The edge of desire by Tuhin A Sinha

Rs 150 (got it for 105 from flipkart.com)
Fiction

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Its a tale of Shruthi Ranjan who leaves Delhi  resigning her job as a journalist discovering her boy friend with a common friend..She is utterly devasted at the indifference of her boyfriend's attitude..Living with her parents she is subjected to constant pressure of marriage ,enters Rohit Verma, Deputy commissoner of Kishanganj in Bihar..Lawless is in every aspect of life in Kishanganj..Her life turns upside down when she is raped and justice is denied ..When justice is nearly denied she grabs the oppurtunity provided by Sharad Malviya Charismatic politician to become an elected member of Lok sabha to fight her case..What follows is the roller coaster ride of Shruthi life  where is a constant subject of mockery that even earns her the name Draupadi..

The subject  and the treatment of the story-line is so good that the you start to admire the protagonist Shruthi..Shruthi is a strong, straight-forward and a girl next door whose fate gives little choice to remain so making her shrewd, ambitious and politically correct personality..This novel explores every aspect of Indian politics and the so called democracy that is at stake..The kind of experience that shruthi goes through is an everyday news that we come across in new paper  so often that nobody is surprised by them .Its as though they have all  become a part of life ..In spite of all these reading the book one can feel the emotional trauma that Shruthi is subjected to.. At one point life itself turns unfair to her not letting her do what she desires but life itself takes her in its flow..She is all by herself to deal with things with no backup from her family or her friends...She finds strength in herself and from enigmatic Sharad Malviya..

Time and again as per plot characters are put in reference to the characters in epic of Mahabharata, Ramayana and other famous personalities of India like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru..When Shruthi is being dragged into every newspaper portraying as a girl with no moral values rather than sympathizing with her situation , anger , anger and more anger is what I felt at the media judiciary and the people of society.. Every time she had go through this and her family too not sparing her I felt she was raped more than what she had to undergo during her physical abuse ...

The book is  fast paced that blows on to a  full toss as it ends..Overdose of politics is the best part of it..The apt portrayal of a woman's struggle in all man's territory couldn't have been better told..I shared my part of surprise and wonder with Shruthi, when she was offered a seat to contest election.. I wondered  Lok sabha ticket for being raped!!!

Tuhin Sinha is quiet different from other Indian writer and thats the best and refreshing part of his writing ..He has indeed niche a mark for himself..The topic is boiling and explosive and  justice has been done to it..The honestly of the state of the country and people where a relationship between a man and woman is most often  blown out of proportion for wrong reasons is highlighted well...Yes of course you may not read it over and over but its worth for that single read leaving Shruthi in you mind for sometime...

The black Swan : The Impact of the highly improbale by Nassim Taleb

 Price 399 (got it for Rs 279 from Flipkart.com)
                                 Non-fiction

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Before the discovery of Australia  every one around the globe thought that all swans where black, but then they  realised the existence of Black swans everyone was took by surprises and now  their number has steadily...  Essence of the book is the bottom line of uncertainty and its done and he is pundit to to it form different vantage...
Our mind is used to witness the usual not the unexpected, and these unexpected events are the one that has extreme  effect upon us...  Unexpected events like Hitler rise and war, dissemination of Soviet union now on 9/11 is one such event.. That essentially is what the book deals with ...But this book was a difficult read for me as I had to google certain theories time and again ... Major part deals with  distinguishing and explanations between Mediocristan and Extremistan..The book is divided into three parts..If you don't understand well he helps us with examples of famous names.. Mediocristan is the regular guy whose earning is proportional to his work done that moves in Guassian Distribution (I told you  I had to brush up my basics of school) with a bell curve.While extremistan are those of celebrities such as J.K Rowling, book authors and rock stars who earn more beyond their proportion of work and energy spent, he puts certain cases also into extremistain that of the black Monday and Tuesday when the stock crashed in 1987 that resulted in 22% decline of US stock market..For a technically ignorant person like me it was real enlightening but a heavy dose of book..
He quotes several anecdotes from the lives of many scholars who are not famous..There is an amusing tale of a turkey..Turkey lives in a fantasy thinking that its life is great having been well fed for almost thousand days, but its only on the 1001 day it fatally realises that the farmer is going to cut its head out, and that precisely how we live under the wrong impression that everything is well unless we are hit with the reality..Black swan events are the ones that are rare and difficult to predict in all fields such as science, finance and mathematics.. These events might be good or bad...
He advice to invest 85% of the investment on very safe T-Bills and then use the rest of 15% on high risk but high payoff devices and make adjustments as per once ability to take risk..At times I felt the book to be repetitive..His work is scholarly 19 pages of notes and 18 pages of bibliography explains it..He boldly comes across with the pitfalls of many statistical data which according him were meant to fail than help in extreme situation..I don't think the book will go down well with the management experts, statistician and academicians..
Taleb (he calls himself NNT) puts  that the success of a author is when a reader reread him work, to me to get to know certain facet of his vantage I indeed had to reread...
the quotes that I loved are:
"What matters is not how often you are right , but how large you're cumulative errors are.."


"Problem with expert is that they don't know what they don't know.."


"Information is bad for knowledge..Worry less about embarrassment rather than missing an opportunity.".

Go for the book If you are looking for an unusual hard subject...

Eleven minutes by Paulo Coelho

Its a daring novel of Maria ,whose is heart broken at a very young age by the relationships she was on to thus concluding that she'll never find true love..Right from when she was eleven her beauty was adored but nobody wanted to embrace the girl in her..This book is about discovering fantasy called sex through Maria's character..She is a paradigmatic girl whose journey took her through love,lust, betrayal,confusion, attraction by the men she was involved..She never had a steady relationship always ended up being betrayed ..Her past gives her courage to follow completely different path breaking rules of society's confinement..This makes her travel seeking knowledge building a window to her inner self, from Brazilian village  to Rio to Switzerland.. In search of fame and wealth unfortunately ending up as a prostitute..In Switzerland she is given with a choice to go back home or to become high class prostitute  and she chose the latter.. But when he meets handsome painter Ralf and as love blooms its turns out to be her battle to fight between desire and life there by true love..Ralf sees the light in her beyond the mask of a prostitute...
This book ventures upon prejudice on sex dealing things philosophically and through simple dialogues between Maria and intellectual Ralf  ..Maria's character is  not of a girl who becomes a prostitute by fate that earns her sympathy but she comes one by choice somehow puzzles the reader yet I couldn't get to hate her only like her more as the story culminates..
Best part of novel is that author speaks from a prostitute's point, her desire her wish to seek knowledge , wanting to travel more and learn things are amazingly portrayed.. This is something unexpected from an author of a book like Alchemist.. Love sex, desire all three are completely dissected and well placed completely , that nothing feels overdone..Difference between the sacredness of sex and masochism is neatly built on..The treatment of the subject is different and refreshing so is the beginning of the novel.."Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria. Wait a minute. "Once upon a time" is how all the best children's stories begin and "prostitute" is a word for adults. How can I start with this apparent contradiction? Author has differentiated sex from love making and tells that when involved with the right man with all love a girl feel her divine self..The novel uncovers about human body its desires and need in simplicity and elegance..

Does he know a mother's heart by Arun Shourie

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Does god exists? If yes, does he care..This book is to anyone who has confronted with this question in life..Its an all personal quest of spiritual exploration of Arun Shourie ...The following excerpt is going to be long but its well done..This book is to all who have confronted with the omnipresence of god and his way of trialing mortal souls like us ...
"Your neighbous have  ason.. he is now thirty-five year old..Going by his age you would think of him as a young man , and ,on meeting his mother or father ,would ask,almost out of habit, 'And what does the young man do?' That expression,'young man',doesn't sot well as he is but a child.He cannot walk ,Indeed, he cannot stand. He cannot use his right arm. He can see only his left. His hearing is sharp, as his memory. But he speaks only syllable by syllable...The father shouts at him.. He curses him:'You are the one who brought misery into our home... We know no trouble till you came.Look at you-weak,dependent,drooling ,good for nothing..' Nor does the father stop at shouting at the child, at pouring abuse at him, at cursing the child. He beats him.He thrashes him black and blue..As others in the family try to save the child from the father's rage, he leaps at them.Curses them, hits out at them.What would you think about the damned father? Wouldn't you report him to police or some such authority that can lock him up?Wouldn't you try everything you can to remove the child from the reach of the father? But what if the father is The Father- the 'T' and 'F' capital .both word italicized? That is what is the 'father' in question is 'God'?Why so the reaction and answer change for so many of us?" (Page 1)
I read the above from an exclusive excerpt and ordered my copy right away...

Shourie is stunned beyond horizon when he learns about his son's cerebral palsy as a result of insufficient oxygen in incubator few days after his premature birth.. He is perplexed about his son's suffering and future of the family..Like all he is confronts the cliche question, WHY ME? It's been thirty four years with his son Adit who doesn't have an independent life; worst he can't carry any of his basic chores of life, adding to the anguish, his wife Anita has been diagonised with Parkinson's disease..
This book tears you apart several times through his personal journey fathering a child with cerebral palsy, his heart felt worry of  future about his only son as he himself is stepping onto old age..His love for his son is evident in every word that he pens down.. He describes spirit of his son that inspires to be the person he is through many anecdotes,one which readily comes to my mind is when Adit fell off wheelchair as the caretaker forgot to cling the seat belt that left him hurt  with two frontal teeth knocked off, at the dentist's inspite of all the pain Adit called him close blowing kiss that leaves the doctor stunned..His wife's courage, is another startling point , her support and love to keep him afloat through all these years of life is beautifully portrayed where in spite of Parkinson's gruesome clutch been able to support him all through taking care of the house letting Shourie all time for work...But unlike other he has been able to set his personal trauma aside in later part of the chapters  to reason out things logically and justify his point completely..He describes that his son has taught many things in life, like finding happiness in simple things, non-attachment, living life for  the moment, sense of gratitude etc etc...According to him, even with Adit's mental state his son is quite lucky to be surrounded with all love and joy ..

Through all these odyssey he pondered upon all religion's unfailingly teaching that god is merciful and not even a leaf moves without his will. If so  why there are so much suffering around the globe..He quotes from bible about Abraham,God tested Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his son Isaac, but God spared him when Abraham indeed was all set for the sacrifice for a ram instead..bible says that this a Abraham's faith is a perfect example of faith , affirming that the promises God made to Abraham extends to all who believe in him...He questions the discrepancies of all religion's anomaly to sufferings ..In Hindu religion everything is connected to 'karma' one's sins  in the past birth.For Shourie "Karma is a convenient fiction" ..There's no credenda of heaven for innocent, but he sees laughter for sinners then asks why so? When Christianity believes that the whole world is the result of bad deeds of adam disobeying him, why all the innocents thereafter are condemned?? Islam promises life for eternity and death is a journey to god if that's the case what about a spastic ???

He says all religion for that matter are self contradictory this time ... Every aspect is thoroughly researched at times, glimpses of  personal anguish sparkles throughout...Oddity of religious preaching and theory is questioned through many examples from bible to Quran to Gita ..Shourie has also borrowed many phrases and philosophies of many writers and thinkers to build up his own vantage..In Hindu religion where everything good and bad is attached to karma which Shourie aptly borrows from the quote of PV Kane that "our sense of fairness and justice would be shocked by the inequalities in the world"  which implies that linking every deed and it consequences to karma is an intelligent and creative invention..

He quotes Gandhi  that  a child is subjected to pain so that parents learn about demure and kindness but Shourie questions., to start with why all pain upon the an innocent child ,that too by a God who is supposed to be all merciful..If the child's suffering is by the karma of his past then it was God's plan to make him do all that..Now why blame the boy..He adds ,when a plane crashes,how can God be cruel  killing all 300 on board  except for a 5year old..He comes with the logical reasoning why to complement good things to his mercy and the bad upon the person himself..

He says borrowing from Buddhist philosophy that sufferings are the basic truth of life which one cannot escape..To overcome this one should conquer his prejudice and the cultural upbringing and the myth about god and world..

I am sure no parent can get used a child's sufferings, it only goes over and over gain, living through this  is the most difficult thing a parent live by ...I feel this is what made him write on all this. All the confusions and question, frustrations he was confronted with made him question  every thing that included life and fate..This indeed formed the very essence of this book, which would help emotionally  any one who is onto such situation every single day of life, or anyone who has compassion in one's heart...His vivacity for religion and spiritual life is based on his own experiences..He says Buddhism doesn't require belief in god but belief in life and that seems to be convincing to Shourie than any other religion... He quotes from Andre comte-Sponville that "The belief in God is so strikingly congruent with our longings that it seems to be invented to fulfill them." Humans created God rather than vice verse..He argues that people should learn to accept what ever circumstances they are onto and react to things in a matured way rather running up and down in haste cursing life,god and fate...And that's exactly what he does in his own life, he takes his son everywhere with full pride and not hiding him away from society and living with hope and love than worrying about the future...

The alchemist by Paulo Coelho

First thing I did was look into dictionary for the meaning yes you would have come across in your school  but alas as you get older your memory fades of course..lol..Alchemy means the transformation of metal to gold by nature it is a philosophical tradition related with intellectual power from time immemorial..

Every time  Santiago sleeps under sycamore tree, he is troubled by a dream where a child tries to show him a hidden treasure near pyramid...He goes to a gypsy woman to interpret his dream , she asks him to set on the journey to pursue his dream..Thus begins his journey that transcends places right from his home in Spain to lively Tangeries's market and finally to desert in Egypt where his destiny awaits him...
Though Santiago's parents sent him to school to study language and religion he chooses to become a shepherd that would match his aptitude of curiosity travelling far and wide learning things on his own...In course of the journey he  meets Fatima a beautiful maid falling in love she encourages him to pursue his dream as he is hit by dilemma between his destiny and love...He once even loses all money that forces him to work in a carpet shop in Tangeries ,but he turns out to be the lucky charm.. His ideas slowly transforms the business into profit from loss, he runs on to Englishmen who are in search of a universal language..Finally he moves to desert in Egypt where he encounters the Alchemist.....Among all the characters Santiago get to meet, the golden one is of course the alchemist who has discovered the secret about philosopher's stone...

Santiago's character is that of a determined headstrong and curious boy who wants to taste everything around....In short the book tells you to listen to yourself and follow your dreams..It says life is full of omen that will lead to your destiny just watch out carefully..It says that the world itself has a soul of its own and when person's and the world's soul are in sync, magic happens or in other words you do what you are destined to be and for that one has to start with following instincts..I wish the end was more detailed, somehow I felt it ended all of a sudden..

The book of Mirdad: The strange story of a monastery which was once called the Ark by Mikhail Naimy

                                                  Price 220 (from Flipkart.com)
                                                   Spiritual philosophy

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Highly quoted by Osho that made me to give it a try..This was my first purchase from flipkart back in 2008..The book is about Mirdad, who leaves everything to visit a temple, on a mountain top in a remote place ,built hundreds of years ago..Pathway described as extremely dangerous doesn't deter Mirdad from his journey, through sheer perseverance facing hardships he finally wakes up at the doorstep..Following are the spiritual revelation...Anyone with high spiritual quotient would definitely want to read it over and over again...Had you liked Alchemist , I wouldn't say you would like this book but book of Mirdad is for people who love deeper and mystic phase of spiritual being..There are deeper meaning said as a matter of fact, one has to be completely absorbed in the book to get the right tone or things would go over the head like a swish of hard breeze..Initially I found it heavy to appreciate but once then I understood that the book needs a different treat altogether ,I got the hang of it.. I slowed down so I could perceive and enjoy the whole experience of reading it...I found it poetic and extremely beautiful that I started moving along Mirdad accompanying him in his journey and all  seemed delightful till end..The distinction between pride and ego, mystic believes about god , arrogance..Aloofness of pride and the importance of meekness is all a wonderful treat for the reader..
Quotes that hit me hard were the following:
"Often you shall think your road impassable, somber and companionless.have will and plod along; and round each curve you shall find a new companion"
Next one is hard to be followed
"Be neither volatile to joy nor condensable to sorrow. But be serenely equitable to both"..
Read on to experience yourself..

The last lecture by Randy Pausch

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"What would you do when you have to bid goodbye to your beautiful family, doting wife and lovely kids and to the friends and colleagues those where every part of your life , and from then on how do you face death or life "...that's the theme of the book..


"The last lecture" is a heart shattering memoir of Randy Pausch that completely moved me..It is co-written by Wall street columnist Jeffrey Zaslow..This book is a compelling read ..
Every year at Carnegie Mellon University, a faculty member is invited for a series, famously known as The Last lecture, apparently considered as a final speech to their students before death..But for Randy Pausch it was indeed his last lecture, not only to his students, but also his family and friends, for Pausch had been diagonised with pancreatic cancer..His speech was titled "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"..the entire speech is available on you tube..He gave this speech most importantly for his children.. He wanted to leave a message to them who would never get a chance to know their father ,Truly they all would be proud of their father as they read through or watch the video.. There's nothing written about death its all about life ,love, dreams and how to fulfill them, truly that's how Pausch was, completely lively..He quoted "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand" and he lived completely true to what he said, heads high fighting the most difficult battle of death courageously leaving a lesson behind to all...

Even writing this book he never wanted to spend time with the co-author away from family wasting his precious time ,hence the discussions were done during his everyday bike ride in the morning...Pausch describes all his philosophy through anecdotes from his life...Pausch is an awesome story teller,recalling all the important events of his childhood with ta whip of fun and gaily spirit..

I loved this quote "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And Experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer".he says hurdles are there for a reason, and this is what he belived everytime he was faced with one,"The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not to keep us out.The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something..Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough..They're there to stop the other people."  Golden words are about time"the key question to keep asking is, Are you spending your time on the things? Because time all you have"
After he delivers his speech his wife hugs him by the end whispering"Please don't die" moved my heart away...
It's a slim book that will leave you heavy...