Vayam Rakshamah by Acharya Chatursen

After reading "Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu" this was the book I was looking forward to.

Acharya Chatursen said it in the preface that "मेरे हृदय और मस्तिष्क में भावों और विचारों की जो आधी शताब्दी की अर्जित प्रज्ञा-पूंजी थी, उन सबको मैंने ‘वयं रक्षाम:’ में झोंक दिया है। अब मेरे पास कुछ नहीं है। लुटा-पिटा-सा, ठगा-सा श्रान्त-कलान्त बैठा हूं। चाहती हूं-अब विश्राम मिले। चिर न सही, अचिर ही। परन्तु यह हवा में उड़ने का युग है।"

This summarises he gave all that he knew, believed or understood to this book. This book openly tells us how the life had been in those days. The book is so open that people may feel ashamed of hearing such things or wouldn't believe it at all because that is the easy way out.

The whole narration goes around Ravan who was a marked villain in the epic Ramayan. There had been different views on how Ravan was, in fact it is a long pending discussion across cultures who portray Ravan in different characteristics.

This book portrays Ravan as a young man full of ambition, challenging all the orthodaox rituals, and creating a society on equality which apparently doesn't go very well with the existing rulers/gods.

The whole plot is so thoroughly researched and there are so many citations from the ancient scriptures that this can easily qualify for a thesis.

This is not a book for closed minds. If you're willing enough to accept or at least listen to the things that obviously may not be very pleasant earlier, than this book is for you otherwise it can hurt your sentiments very easily withing very first few pages.

Peace

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson

There are times in life when you realise that you could have avoided doing something. Reading this book was one of them for me.

The title was so catchy that I didn't try to find much about the author. As a rule of thumb I don't read other's review before picking a book but sometimes I go for a check on author. I so missed it here because I'm stuck with another point that I don't leave the books in the middle irrespective of my opinion.

Personally, I'm against any type of self help or motivational books. I believe that there are a lot of people who might have been benefited from such readings but I don't fall in those cases.

So, I'll say don't waste time on this book. If you've a problem, all you need to do is find a solution or at least start searching for it. Reading such book is not really going to help much.

Vaishali Ki Nagarvadhu by Acharya Chatursen

This one is a historical book around the time when Buddhism was expanding it's reach.

This is said to be the best book from Acharya Chatursen.

I read it in Hindi, and again it felt like long lost language has come back. But I must say that it was a great read.

The whole story revolves around the power conflicts around that era. It openly talks about the bad rituals in the society which were harming it's stability, and fairness.

Since the whole narrative is weaved around that era a lot of things has been assumed or directly taken from the scriptures but this should be fine as long as we're treating it as a story, and not really taking it word by word.

It was not a quick read since I was reading in Hindi after a long time since Mrityunjay. Planning to take Hindi books more frequently, and the next in line is "Vayam Rakshamah" from the Acharya Chatursen again.

Love

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

I was thinking of reading this from quite some time now, and I picked it up last month.

To start with it's a quick read, and didn't take much time.

Like you might have heard of this being famous in teenagers who connect with it's theme of teenage rebellion, and complexity of thoughts in that age.

I must say that I'm way past the teenage, and this can be reason why I couldn't connect with it very well.

However, I'll like to add that the whole narrative was incoherent, plots were lost, and finally you don't feel the completion in the whole narrative. I don't know if this incompletion is by choice or otherwise but it does leave you lost.

I don't really recommend this even it being a quick read because this is something which is blown out of proportion. It doesn't offer anything for thought or even fun read. Somebody who wants to read about teenagers can pick something else but this book for that matter.

Peace

Mrityunjaya by Shivaji Sawant

This is one of the books which I read in a hardcopy and not an ebook. I heard a lot about this book and finally ordered it to take a break from ebooks.

And I'm glad that I did order it. It is a great book which is an autobiography of Karn (from Mahabharat), and I believe if Karn might have written it himself, he'd have written more or less on similar lines.

Mahabharat is such an epic that every single character can have a book on his/her story. In fact, a lot of such books are in the market but it's a bit difficult to bring something new on table.

So here was this book, and I was able to finish in three odd weeks (given the size it was a bit faster, on top of it I read in Hindi).

The book is full of philosophy, musings, thoughts etc. And the best part is that the author has not dedicated a lot of pages to mere description of characters. The book is full of narration without missing the plot.

Since I've read the story of Mahabharat a lot many times, and I was aware how the things going to end. However, I was looking for a new point of view, and this book didn't disappoint.

Amazing book, and a must read irrespective of your taste for mythological stories or not.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

To start with I want to say that this book is pretty boring. It is full of descriptions of visiting places/sites/museums, and interviewing people. And further putting it all together in not so coherent narrative.

I believe that being a journalist Elizabeth missed a lot of points which should have been provided as facts, and not just passing on remarks from the researchers she interviewed. I'm not really degrading the efforts but what I'm trying to say is that this could have been much better with a good researcher as a co-author.

The very reason I picked this book was the title, and it didn't do justice to the book.

Anyways, the book gives good examples of how the species are getting extinct around us along with the possible causes. The book has a lot of scientific jargon, and may sound difficult for a reader with non-science background.

Overall, the book is a good start if you're interested in how the current conditions climatic or otherwise can lead to the next wave of mass extinction, and probably this time humans will be on the receiving side. The book definitely ends on a positive note for all of us.

The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It Every Time by Maria Konnikova

What is the oldest profession in the world? Some say religion, others go with prostitution. This book says it was the confidence game.

I'm not sure which one is the oldest because I'm not really an archaeologist, and I'm not getting to delve on this point.

But what this book makes me think that en-cashing others' hopes, beliefs, fallacies etc is something a con man does. And falling for a con is a human tendency. Humans are naturally programmed to trust others, and have hopes. We all want to have better future and anybody/anything that promises it can win us.

The book has lots of cases to quote from small time cons to large business scams, and overall it's a good read.

It doesn't equip you to identify a scam but next time you'll know what it was that made you fall for it.

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

I'll accept the fact that the reason for choosing this novel was because of it's winning the Man Booker.

It was a quick read, but it left a lasting impression for sure.

This is a story of an African-American kid grown up in a ghetto near LA.

I had heard about the racial crime, and people's attitude towards the people of colour but this was a real eye opener. Acceptance is a problem but the bigger problem is that we don't want to let the people be. People who can do great in their lives, end up fighting the biases against themselves.

This is definitely a great read, not because it won Booker but it helps us understand that there are people who are not treated equally, and the reason can be anything from colour, religious beliefs, societal status etc.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

So this was a quick read.

The book is about a young boy Charlie who doesn't have any idea of what is happening around. But he also portrayed like a super genius who reads a lot, listen to lot of bands, and understanding a lot of things which even the more mature guys don't.

Did I mention that he is a crying baby too?

I know there are some takers for this kind of narratives, and there are good chances for a adolescent person to identify with Charlie. We may have those lows in our life but that is just a phase. Charlie seems to be stuck in it like forever.

I think this is not a great book but if you think that you can't be influenced by pseudo emotional content which tries too hard to make you cry than this book is for you.

For others even if you read it you'll get over it by the Epilogue.

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens

I'll not call it a book in the first place. It is about 100 page long essay, and not really a book.

The author of this book is already famous for criticising famous personalities around the world. He seems to be always going against anything which looks large than life.

This book is on Saint Teresa, and how she was a friend of rich people (rich by wrong ways), and poverty (not the poor). This book shows her in bad light, and there were some instances which are so logical that you can't either answer them or doge them.

There are multiple such instances where she put the wrong foot forward. She had her beliefs against  birth control, convert to Christianity, and poverty etc but that doesn't undermine her efforts.

I'm sure the donations received could have been put to a better use, but unfortunately there was no such account maintained so nobody knew how much money they had.

But one thing I'm totally against it that nobody can decide how others should behave/expect when they are on wrong side of luck. A sick person needs medication. Provide it if you can or just stay away.

Finally, it's a quick read, and definitely gives you a different perspective about the "Saint". Read it for that irrespective of your leanings.

The Thirteenth Tribe by Arthur Koestler

Again a book picked just out of curiosity. When I started with this book I was not really award about the content. I was expecting it to be a book about the history of some lost civilisation.

However, that is not the case. The book is about a theory which says that the Ashkenazi Jews were not a part of historical Jewish lineage but a different civilisation (or state/nation) altogether which eventually accepted Judaism.

The book is full of quotation and references for reaching to a particular conclusion. But somehow the writer was already under the influence of the conclusion, and the whole book was reverse engineered to fit the things.

I'm not an expert in such matters so I'll not talk about how correct the references are or even the conclusion is correct or not.

But from a reader point of view I can say that the whole narrative is not very much structured. A lot of things popped up in between without any previous reference.

Overall, the book was not really that great, and you can give it a pass until you're very much interested in exploring various theories around different religions, and civilisations. 

Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr

I picked this book out of curiosity about the content it could have, and I must say that I was not disappointed.

The book talks about the journey of swearing (abuses and otherwise). It draws a picture that how the obscenities have developed in the society over a period of time.

It gives a lot of example of living conditions and social acceptance (or taboo) of a particular time and how the obscenities grew in those conditions.

One thing which I took from this book was that all the things which were taboo ended up being a swear world, which involved from God to body excrete or various body parts. Over a period of time even the sexual preference became a taboo and being considered as an obscenity.

Cast, colour, creed, class etc also became the swearing words give the social condition over a period of time.

I also noted that the author quotes that swearing give way to the frustration of a person and the magnitude is defined as which condition that person is going through.

I understand that swearing doesn't go well with the society, and considered a bad thing but this is an imperative part of the social fabric. It does change over different times, and the single source is what is taboo (or considered abnormal) for the society at that point of time.

Small and quick read.

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

I've no idea how I ended up with this book but after completing it I realised it was not really a bad choice. I've seen worse.

So the book is about the experiences of a curious journalist who went to cover an event of memory championship, and being fascinated by it participated in it next year. He actually ended up winning the event too.

The whole book looks like notes on how he prepared and his experiences during that time.

Joshua emphasises a lot on how we've forgotten the art of memorising, and more prone to rote learning. There are historical references of how memory was an integral part of the whole learning process.

He is of the thought that with some basic practices and exercises anybody can boost their memory. A lot of times author sounds a lot rational but many at times he over did it in pushing the point.

I totally agree with him that given the technological advances we've stopped memorising a lot of things but I never thought that this is the main skill of learning. I'm actually of the thought that after forgetting what you read, whatever remains is a learning. It is not really memorising something word by word with some recommended techniques.

I don't have a very good memory but I think that from all the books that I read I don't remember all the characters and plots. It makes me feel bad sometimes but I also go back to my favourite books and not because I forgot it but I wanted to go through it again for the pleasure of reading it.

Anyways you take a call on what you want a great memory or you are fine with all that you remember. But the books is a light read and you can even finish it fast.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

This was again a big one and the author was the reason I wanted to read it after completing The Penelopiad by her.

This is a historical fiction which revolves around a real person named Grace who was convicted of a murder. The author has added a lot of fictional characters and details to make it look like a story.

Grace was sentenced to life imprisonment, and the narration goes in detail about her madness and asylum days.

The novel is written in a very engaging style however, I lost a lot of things due to force fitting the narration of weather, and the scene. I strongly believe that a lot could have been omitted in editing as it was unnecessarily adding to the pages without delivering any affect.

As far as characters are concerned there was a confusion over the whole narration as it was told differently by different characters. It never tried to claim her crime or innocence which was very vague. But ultimately it was not expected to be crime novel.

Finally, it is not highly recommended because if you are unable to read it you're not missing much, until and unless you're very much prone to fall for anything which has Booker nomination tagged with it.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

So here is another one with logical reasoning to it by Dawkins. The last one I read was The God Delusion. Anyways, this was the book which motivated me to read other books by Dawkins.

I'm not very sure about the book. First thing was that I was not aware of a lot of biological/botanical terms mentioned even when the explanation was very easy. So this was a bit tough read in that sense but there were definitely some light moments :)

My second thought is that the whole idea of gene supremacy was so over served that it actually sounded fiction. As I mentioned earlier that I am not a subject matter expert here but still the whole narration was so gene centric that it was not convincing enough.

I understood that gene is responsible for how species evolve but the examples are so selective and put forward in such a way that it forcefully tries to drive the point which should have come naturally. So as far as logic and reasoning is concerned this one stands nowhere when compared with God Delusion. A reader is more than willing to receive new thoughts but you can't push a point beyond a limit.

Another thing which I'll like to add here is that all the examples and phenomena mentioned in the book added a lot to my understanding about life of different species e.g. bees.

This is a good read but most of the people who don't have patience for the going through the initial thought set up will find it boring.

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

So, I stumbled upon this book while searching for the Booker prize winners. I found the name of Margaret Atwood who is very popular as a poet and novelist. I was planning to read the other novel by her first which is "The Handmaid's Tale" but I'm going to keep it for later.

I'll also like to add that this is not a full fledged novel but a short novel or a long story as you can call it. Technically, they call it novella. I realized this in the middle of my reading because I was through with half of the book in like an hour. This is a problem with reading ebooks that sometimes you don't know how long this is going to be because I don't count the number of pages. Though, I thought I could have when I was reading my previous book "The Hindus".

Any ways, the book is not really a story but it is a narrative from Penelope's point of view who was the wife of Odysseus. I hope you are able to connect it with Odyssey. The narrative revolves around the twelve maids of Penelope and how they were hanged in the end without any proper reason. There is a whole reasoning of disloyalty etc in Odyssey but here it is given from Penelope's point of view.

There was no sequel of Odyssey which glorifies the female characters so this one is from a woman for a woman.

The whole story is around what all Penelope had gone through during the absence of Odysseus. It's rendered beautifully and it raises the question of freedom that a woman has versus a freedom that a man enjoys. Odysseus was gone for long years for Trojan war and he has a long list of adventures after that with witches, ogres and gods. Odyssey has details of his sleeping in the arms of beautiful maidens and goddesses but when he comes back after all these years first thing he was worried about was the chastity of his wife.

Why the whole epic glorifies his relations with other woman but very conservative about the conduct of Penelope? She doesn't have the freedom to do what she wants to do. If she does she will be labelled as a whore. May be she would have been hanged or brutally killed for that. Why chastity is a woman's virtue and she is judged on this scale so rigidly with zero tolerance?

There were no times when a woman was really glorified. We may find some deviations but they will be very rare. They are so rare that you can count them on fingers.

The saddest part is that there is no change in this perception of a woman, she is either objectified (like the maidens of Odyssey whom the Odysseus enjoys) or scrutinized for her loyalty/chastity/whatever-makes-a-man-feel-better.

I hope that one day we all have the freedom to live with dignity and make the choices that we want to make and do not follow what others have decided for us.

This is a pretty good read and it questions the very mindset of a society.

The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger

This is the book which took me about four months to finish and the credit goes to my latest muse a 30 inch long bamboo flute. I never gave up reading for anything but this was just out of this world.

Anyway, I finally finished this book and I have mixed feelings about it.

I'll start with reason why I started reading it in the first place, and the one word for it is "controversy". When I heard of it being taken back by publisher I was curious to know what objectionable content does this book has.

Now, the question is what I think about it. Most important point is that it doesn't have anything objectionable. It is a plain factual (there are some facts and some mythology) book which dwells upon a lot of points but doesn't establish a single one of them. I believe this is by choice of author and not because she lost the plot in between. Second thing is that the questions raised in the book have been raised many times earlier from different people, and we all can discuss over it all our lifetime without reaching a conclusion as why a particular thing was said or done.

The most important factor is that we move on. We move on with a new knowledge from our past. Something which makes us proud and humble together. We acknowledge what others have said and done with a freedom of agree to disagree.

We may not agree to everything but that doesn't mean that everything which is against our conventional wisdom is untrue,

I believe there was always a trend to raise the non reason-ability in various religions, conventions and institutions. All we need is just a rationality to understand the thoughts without any bias.

Finally, this book is a good read but don't read it just for the controversy it created (like I started reading it) but to see a different face of religion and culture in India, Specially, there are a lot of anecdotes which you may find funny or bizarre. This girl (she is 75 year young) spent five decades of her life to learn Indian culture, and she is worth listening.

Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire by Alex von Tunzelmann

This is a big book with around 450 pages. It took 12 hours to finish it.

The only reason this book got my curiosity was that it was on the theme of partition but I realized that there was a lot around Nehru and Edwina. When writing a book around such theme it depends on writer how much space she wants to give to something which may not be tasteful for a lot of people. And I'm glad that all the instances mentioned here between Nehru and Edwina never sounded scandalous.

The book is well searched as there is a reference for almost any quotation or figure mentioned. In fact, it gives a subjective review of what was happening during the final stage of India's freedom struggle.

On thing which I goes against it that a lot of times the book was filled with a lot of details which could have been avoided by giving shorter description to the point. But this depends on the style of author, and since I haven't read any other book by her I can't really comment on it.

This book definitely sound balanced because during the whole narration it never felt like it is biased in favour of anybody be it India or the British. I'm glad that it actually added a lot to my understanding of India's freedom fight, and circumstances in which a few decisions were taken or not taken.

For the readers I'll say that you need patience to finish this book. But it is definitely a good read.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

This is a big book, and be sure that you can't just run through the pages. The book is a running commentary which starts from human evolution and ends up with the latest developments in science and society.

Yuval is an Israeli professor of history and he mentioned that Guns, Gems, and Steel is the main inspiration behind this book.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is on my list since last 3 years but didn't really started it. I had a thought of reading it but I was not very sure if history is something which I'm ready to go into.

Anyways I finished Sapiens and it took some 11 hours over the last two weeks.

This book left a lasting impression on me as it unfolded how the things developed along the human evolution. There are a lot of instances which are more like an educated guess and not a proven fact but given the citing you may end up agreeing with a lot of them.

The human evolution resulted in the extinction of lot of other species. I couldn't have agreed more because there was a recent study which showed that during the British Raj 75% of lions were killed in the name of entertainment during their hunting expeditions. We may cry for dwindling number of lions but deep down we know that we're responsible for this destruction. The natural habitat of so many animals and birds have been destroyed in the name of development.

Along with the evolution the book touched various subjects around religion, social norms, biology, anthropology, and economics.

I specially liked the story of evolution of credit, money and religion which is spun around myths, and a common belief in those myths.

I wish that we all could have seen beyond the myths which are around us. These myths in which we don't believe but still follow.

Just wanted to quote "Consumerism tell us that in order to be happy we must consume as many products and services as possible. If you feel that something is missing in life, go shopping".

This book is a must read if you want to know how things evolved and we as a human have done so many wrong things in name of development and so called "civilization".

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

This is another novel which I read after reading about the author.

I never heard of Sylvia Plath but somehow her information showed up when I was searching for some other piece. I immediately checked the Wiki link, and decided to take this up next.

This is a small book, and I completed it pretty quickly.

The book is a good read as it is a semi-autobiographical novel. The whole story revolves around the thoughts and experiences of Esther, and doesn't boast of a conversationalist style that novels generally have. There is no plot as the whole narrative doesn't fit as a story, and should be treated like a personal diary or a journal of a mature person who looks at the world from a different lens.

I believe there are some people in this world who are so amazing, and they have an entirely different view of looking at things. It is sad that sometimes they are so driven by their own thoughts that they don't realize that their being present makes this world a better place.

I hope Sylvia could have written more, and we've definitely

I just couldn't complete this piece without mentioning her poem "Mad Girl's Love Song" because this can be written only by a person who is in perfect sense, and so sensitive to everything happening around her/him. Here is the poem:

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I'm not a big fan of poems but I'm going to remember this one forever.

Love