Book Review – The Lessons of History, Will & Ariel Durant

‘History repeats itself’, ‘Those who don’t learn from history are forced to repeat it’ – these are two of the quips about which I had been curious for so long. Is it possible that we humans are living a cycle all through our lives? Are we repeating the same things, events and experiences that our ancestors once went through? Are we humans, so-called most intelligent species of this planet, so inept at learning from our past that we go through the same pains and pleasures, events and experiences that keep staring at our face from the annals?

I was seeking answers to these questions and when Amazon ‘recommended’ this book to me, I gladly accepted. Will and Ariel Durant, the author couple, are renowned for their contribution to the field of History and ‘The Story of Civilization’, a series of eleven volumes in Western history, is their magnum opus. And, when they offer to summarize all their learning in a little book, you can’t help grabbing the same with both hands. I am glad I did.

In this book, Will and Ariel, categorize lessons of the past under various faculties. The evolution of mankind, the overcoming of geological obstacles, the biological evolution and multiplication into innumerable life forms, racial and ethnic diversities, the development of our ethics and morals, the loosening grip of religion on our conscience, growth of economics, socialism, wars and the various forms of governments. They end the book by discussing whether we have progressed by learning our lessons wisely from our past or are we running around in circles. The whole book makes not just an interesting read but worthy of some deep contemplation too.

The book is written in a plain, pragmatic and unostentatious manner. They don’t claim to know it all, but acknowledge that history is just a collection of varying perspectives, depending on our cultural, religious, social background and understanding. Also, they present a neutral stance on our past, without nurturing a tender nostalgia for our past while having bleak fears about the future, or going gaga about the modern times while dismissing the past as full of darkness and barbaric beings.

The past is full of lessons for those who want to learn, and the lessons are neither hard, nor bitter. We get what we seek from our past. If you’re looking for hope, it is full of it. If you are pessimistic about human history, then past offers an abundance of excuses for that too. It is all up to us to wisely choose lessons that suit us, learn from them, use the wisdom to sail through our present, while building a rich heritage for the future generations for whom we will soon be pages of history.

A lovely introduction into the various facets of human history and a book that no history-buff should miss!

Ashok Krishna

Book Review – The Story of My Life, Helen Keller

As I was reading this book, an old Zen story came to my mind. Here it is –
 

There was once a man who was a hopeless pessimist. He thought that life had been unfair towards him and he always used to complain to everyone about it. He heard about the visit of a wandering monk to his village and decided to seek the blessings for a better life. Visiting the monk he vented out all his grievances at length. After patiently listening to it all, the monk said that he will take the man to the king and get him all the money that is needed to improve his life. 

Just as they were setting out to meet the king, the monk said ‘See, before meeting the king, let’s decide on the price, shall we?’

Our pessimist wasn’t sure, and he asked the monk ‘Decide the price of what?’

The monk replied ‘For selling your organs. The king pays good amount to the arms and legs, but he lavishes gold more for eyes, ears, tongue and brain. I can get whatever money you want, provided you tell me now itself.’

The pessimist was shocked and angrily said, ‘Are you mad?! How can a man survive without these organs? What will I do with the money if I don’t have my organs to live?!’

The monk smiled and said ‘You’re not using them much anyways. If you were, your life would have turned better long back.’ The pessimist understood his folly, promised the monk that he will start working hard and left.

Helen Keller – one of those names that inspire the whole of mankind, regardless of religion, clan or creed. Born 136 years ago, this lady lost her ability to see and hear – two of those most important faculties through which we learn the world around us – while she wasn’t even two years old. Imagine what a pain it would have been for a child to go through the formative years of her life, deprived of both these senses and with not much of a chance to enjoy the little but precious pleasures of life that we all take for granted!

But Helen was blessed to have a mother that wouldn’t give up on her child like that. Her mother, inspired on learning about the now-less-famous Laura Bridgman, who was the first deaf-blind American child to get proper education, ensured that her daughter got a worthy teacher in the form of Anne Sullivan. The rest, as they say, is history.

Anne Sullivan helped Helen get into a proper learning mode and introduced her to the beauty of life and nature. Taught by Anne to read, write and communicate, Helen went on to acquire a good education, first in the basics of literature, mathematics and various languages and then a proper college degree. This autobiography, written by Helen Keller when she was 22 years old, takes us on a journey to those critical early decades of her life.

There is something magical about Helen’s words. Anyone who reads this book cannot come away from it without developing a love for the life and nature. This is a candid book about Helen’s transition from a helpless little child to a self-confident student in college that faced many challenges in learning but who nevertheless took pride and pleasure in surmounting them all. Helen’s love for her parents, her immense gratitude for her teacher Anne Sullivan and her having taken the deprivations in her stride to enjoy life like no other person with both these faculties of hearing and seeing could, are lessons for us all to learn. I could feel an immense love and hope oozing through her words.

A worthy read and a must have for your home-library. In fact, I am thinking of gifting this book to all my friends. Especially to those that have much to complain about their lives!

Book Review – Karma Cola, Gita Mehta

Poverty, Chastity and Piety – search for the basic code of conduct prescribed by any religion for its spiritual seekers, and you will find these three aspects standing out. While piety is more internal and is not for others to see or judge, the first two aspects are for all of us to view and verify. But, just as all things change with Time, these too are thrown in the wind and religion has got into the hands of those who have desecrated these principles and manipulated religions for their own selfish ends.

Saints (!) these days lead lifestyles that can make the rockstars fade in comparison. Swanky mansions, sleek cars, globetrotting habits, private islands, gatherings that can fill huge football grounds to the brim, sprawling ‘ashrams’ – any and every aspect of luxury that an ordinary person can only imagine are at the disposal of these modern-day ‘gurus’. These people have literally started peddling spirituality and god in affordable packages. Affordable for those with bank balances the size of their own egos, that is. There are some of the spiritual ‘gurus’ whose photographs are updated in social media with a frequency that can put a narcissistic adolescent girl’s selfie craze to shame. Then, there are those who perpetrate and permit all kinds of sleaze in the name of ‘spiritual fervor’. Some of these ‘gurus’ have even performed acts that puts them on par with professional pornstars.

As these sacrilegious things continue growing alarmingly these days, there sprouts a question in my mind as to who is to be blamed for all these abominable deviations from the path of the Ultimate Truth. Should we blame those fake gurus and spiritual leaders that charge obscene amounts of money for their mere ‘darshan’ or should we kick those gullible masses that have forgotten what it means to feel silence and solitude in their purest forms.

Gita Mehta’s book deals with one such topic here. India, considered the beacon of spiritual wisdom, has long been the haven for spiritual seekers from around the world. Since the ancient days, travellers from faraway places have flocked to India to partake in her spiritual fountain. In the last century, the advent of air travel has helped more and more such seekers in visiting this mysterious land of snake-charmers and super-power sadhus. While the inflow was comprised equally of those in real spiritual quest and those souls that are simply confused about the course of their lives, India has offered counterfeit ‘teachers’ that can adeptly manipulate the gullible ones for having their own fill of the coffers and coitus.

Gita Mehta displays an amazing sense of sarcasm and wit while writing about the many ways in which these gurus exploit the seekers. Right from the funny encounter of a Western aristocrat that ended up drinking the urine of a sadhu (said to be pissing rosewater) to the painful truth of foreign women that are sexually exploited under the influence of narcotics, this book, written almost three decades ago, holds true to the modern day atrocities committed in India by the fake saints.

Having had the benefit of a Western education, Gita has the advantage of both worlds. At one end, she can discuss threadbare the nature of the seekers that end up in India. Not everyone is thrilled just by the confluence of life and death at the ghats of Kashi. Some of them seek the thrill of the chillum too. On the other, she flays the monks, saints and hermits, having the knowledge of not just the blissful but the banal as well, for exploiting the foreigners in terms of the material and mundane. Drug induced trances, sexual orgies under the guise of spiritual evolution, stupid practices in the name of dynamic therapies - Gita explores the whole razzamatazz that goes in the name of spirituality these days. It informs us also of the sad plight that these foreigners end up in, having lost their all here, forced to sell whatever they have or they can, from pieces of clothes to their flesh to make a living, with little or no chance of going back to their lives in their own countries.

The book is, though, more like a bunch of columns put together than any coherent work. She has put together a lot of anecdotes and observations without a complete flow. While it is obvious that she is writing about Osho and Mahesh Yogi, I wish she had written more plainly about the other such ‘gurus’ too. Also, I found her snobbish attitude a little annoying to be candid. Couldn’t help but feel that she is another of those high-society NRIs with a bit of aversion and contempt for the Indians and their ways of life.

To sum it up all, it is a good book. It goes on to vindicate my feeling that Indian ‘saints’ have thrown the three basic principles of poverty, chastity and piety to the wind and replaced them with the two principles with which the Batman operates – Theatricality and Deception!

Book Review – Nine Indian Women Poets, Eunice De Souza

Well, I am torn between giving this book an OK-ish 3-star rating and the approving 4-stars. This anthology contains the poems by nine Indian women poets, arbitrarily chosen by the compiler Eunice De Souza, who happens to be one of those nine poets.

On the positive side, this anthology is a fair introduction to the works of the little known or unknown poetesses of India. Poetesses like Mamta Kalia, Smita Agarwal and Tara Patel, the names that aren’t even heard of in the Indian literary circles these days, are brought to fore in this book. The book begins with the works of Kamala Das, understandably one of those few female authors that could stand on their own in the Indian literary stage dominated by men. But the names that all follow are in no way secondary to Kamala Das, though, when compared in terms of works published, Kamala Das wins the race miles ahead. But each poetess – hardcore feminists please forgive me – adds a rich shade of her own to this little rainbow of nine colors. 

On the downside, editor Eunice could have done a better job in selecting the poems and poets. While many of them are poems of a lovely nature, easy to read, of high literary quality, capable of tugging at your heart’s strings, an equal number of them just manage to fly above your head. Some of them come across as mere obscure ramblings, muddled words and written with a purpose to impress than to convey. If you’re a person that believes that a poem shouldn’t sound like a lesson in Particle Physics, then you’ll find some of these poems quite dull and uninspiring. 

Some of these poems are really beautiful, like love, sunset and a baby’s smile. Some others, confusing and just make the count. Three stars, it is!

Book Review – The Greatest Show on Earth, Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is one of my favorite authors, in the same league as Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Neil deGrasse Tyson. What stands out in the works of these people is their unwavering loyalty to Truth and Reason. They are not the sort of persons that can take an affront to Knowledge lying down. All of them are outright atheists that don’t mince words when it comes to attacking the superstitious and stupid religious beliefs. 

This is the third work of Dawkins that I am reading, after having gone through ‘The God Delusion’ and ‘The Magic of Reality’. Dawkins continues in the same vein as in those two books, but this book is turning the heat up for the ‘Creationists’ – those that believe that a god created this universe, our planet and all the life forms that populate it, within the last 10000 years or so. Dawkins builds a citadel from which the Evolutionists – those of us that believe that the planet Earth is about 4.6 billion years and all the life forms that we see in front of our eyes today evolved through natural genetic modification – can fight the ignorance of the ‘Creationists’. 

And, what a citadel has he built! I don’t think that a staunch believer of the religious version of ‘Creation’ will be moved by this book well enough to reverse his/her views, but this book will nevertheless end up causing a dent in his/her belief. Be it plants, animals or the multitude of bacterial and vermin life forms, Dawkins pulls them all up to stand as witness to the survival of their ancestors in the long gone past and their evolution by ‘natural selection’. Dawkins also arms all the ‘Evolutionists’ and ‘Darwinists’ with enough arsenal to fight back the stupid questions raised by the ‘Creationists’. ‘If men evolved from monkeys why are there monkeys still around?’, for example.

But one thing that I couldn’t stomach in this book is that, while trying to build a citadel of facts and arguments strong enough to be unassailable by the ‘Creationists’, Dawkins seems to have become too obsessed with the details to the extent of ignoring the normal, laymen like me that couldn’t grasp science beyond a certain level, at least for now. You need to have a fair knowledge of genes to understand the book. In the previous two books, I found the words of Dawkins having a smooth flow. The same is lacking here. His random jumping between the topics and cross-referencing details in other chapters and even in his other books doesn’t make matters easy either. 

A good book to read, if you prefer reading books that are slow and heavy. Though this lacks the usual flow and wit of Richard Dawkins, it is a worthy shot in the arm if you are someone that ends up arguing with the ‘Believers’ every now and then.

Can Indian Women Become Great Orators? (Warning: Sarcasm and Just For Fun)

If you are a person that doubts the ability of Indian women to become great orators, you MUST read these findings of my recent observations (read, 'experiences').  ;-)

1. In a 4-hour long bus journey, men may chatter for a while, but sooner than later they tend to get bored and fall asleep, lulled by the wind and heat. But women can hold a riveting conversation throughout the course of the journey with the same vigour with which they started the discussions. Talk of being indefatigable!!!

2. At the restaurants, they can speak so fluently and unceasingly, without ever letting the inflow of food, solid or liquid, hinder their speech even for a nanosecond. Silver-tongues, 'borne with (ever-)silver spoons'!

3. In an over-night train journey, they can lull the entire compartment with their slow murmur, while slowly increasing their volumes to a crescendo that can put to shame the rattle of steel-on-steel. I often wonder whether they are the secret arrangements to keep the train driver alert and awake with their chatter and thus prevent accidents. Talk of not being loud enough!

Finally, what is more astonishing is their ability to hold an eloquent dialogue about almost any topic under the sun. If you're 'fortunate' enough to be seated near any such 'orators', you're bound to come away wiser in the topics of family life, tackling cunning relatives, family financials, neighbourhood gossips, hereditary inheritances of both properties and diseases, art of buying vegetables, culinary magics and what not?! Stay with keen ears and they may even 'spice it up' for you.

So, the next time you find two women sitting together, find a seat as close to them as possible and let me know your observations.

3 Lessons from the Movie 'Cast Away'

No one watching a beautiful movie like 'Cast Away' can miss out on these three life lessons.

1. Love isn't about those romantic cuddles, walking into the sunset holding hands, or dancing with a gang of hundred people clad in flashy attires. It is about being 'together' even while staying away from one another, even when there is nothing more to offer to one another, physically or emotionally.

2. Loneliness isn't just about sitting alone and sullen. It is about taking the time to evolve, learning from that solitude, taking it as a chance for deep contemplation and personal betterment.

3. Hope isn't just about hanging in there and believing that things will improve on their own. It is about grabbing the initiative, performing one's own little part in the great chain of events and trying one's best to improve the situation.

 

No wonder this movie remains one of those beautiful ones in my 'all-time favorites' list!