Hi! I discovered the joys of walking city roads, about a decade back, while I was in Delhi. City presents a new face to a walker, which is hidden when you traverse the same roads in a vehicle. Sam Miller’s Delhi-Adventures in a Megacity is a collection of author’s reflections on Delhi, gathered as he walked it’s wide spread. Same circumstances seen through foreigner’s eyes excite fresh thoughts in a mind that has not been benumbed by long familiarity to the place. Book will be a delight for armchair travellers. Much is now known about the origin of innumerable species inhabiting almost every niche on earth: from the single celled bacteria which are around for billions of years, and homo sapiens who are not more than 150-200,000 years old. But Origin of life, the spark that transformed an inert collection of chemicals into a thriving and reproducing cell (or a collection of them), still remains a mystery. Most biologists today believe, the attribute that would have brought

                        Travel Delhi-Adventures in a Megacity Sam Miller             Sam Miller worked for BBC's World Service TV and was stationed in Delhi for a couple of years in early 1990s. He returned to Delhi in 2002 to live here permanently. He is married to an Indian.             He is an avid walker and calls himself a 'Flaneur', a French word for one who walks a city aimlessly. He considers walking the best way to see a city. I too love walking. Though I have not explored the streets of Delhi systematically, I've walked its roads on many an occasion in winters, on a refreshingly sunny Sunday, equipped with a small backpack containing a thin book, a bottle of water and a packet of biscuits, covering 12-20 kilometres on each perambulation. The sound of your own feet tapping the ground rhythmically, endlessly, on-and-on; slight perspiration at the nape of the neck; freedom of venturing into any street or wading into any crowd with no anxiety o

Language Mother Tongue Bill Bryson                 History of a language i.e. chronicle of its growth and its inherent failings and merits, will make a dreary essay in the hands of most authors. But not when written by Bill Bryson who has a penchant for converting most mundane topics under the sun into a funny, highly readable story and this time he turns his gaze on English Language.                 He meticulously chronicles the growth of the language, origin of the devious pronunciation and spellings, vagaries of its apparently unreasonable grammar, varied dialects of English and their origin and much more in his characteristic irreverent humour but without being facile. He explains the differences between American and British English, emphasises on their likeness and touches on the controversies which surround them. He even devotes full chapters to such esoteric topics as names, swearing and wordplay and makes them interesting and informing with his deft skills and b

Short Story Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood             Goodbye to Berlin contains six connected short stories- book is referred as novel in many reviews- written by Christopher Isherwood centered on Berlin of the early 1930s just before the takeover of Germany by Hitler. Isherwood lived in Berlin then and gave private tuitions in English for a living. These six pieces do not form a continuous narrative but have a common thread connecting all.   The common thread is the setting of time and place and the narrator, the author himself. In the book Christopher Isherwood appears as himself. He is not only the narrator but an important character in most of the stories. Book is semiautobiographical. Most reviews of the book have praised it for its beautiful evocation Berlin’s past in those prewar years when disaster was just around the corner but life in the bars, homes and offices continued albeit with the premonition of the danger looming large. Except for the last piec

Science The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins We have found the secret of life- blurted Francis Crick in a bar soon after he and Watson first discovered that they had correctly deciphered the structure of DNA. That Genes are the storehouse of all information which is required to produce and then nurture the body that contains them, be it a single celled bacterium, a hundred feet oak tree or the most complex machine, the human being with a mind that contemplates on its own origin, is a fact known to most. And from this it seems logical to infer that genes fulfil a vital function of the body lodging them. In his first book The Selfish Gene , Richard Dawkins sets out to dispel this erroneous belief. Genes are not for bodies, but bodies are for Genes. This is the central theme of the book. The Selfish Gene theory of nature is Richard Dawkins’ theory of Genecentric world. He argues that Darwinian evolution does not work at the level of species or groups of living beings, but at the

Adventure Annapurna-Conquest of the First 8000 Metre Peak Maurice Herzog A friend of mine, an avid mountaineer and who has summited Mount Everest in 2011, was once relating to me his experience of climbing Everest. When I repeatedly expressed my awe of people who have climbed Everest, he brushed aside my sense of amazement saying that there was not much adventure left in climbing Everest these days. He said climbing Everest has now become a highly organised tourism industry (for the host country i.e. Nepal). Before the beginning of climbing season, Sherpas fix ropes all along the route, right till the peak. Climbing gear, including oxygen equipment, has improved much since the days of Mallory. All one needs is money, reasonable fitness and training in mountaineering. Rush of climbers on Everest, he said in an exasperated voice, further increasing my incredulity, is so menacing that at times there is a literal queue of mountaineers holding on to the ropes, clinging to the s

                                                                                                                                                   Biography Love and Revolution: Faiz Ahmad Faiz Ali Madih Hashmi और कुछ देर में जब फिर मिरे तन्हा दिल को फ़िक्र आ लेगी कि तन्हाई का क्या चारा करे दर्द आएगा दबे पाँव लिए सुर्ख़ चराग़ वो जो इक दर्द धड़कता है कहीं दिल से परे … In a moment, when once again, my lonesome heart will be burdened by the worry, ‘what should it do with its solitude?’ Pain will steal in on its toes, bearing inflamed lamps. Pain which throbs somewhere beyond heart’s infinitude. ये दाग़ दाग़ उजाला ये शब - गज़ीदा सहर वो इंतिज़ार था जिस का ये वो सहर तो नहीं… This spot-ridden light, this night-smitten dawn, This is not the dawn, for which we waited long. आ कि वाबस्ता हैं उस हुस्न की यादें तुझ से जिस ने इस दिल को परी - ख़ाना बना रक्खा था जिस की उल्फ़त में भुल

Hi! In past I posted here a little of Faiz’s poetry. It may not be completely out-of-context to talk about his life now. Love and Revolution-Faiz Ahmad Faiz , Faiz’s biography is written by his grandson, Ali Madih Hashmi. I cannot say this is one of the better biographies I have read, but it does give a comprehensive life-history of Faiz, without much fanfare and hero-worship. This is not a small achievement when writing about a giant public figure. I would be sumptuously happy if a stray reader -a rare fan of poetry, amongst the infinitesimally insignificant number of people who read these posts- stumbles across this reference and picks up Faiz’s life story. It will provide some joyful reading experience. Nothing about China is ever dull. Intrigue invests all news and aspects of this vast country. China is again in news for a sad reason. Tragedy of Corona virus epidemic is compounded by the speculation how Chinese government stifled the news of virus spread and how even WHO

                                                                                                                                                        History China-A History John Keay This book is of epic proportions, if not in girth, surely in its scope. In approximately 500 pages John Keay covers 3000 years of Chinese history. He starts with the mythological five emperors, allegedly belonging to an era before 2000 BC and ends with the China of Comrade Mao. It was a gargantuan task, that he has performed well. He talks of the dynasties, the emperors, the plunderers and the empire builders, sages and philosophers, the language and the literature. He doesn’t shy from wading in the murky waters of controversial issues whether it is the question of autonomy of Tibet and Xinziang (Chinese Turkistan) or the unwavering belief and boast of Chinese in the continuity of Chinese Empires from the prehistoric times to the twentieth century, fables about the greatness of the ‘Great Wal

                                                                                                                                                       Novel Cakes and Ale W. Somerset Maugham Being something of a bibliophile, I obtain books much faster than I read them. As a consequence, there's a huge backlog of books I always have in mind and on my bookshelves that I have to read. This list has become intractably long now. I'm seized by a tormenting anxiety as I finish a book and am confronted with the decision to pick up my next read. I dare not waste my time on a book that I'll later regret having chosen. Time is at premium. Life has only that many moments to offer. Number of books I intend to read before I die, seems infinite. This dilemma tortured me incessantly in the past. Of late, I've reached a truce with my insatiable hunger for books. I am convinced it will matter little how many books I have read, the moment I kick the bucket. What's importa

                                                                                                                                                Religion Does He Know a Mother’s Heart: How Suffering Refutes Religions Arun Shourie Suffering and evil in world are the greatest hindrance in acceptance of the concept of an all-powerful, all-knowing God. How could an omnipotent, incomparably loving and infinitely compassionate god bring to bear upon his own creation the soul-searing, unremitting suffering engendered by millions of misfortunes; A whole life spent in penury, Children afflicted with debilitating congenital malformations of mind and body, loss of children in their adolescence, a lifetime spent in sorrows of unrequited love, mothers being raped in front of their children, miseries visited by wars and natural calamities. It is an unending list. Happiness has only few forms while sorrow visits mankind in countless garbs. When confronted with ubiquitous misery and god’s

                                                                                                                                                   Science The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of Universe Steven Weinberg Urge to ruminate over the origin of universe and life is dateless and ubiquitous. Once the body is well clothed, fed, secure and sufficiently sexed, nothing else satisfies mind as well as the pursuance of this eternal quest. All religions, cultures and schools of philosophy have speculated on these seemingly insuperable queries from time immemorial. But the most thrilling and bewitching answers have been provided by modern physics and evolutionary biology. Mere contemplation of the fact that a couple of simple laws of science, capable of being expressed in a few sentences can explain to a large extent origin of this infinite universe with its billions of galaxies flying away at dizzying speeds in a largely cold, dark & lifeless space, se

कोई आशिक़ किसी महबूबा से ! फ़ैज़ अहमद फ़ैज़ गुलशन - ए - याद1 में गर आज दम - ए - बाद - ए - सबा2   फिर से चाहे कि गुल - अफ़शाँ3 हो तो हो जाने दो   उम्र - ए - रफ़्ता4 के किसी ताक़ पे बिसरा हुआ दर्द   फिर से चाहे कि फ़रोज़ाँ5 हो तो हो जाने दो   जैसे बेगाने से अब मिलते हो वैसे ही सही   आओ दो चार घड़ी मेरे मुक़ाबिल बैठो   गरचे मिल - बैठेंगे हम तुम तो मुलाक़ात के ब ' अद   अपना एहसास - ए - ज़ियाँ6 और ज़ियादा होगा   हम - सुख़न7 होंगे जो हम दोनों तो हर बात के बीच   अन - कही बात का मौहूम8 सा पर्दा होगा   कोई इक़रार9 न मैं याद दिलाऊँगा तुम्हें   कोई मज़मू10 वफ़ा का न जफ़ा का होगा   गर्द - ए - अय्याम11 की तहरीर12 को धोने के लिए   तुम से गोया हों दम - ए - दीद13 जो मेरी पलकें   तुम जो चाहो तो सुनो और जो न चाहो न सुनो   और जो हर्फ़14 करें मुझ से गुरेज़ाँ15 आँखें   तुम जो चाहो तो कहो और जो न चाहो न कहो   1 garden of memory 2