunt, advises various animals on their weird sexual ways. The queries brought to her vary from male insects complaining about nagging wives, young females aghast at poor attention of males, cannibalistic females that chew their male consorts even during the act of love-making, perplexed primates who are exhausted in an attempt to satisfy the insatiable libido of their female companions and many more such whines. Dr Tatiana explains these seemingly bizarre sexual practices in light of evolution. She talks about the war of sexes, the notion of male’s natural tendency to be a philanderer, the evolution of stable sex-ratio, the reason behind grotesque differences in

Hi! I bring few reviews again. I offered my opinion on Pascal Boyer’s Religion Explained in the last post. Richard Dawkins’ God Delusion   though on religion, is not in the same vein. This is an erudite, yet, a searing attack on Religion and concept of God. I read the book many years back. I  had dabbled with the question of God for some years and read about atheism desultorily. I did not know that such unassailable arguments existed on atheism. I had never come across a book on ‘lack of faith’. The book blew my mind. For months I walked in seventh heaven. Secret of life had been revealed to me. Bibliography provided me reference to many other works and over the years I read some beautiful books on the subject. God Delusion has been on the ‘best-seller’ list for long and many of you must have read it. It is criticised for its trenchant, polemical prose. I think religious propaganda- as is plainly evident in the country today- is so blatantly wrong, harmful and preposterous that

****/*****                                                                                                                                                        God/Religion The God Delusion Richard Dawkins                 Religion was never a major influence in my growing years. To a great extent this was due to the liberal religious views of my parents but also because religion I was born in was not rigid or dogmatic. But this liberalism of my parents did not countenance Atheism. Belief in God was an immutable fact. Though religion was not conspicuous in daily life, God was never too far away. It had to be propitiated on all occasions big or small: by small observances on birthdays, before stepping out of home on the day of school examinations, and through major ceremonies during house warming, marriage and death. I accepted religious views of my parents unquestioningly: belief in rebirth, concept of reward or punishment for our present deeds in subsequent lives, and

*** 1/2 /*****                                                                                                    History Integration of the Indian States V. P. Menon India as one Nation, as we know it today, is a recent event. In its more than three millennia history, India never existed as one country under one supreme power. For short periods, under Ashoka, Akbar, and Aurangzeb large swathes of territory did come under the suzerainty of an emperor, but there was no political unity among various constituent states. Huge areas in the extreme corners of the country were completely independent and even suzerain states did not have uniform laws and legislature. One of the greatest benefits to accrue to India from British rule was unification of India as a politically consolidated Nation-State. Irony in this statement will be seen as blasphemy by many or most, in today’s India of chest-thumping, testosterone-filled nationalism. When English decided to exit India in mid -t

*** 1/2 /*****                                                                                                    Science From Eternity to here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time Sean Carroll Time has baffled philosophers, scientists, and the masses since the dawn of thought. It is impossible to imagine a world without time and it is equally difficult to accept time just as another dimension of our universe. Our existence and even the infinite universe with its billions of stars seems a play in the hands of this omniscient, omnipresent and ever moving entity ‘Time’.             Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist, attempts to understand this phenomenon in light of latest scientific theories. In this process, he leads us through the alleys of Newton’s classical physics, Einstein’s relativity and the uncannily weird deductions of quantum mechanics.             Through all his effort, his attempt to unravel the mystery of unidirectional nature of time, is pl

***/*****                                                                                                        Memoir All Creatures Great and Small James Herriot             James Herriot, soon after graduating as a veterinary doctor, joined the practice of Siegfried Farmon, a village veterinarian, as his assistant in the hilly county of Yorkshire Dales in late 1930s. These are memoirs of his initial years in practice. Book is a delightful easy read from first page to the last. Herriot is a born raconteur. He has a knack with words and the gift of gab. Employing apt words and befitting phrases, he brings alive the situations in his practice as a rookie vet doctor in the English countryside; the whimsical and lovable character of his employer; the daft and thrifty farmers who are reluctant to accept a new vet in the village; the dissolute, inveterate slacker Triston, brother of Siefgried; calving, farrowing, and foaling of animals as he lay prone on the cold stones of a b

How time passes! The phrase is so banal that even the news of latest Brexit maneuver feels stimulating. Though a bit shop-worn, it does state pithily, our bafflement with one of the ubiquitous physical entities in our lives. Time is understood little even by physicists. What constitutes the arrow of time, none knows. It would seem that past, present, and future are mere constructs of the human mind. In the space-time matrix of universe, all events are etched indelibly. Future of humanity on Earth may be the past of a planet travelling at vastly different speeds. Construct or real, physicist or layperson;  notwithstanding these quibbles, human mind knows what is passage of time. We remember our past, not our future. We hanker after past joys ruefully and fret over the unknown vicissitudes future may bring. It's been a year since I came to the city. How time- No, I won't repeat it. Ethologists, evolutionary psychologists and biologists tell me that we have inherite

Treadmill, Coffee, Books and OT OT starts late here but I wake up at the usual hour. I have time for more workout in the morning. It’s still dark outside as I pound the treadmill. Initially with trepidation lest I wake up the family members who sleep in adjoining rooms. Then a little more confidently, as heart beats faster and its rhythm mingles with the music. After the run, I have more than an hour on my hands. I read the stuff I wrote last night or type it out. I brew coffee to take to work. I can’t resist pouring a little, to sip now, though I have had tea a few minutes back. I gather my books, lunch box and coffee flask. I stuff the pannier bag of my cycle with these. Bag balloons enormously, on either side of the carrier. Cycle resembles a slim woman in a corset with ballooning middle. I check again if I have kept the book I am presently reading. I can’t survive without it for 8 hours in OT. City is waking up as I cycle the short distance to the hospital. There are a