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My body let me down.I was sick with flu for almost a week.I was spending most of my time in bed.I didn't even like watching movies.i was so bored and started flipping on the books that where lying around(i didn't even touch them for a long time).Thankfully my mind was healthy and was asking for more knowledge.I really started reading and finished a few book in that short period.Here is a short review on those books


Maximum City : Bombay Lost and Found

I already wrote the review on it here


Ignited minds by APJ Abdul kalam

The book rehashes many thing that he had told in wings of fire and india 2020.It is a smaller book compared to the others.Targetting to inspire the young minds it is not as inspiring as wings of fire.But reading it i felt odd.We have this guy a visionary, who has beautifully put forth what we need to do to achieve the vision 2020 plans.But will we do it, is anybody listening to this guy??


Magic Seeds By V.S.Naipaul

The book is another typical Naipaul one.It follows the life of the hero willie.In a way it is a "Hazaroon kwahishen aisi" story.It is a story of a how a idealistic dream turns sore.It is an idealistic dream, so no wonder communism comes in.Like siddharth in HKA,Willie Chandran the hero of Magic seeds comes all the way from england to andhra pradesh to fight under kondapalli seethramiah of the PWG(Peoples War Group).Reality bites him hard.The novel follows him and his dreams throught the disillusionment and ends with a beautiful statement.

The book is raw and pointless at times, and as usual there is lot of naipaul's cynicism and hate.The book wanders a lot and bores you at places, when you are really bored, out of blues comes one of those naipaul's gem of a statement, that will make you think for 30 minutes.Even though i was disappointed with the book, it is still a book which made me think on various lines, that is the mark of a great writer.Naipaul brings his wide knowledge into the book in analyzing things and i was forced to understand many theories that i didn't till now.He talks everything from gandhi's satyagraha in "experiement with truth" to Lin-Piao's "liquidating the class enemy".

A very average book with occasional naipaul brilliance.


Communist Manifesto:Marx and Engels

Seriously i tried hard.I tried harder but was not able to make much progress.I remembered kamal hassan's interview where he said he used to read the Das Kapital every night, not because he liked it so much, but beacuse it will definitely put him to sleep in 10 mins.Now i completly understand what he meant.I gave up on the book.


India:Midnight to Millinium sashi tharoor

This book by shashi tharoor is very mediocre.He has written about things that are know to most of the india consious readers.shashi is all positive about india.I kind of started feeling that i was talking to some RSS/VHP guy.

There is a chapter about one of his childhood friends called charlis.The whole chapter was so boring and cinematic.Think he just fabricated the whole story on charlis.The point that he was trying to make was that reservation has helped the lower caste people.

He meets charlis when he goes to kerala for vaccation. He sees him fist time in a playgound. His brother is not including him cause he is from a lower caste.Next vaccation he sees charlis playing with everyone(because of the raise of the lower caste parties, there has been an acceptance of the lower caste people) but still he cannot come into their house and stuff, the next vaccation he is allowed to come into his house, the other vaccation he is fed, but outside the house.And as a climax he goes to the collector's office to talk about some land dispute and meets charlis at the collector's office. And guess who is the collector?? It is none other than charlis himself.I started thinking from which tamil movie this story was lifted.

I was so irked by it that i stopped reading the book.I might read it again, but stopped it for now.I am not sure whether it was due to the fact that i read it in between naipaul's books.Naipaul's analysis and sashi tharoors mediocre writings where on opposite side of the spectrum.


India: A wounded civilization : V.S.Naipaul

Naipaul convinced me about the book the first page itself.I read 100 pages of shashi tharoor in an hour and a half, was not able to move past 15 pages with naipaul.

Now more than 30 yrs after the defilement and in another state of emergency, the temple has been renovated and a new statue of the temple deity is being installed.

Until they are given life and invested with power, such statues are only objects in an image-maker's yard, their value depending on size, material and the carver's skill.Hindu idols or images come from an old world; they embody difficult and sometime sublime concepts, and they have to be made according to certain rules.There can be no development now in Hindu iconography, though the images these days under the influence of the Indian cinema and cinema posters are less abstract than their ancient originals and more humanly pretty and doll like.They stand lifeless in every way in the image makers showroom...But this showroom is a kind of limbo with each image awaiting the life and divinity that will come to it with purchase and devotion, each image already minutely flawed so that its divine life, when it comes shall not be terrible and over whelming

Iam still reading it.



And Quite Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov

This is the one that is next in line.