Delhi, Genes, Berlin, English and Annapurna

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 about this miraculous transformation was the ability of the entity to replicate itself faithfully. Genes are the agents which underpin this unique ability in the living world. Richard Dawkins’ Selfish Gene shook the world of biological thought when it was published in mid-nineteen seventies. It was his contention that bodies of living beings are just a means for the genes they contain, to survive and proliferate in the world. Or as a witty phrase contends, chicken is the egg’s way of making more eggs. In the same way it can be said that body is the genes way of making more genes. It is truly a mind-boggling book, astonishingly well written. Please do not miss it, if whys and hows of life ever excite even a fleeting curiosity, in your fertile mind.

Christopher Isherwood was an acclaimed American-English novelist of twentieth century. He had also had a successful career as a playwright in Hollywood. Isherwood was enamoured of Hindu philosophy, especially the Vedas. In Goodbye to Berlin are collected his stories written about his stay in Berlin between the World Wars. Sally Bowles, a story in this collection, is perhaps his most famous creation. Character was based on Jean Ross, a cabaret singer whom Isherwood had known during his time in Weimar Berlin.  It was adopted into a successful play and a movie. His prose is unostentatious and most of his characters were drawn from his own experience.  They have a true-to-life earthy feel. His language is delicious and highly gratifying to mind.

English is a great language. It is, nevertheless, riddled with innumerable peculiarities that on face seem whimsical. Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue is a riveting account of these, as well as many more aspects of this versatile and protean language. It’s a small book filled with much fun.

Maurice Herzog, with his teammate, were the first persons to climb an eight-thousand metre peak. The fact that their ascent was in 1950, before the advent of high-tech climbing gear of today, makes their achievement much larger. Annapurna-Conquest of the First 8000 Metre Peak is his account of this climb.