Racists!

Black vs White. Good vs Evil. Master vs Slave. Evolution vs Divine Creation. Civilization vs Primitive Instincts.

These are some of the themes touched upon by Kunal Basu's novel - Racists. The book narrates the tale of an outrageous experiment - an endeavour to settle the debate of whether the European whites are superior to the African blacks. Set in the year 1855, the novel charts the paths of the English scientist - Bates, and his French rival, Belavoix. The two scientists decide to leave two children - a black boy and a white girl on the deserted island of Arlinda for 12 years, to decide who will emerge the master, and who will be the slave.

The children are to be raised by a mute nurse, Norah, whose sole prerogative is to keep them alive for the duration of the experiment. The scientists constantly pit their theories against each other, with Bates focusing on proving his hypothesis by using the 'science' of craniometry - periodically measuring the dimensions of the skulls, and postulating that the larger dimensions would belong to the more intelligent. Belavoix, on the other hand, takes out time from his feigned illnesses to predict the insanity of the nurse, and that one of the children will kill the other at some point of time.

Norah, and Bates' assistant, Quarterly begin to see the children as humans, as opposed to the scientists who only view them as test specimens. Do they watch from the sidelines, as their masters plot a dance of death and destruction? Do they interfere and stop what could possibly be an experiment that has never taken place before?

Kunal Basu's characters have strong dimensions to them, and the reader begins to understand how each one's mind works. One can even draw parallels with contemporary characters, and how racism manifests itself in modern times.

However, what begins promisingly enough, ends with a damp squib as Mr. Basu takes the easy way out and finishes his book without answering the all-important question. The narrative slows down and peters out towards the end into predictable mediocrity.

Still, a fairly good read and I'd give it around 3/5.

Happy Reading!

There and Back Again

Sorry, Bilbo Baggins. The title of this post seems the same as that of your immortal book, but then you’re a fictional character, and hence your book or its title doesn’t have any copyright protection. Haha. Gotcha, right?

Well, I make this post from my home city of Chandigarh, having returned from an arduous train journey aboard the Jan Shatabdi that plies from Delhi to Chandigarh. Arduous, eh? Yes, in more ways than one.

I think I can be the brand ambassador for Toyota’s JIT (just-in-time) methodology. Never ever have I boarded a train more than 5 minutes before its departure from the New Delhi Railway Station. (Sumit’s law of errr….. train boarding??? No matter how early you start, traffic on the roads conspires to make you miss your train.)

Sometimes, after stuff like this happens to me, I throw my head back, point to myself, say “You loser” and laugh loudly. (This is normally done when no one’s watching.) At other times, I shake my head sadly, look up towards the sky and sigh, “Why me?”

Anyway, so I boarded one of those cabs that ply illegally from Gurgaon to Delhi, stuffing people like birds in a coop, with the driver hell-bent on practicing for Formula I. As luck would have it, the man sitting just behind me couldn’t stay quiet for even a minute. He was rambling, and rambling, and rambling, and…. (get the picture, right?)

Then, the seat was such that we’d all be thrown forward as the driver braked, and then thrown backward as he accelerated. So, the entire journey was spent with the driver cursing other road users, none of whom seemed to have any sense whatsoever, the man in the back seat cursing/talking/shouting in some language I was unable to identify. The journey was punctuated with traffic jams caused by doting parents who tried parking as close to school gates as possible, to avoid their wards any inconvenience.

So what, if they were blocking the way for a few hundred road users waiting behind? I mean, people these days, SHEESH!! They can’t even wait 10-12 minutes, before honking. At least have some respect for family ties.

After the interminable journey, the next part was the much more comfortable Metro ride from Karol Bagh to Connaught Place (Yes, I refuse to call it Rajiv Chowk. Bah!!) and then to the New Delhi Railway Station. I rushed to the platform and found that the train hadn’t left me behind. Whew!! I waded through waves of humanity of all shapes and sizes, before reaching my seat (which incidentally was occupied by a South Indian uncleji accompanied by a motormouth teen.)

I sat there for a few minutes, willing the train to move. The gods heard me! (But, they exploited the loopholes in my wish, and the train ‘moved’ but only just.) Since the number of words the teen was speaking per minute was more than the number of metres being covered by the train in the same duration, I decided to shift to a place much more alluring.

I shifted to the middle of the chair car compartment, where the best possible company for a solitary man travelling alone was present. Having eyed the fortuitously vacant neighbouring seat, I made a lunge for it and made it. I turned to my right and smiled at the object of my affection. (Argh, you useless people! I was ogling the power socket to plug in my laptop. Duh!!)

Then, I pulled out my laptop and plugged it in, but the power socket was out. With a sigh, I settled back into my seat, and began to read ‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini. (Cry out in disbelief if you want, but yes I am a voracious reader who had not read the book till yesterday.)

Eventually, the book turned out to be the only positive of the evening. The TTE came, saw that I was not carrying a copy of my ticket, and rudely asked me to quote the PNR number, all the while muttering under his breath. I mimicked the muttering-under-the-breath bit, and gave him all the details in as surly a manner as possible. He fined me 50/- and issued me a duplicate ticket. Bah!!

I settled lower and lower into my chair, and became totally engrossed in the book. And so I stayed till the train stopped at Ambala. We reached Ambala at 1825 hours and stayed there till 1915 hours. (The 35 km track to Chandigarh is a single line, so we had to accommodate more important trains.) I made some deeply disgruntled noises and went back to reading.

“Trains! Never on time!!” said a voice, breaking into my reverie.

I looked up to see an elderly uncleji looking at me, in anticipation of a reply. I nodded at him and smiled, turning back to my book. I think he took that as a signal to continue. (Little did I realise that I had unleashed an avalanche of words upon myself.)

So, within the next 20 minutes, I got to know that the man was a Diploma holder in Mech. Engg, had been working with BRO for 30 years, had two sons, the elder one being an MBA student at some Hyderabad-based college offering MBA in agriculture and the younger one being an engineering student.

Meanwhile, the train whistled mournfully, and reluctantly moved on. Now, suddenly uncleji asked me about my background and credentials. I mentioned in passing that I just completed my MBA. His face remained blank when I mentioned my alma mater – XLRI. Then, he smiled sympathetically at me and told me that college brand is important and that’s why he only sent his sons to the ‘best’ colleges. When he asked me my specialization and I told him ‘HR’, he wanted to know what MBAs in ‘HRA’ did, and whether they were responsible for managing the HRA of employees in companies. (ARGH!!)

I tried explaining for a few minutes, but then the man had given up on me by then. Or perhaps, his attention was diverted by the train that had stopped again. (For the first time, I thanked Indian Railways for being inefficient, and Ms. Mamata Banerjee for being a nincompoop and a clod.)

I finished reading the last few pages of the book, as the train pulled into the station, and made a beeline for the exit, looking around to make sure that no uncles or any such menacing figures were chasing me. And so, having met my father who’d been abusing Ms. Mamatadi for over an hour, we got into the car and drove back home.

P.S. The book is fantastic! In fact, you shouldn’t wait till an uncle pushes you towards it on a boring train journey.

The Lost Symbol

Intrigue. Mystery. History. Deceit. Name it and the book has it. The moment you turn the first page, Dan Brown leads you on into a journey that’s fast, spell-binding and fast-paced. Mr. Brown weaves together history, legend, science and fiction into a heady mix that keeps you enthralled throughout the book.

Robert Langdon reprises himself as the scholarly professor, yet again caught in a tale of mystery and intrigue – held under the power of an unknown, dangerous man.

5 years of research weaves effortlessly into a 12-hour timeframe, as Dan Brown leads you on into a frightening world of conspiracy and murkiness. Steeped in a deep history of secrecy, the Freemason traditions and customs are brought to light in this book.

Perhaps it is not as controversial as ‘The da Vinci Code’ – which rubbed the Vatican the wrong way, but the book does evoke powerful emotions, and Freemasons will probably not be thrilled with the plot.

But overall, without divulging the story, it can be said that it is worth a read, and one of Mr. Brown’s better works. It does tend to sound like a religious sermon at places, but I guess one can skip over those portions without taking them too seriously.

Happy Reading!!

Books and Beyond…

This is not a promotional campaign for the store. It’s a tag on some of my favourite books, passed on to me by Roshmi.

 

The rules are: "Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag up to 15 friends, including me because I'm interested in seeing what books my friends choose."

 

1. Macbeth – Shakespeare’s characters are horrifyingly real. The image of Lady Macbeth trying to wash blood off her hands is a powerful metaphor.

 

2. Winning – It’s a joy to read Jack Welch’s insights into business. He avoids too much of jargon, and writes stuff that is awesomely readable. For any aspiring manager, this book ought to be one of the top-reads.

 

3. The Bartimaeus trilogy - (comprising The Amulet of Samarkand, Golem’s Eye, and Ptolemy’s Gate) This chap called Bartimaeus (henceforth called Barty) has an awesome sense of humour. Jonathan Stroud wrote this book for teens, but I think Barty’s wisecracks would have anyone in splits.

 

4. HMS Ulysses – If there’s one author whose war novels are irresistible, it is Alistair Maclean. I love the way he writes about war because you learn to not take sides. You don’t subscribe to the conventional notion of the holier-than-thou Allies and the evil Axis powers. All the killing that happens in incidental, and is almost regretted by the author. I rate this book better than ‘The Guns of Navarone’.

 

5. The Lord of the Rings – If you hadn’t guessed it already, I’m a sucker for the fantasy genre. (I guess the real world is just too brutal and ‘unreal’ sometimes.) Tolkien’s masterpiece is one of my favourites in fantasy. The entire realm of dwarves, elves, hobbits, ents, orcs, men and what not is simply magical!

 

6. Illusions – Richard Bach’s book is like a bible. Whenever in doubt, one could just flip it open, read the few insights on the page, and draw an entirely new meaning out of the words, than one did last time. Simple, flowing and poetic…

 

7. Murder on the Orient Express – The queen of crime, Agatha Christie weaves a plot that leaves one gasping for breath till the tense finale. It has to be one of THE best murder mysteries that I’ve read.

 

8. Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish – A compilation of entrepreneurship stories, by Rashmi Bansal of JamMag fame, this is an inspiration for any budding entrepreneur.

 

9. Gerrard – The autobiography of one of the best footballers of our era, and my favourite player – Steven Gerrard of Liverpool. It is awesome to read about the 2005 Champions League final and see what was going through the minds of the players as they made one of the most historic turnarounds in the history of football to win the club. You’ll never walk alone!!

 

10. Atlas Shrugged – The masterfully crafted characters, the impeccably woven storyline, hold you spellbound as you are taken in by Ayn Rand and her theory of objectivism. Wonderful reading!

 

11. Brave New World – I wrote about this book earlier, and I find the satire created by Aldous Huxley both amusing and horrifying at the same time. It is terrifying to think of the lengths to which our society goes, in order to build conformity.

 

12. To Kill a Mockingbird – This has to be one of the best books ever written. Scout is a wonderful story-teller, and all characters like Atticus, Jem, and even Boo Radley are nicely fleshed out. Fluid and subtle, this is a wonderful book.

 

13. The Tale of Two Cities – The lines ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…’ are immortal. I seriously salute Mr. Dickens for this book. I read David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Hard Times, Pickwick Papers and Great Expectations, but this book is simply incomparable. Fabulous job, Mr. Dickens! Take a bow. :)

 

14. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad writes about imperialism, the brutality heaped upon African ‘natives’, and how greed ruled the colonial powers. The horror of what man can do to another man for a few pieces of gold is shocking.

 

15. The Count of Monte Cristo – A tale of love, lust, betrayal and revenge is that this book is to me. Alexandre Dumas brings out the transformation of the innocent and naive Edmond Dante into the cold, calculating, suave Count beautifully. The best part is that he does not kill off the love Dante had for Mercedes. Even after coming back as the Count, Dante still dotes on the lovely Mercedes. In fact, Stephen King’s ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ also draws some loose parallels with this book.

 

Now, I get to decide who should be tagged for this. I choose to tag Carol, Floreta, Neha, Harshad, Himanshu, Ram, and Scriber for now. Of course, I’m supposed to tag Roshmi again. I’ll think of tagging more of you soon.

All about Books

Seeing this tag on Parul’s blog, I decided to do it too since it is about such a fun topic – books!

 

1) What author do you own the most books by?
Alistair Maclean. (I have almost all his books, except for the few that people borrowed and never bothered to return.) Stephen King comes a close second, and the master of humour, PG Wodehouse is a distant third.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
I have three copies of ‘The Guns of Navarone’ by Alistair Maclean. I thought I had lost the first one, so bought a second, and then I thought the second one has been permanently ‘borrowed’ by a ‘friend’ so bought a third one. (Of course, I was wrong both times, so ended up with three copies.)

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
No! Sentences/Questions ending in prepositions are to be ruminated upon. (Tee hee!! :D )

 
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Now that I’m confessing it here, it’s no longer secret love! But, I think Arwen from the Lord of the Rings would be one. (Maybe, it was partly because of her portrayal by Liv Tyler.)

 

5) What book have you read the most times in your life?
’Gerrard’ by Liverpool captain, Steven Gerrard. It is his story, as told by him. And when I read the part about the 2005 Champions League final against AC Milan, I just can’t stop the tears. Truly inspirational!

 

A close second would be HMS Ulysses. (Another Alistair Maclean book) The way he writes about World War II is such that you can’t take sides – the Axis power vs. the Allied powers. You learn to just hate war and the misery it brings.

 

And yet another would be ‘Illusions’ by Richard Bach. I think that book gives me answers to all the questions that keep cropping up in my life. Each time I read it, when I face a tough spot, and each time, it gives me some new meaning to life.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
The Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene. (I think I had a crush on Nancy.)

 
7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
’The Three Mistakes of my Life’ by Chetan Bhagat. (On the positive side, it’s a very encouraging book. If Mr. Bhagat can write such tripe and get published, then O discerning readers, here I come with my tales to tell! :) )

 
8) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.

9) If you could force everyone to read one book, what would it be?
’Running from Safety’ by Richard Bach. That book talks about how we kill the kid inside each one of us just because we want to appear ‘grown-up’.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
Tough call… I haven’t really been following the latest authors.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
’Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less’ by Jeffrey Archer. I thought it was fast-paced, devious, and funny!

 
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Chetan Bhagat books. ‘Hello’ was a disaster, and actually competed strongly with the book -  One Night at a Call Center in terms of ridiculousness quotient. (That’s my ‘metric’ for defining how ridiculous something is.)

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I dreamt of myself as the highwayman from Alfred Noyes’ beautiful poem ‘The Highwayman’ and rescued the innkeeper’s daughter Bess, from the clutches of the Royal Guard. :)

14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
The Bourne Legacy by Lustbader. (It is a continuation of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series, after Ludlum’s death by a useless creature called Lustbader. After reading this, you will understand that Indian movies with those clichéd concepts are unnecessarily reviled.)

15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Ahem… a book on Corporate Finance in the last term.

 
16) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare, of course.

17) Austen or Eliot?
Tough call… but Austen, probably.

 
18) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth.

 
19) What is your favorite novel?
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. (I think the opening quote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” is applicable to many situations in life.)

 
20) Play?
Macbeth! (Julius Caesar comes a close second, followed by some of Oscar Wilde’s plays.)

21) Short story?
The face on the wall by E.V. Lucas, almost anything by Saki, O Henry, or Anton Chekhov.

22) Work of non-fiction?
Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish – a compilation of entrepreneurial success stories by Rashmi Bansal.

 

23) Who is your favourite writer?
I can’t name just one. It would depend on the genre. For example:

fantasy – Tolkien

horror – Stephen King

romance – Eric Segal

thriller – Robert Ludlum

Of course, we could go on. :)

Brave New World

I just finished reading this awesome book called ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley. One of the most amazing social satires I have read, the book was written nearly 7 decades ago, but the situations it describes are still the same.

 

Without giving away too many plot details, let me try explaining what it talks about.

 

It talks about a society in the future, which has evolved from the way our ‘primitive’ society is today. There are various social classes – Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. Mankind has devised ways to generate upto 96 humans from one embryo itself. Hence, the lower classes are ‘batch produced’ to ensure that mechanical jobs are performed by absolutely similar people.

 

Also, to ensure that they have the same mental make-up, the children are subjected to Pavlovian conditioning, and hypnotic treatments. Consequently, after a speeded up aging process, voila! Humans are ready. Since the model of operation is like that of an assembly line, the society doesn’t believe in GOD. However, they do believe in the father of assembly line production – FORD! Therefore, they worship ‘Our Ford’.

 

There are no ‘parents’ because the mode of reproduction is asexual. Humans have heterosexual sex, but purely for entertainment. Society encourages promiscuity, and having just one partner is frowned upon. It is taboo to talk about marriage or pregnancy.

 

Obviously, since people are trained/conditioned for only one kind of job, there is no wish to switch. So, it’s a stable society. People are not supposed to spend time with themselves. They have to be part of a social group. They can either be in bed with a partner of their choice, or participate in ‘religious’ ceremonies, that involve consumption of an intoxicating drink called ‘soma’ followed by an orgy.

 

Seems like a utopian society, right? It probably would’ve been, except for the presence of one man, who is a non-conformist. Because of his shorter stature, which is equated with lower classes, his high-class compatriots consider him an outcast. He takes the woman he ‘loves’, on a trip to a ‘savage’ colony, and brings back two of the savages.

 

Because of this feat, he now basks in glory, and ends up being a changed man.

 

I think I should stop here, and let you experience the story for yourself. The ‘social conditioning’ part made me wonder – are we not being conditioned to be clones? Any kind of classroom education that we have, typically refuses to consider individual differences, and believes that since the input being provided is uniform, the output should be uniform too. Aren’t we being trained to become conformists?

 

And don’t we create artificial social classes, based on our own whims and fancies? Don’t we try to condition people around us? Hence, I found the book pretty relevant.

 

Irrespective of whether you’ve read the book or not, I’d surely like you to express your views about these questions.