Mahabharata Quotes - Sabha Parva

Covers of Vols 1 - 6

My earlier post, collected some of the more interesting quotes from the first Parva of the Mahabharata, the Adi Parva. This post continues with a collection collated from the second Parva, the Sabha Parva. This Parva is contained entirely in Vol. 2 of the unabridged translation of the Mahabharata by Dr Bibek Debroy (My reviews: Vol.1, Vol.2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol.5 (1, 2), Vol. 6 (1, 2, 3)).

Narad muni's discourse to Yudhishtra, after the latter had settled down in the grand palace at Indraprastha, architected by the asura architect Maya, is quite notable as a piece of mini niti-shastra. I have taken the liberty of including many quotes from it, though I would recommend that people read it in its entirety.

"Do you hurt dharma by artha or artha by dharma or both for the sake of pleasures that kama brings?"
[Sage Narada to Yudhishtra, Sabha Parva, Sabha Parva, Ch 5] (the first sub-Parva in the Sabha Parva is also named "Sabha Parva")

"Surely you do not seek the advice from only one, or from too many."
[Sage Narada to Yudhishtra, Sabha Parva, Sabha Parva, Ch 5]

"Do you purchase a single learned man for one thousand foolish ones?"
[Sage Narada to Yudhishtra, Sabha Parva, Sabha Parva, Ch 5]

"Have you appointed superior men in superior positions and medium ones in medium positions?"
[Sage Narada to Yudhishtra, Sabha Parva, Sabha Parva, Ch 5]

Mahabharata Quotes - Adi Parva

The Mahabharata is a goldmine of stories, episodes, conversations, and incidents. As I read the Mahabharata - specifically the unabridged translation by Dr Bibek Debroy (it is a task as yet unfinished, primarily because Dr Debroy has completed six volumes of the translation and Penguin is expected to publish the seventh volume in April), I underlined passages, excerpts, dialogues, quotes that caught my eye. Yes, many of the books I read (and own) are littered with these underlinings. A book once owned and read is rarely left in a pristine condition, severely affecting its resale value I suppose.

I thought of how to collect some of these memorable excerpts into one place, and then decided that organizing them by parva, one post for each of the eighteen major parvas in the epic, would be as good a way as any. Now, based on the first parva, the Adi Parva, it seems that publishing them by parva may indeed work. If it turns out to be impractical, because of the length - too short or too long, then I will adopt a horses for courses strategy. If dharma can be subtle, so can a blog strategy.

The very first parva is the Adi Parva, and is contained mostly in the first volume of the translation. In this post, I have collected some of the notable quotes from this parva.

• "Time brings existence and non-existence, pleasure and pain. Time creates all elements and time destroys all beings. ... Time cannot be conquered. Time walks in all elements, pervasive and impartial."
  [Sanjaya to Dhritarashtra, Anukramanika Parva, Adi Parva, Ch 1]
  

• "There is no curse that does not have a remedy. O snakes! But he who has been cursed by his mother has no remedy."
  [Vasuki, Astika Parva, Adi Parva, Ch 33]
  

• "One who is afflicted by destiny can find a remedy in destiny alone."
  [Elapatra to Vasuki, Astika Parva, Adi Parva, Ch 34]

The Demonologist, by Andrew Pyper

Image Credit:
andrewpyper.com

The Demonologist, by Andrew Pyper
Doesn't Quite Flatter, Most Certainly Disappoints

(Amazon, Kindle, Flipkart, my review on Amazon)
"Makes me question the devil's competence, the author's grasp on storytelling, and David Ullman's hold on sanity."

The way David Ullman, Cornell professor and expert on demonic literature, especially Milton's Paradise Lost, deciphers clues, goes on a cross country motor trip, in a Ford Mustang to begin with and later in several stolen cars, to rescue his daughter, Tess, before she is claimed, forever perhaps(?), by one of Satan's disciples, does more to make you question the devil's competence than David's proficiency.

David's marriage is a mess. The protagonist has to have little going right for him in such novels. Except his daughter Tess who is the only ray of light in his otherwise dismal existence. And truth be told, the one thing that this book gets somewhat right are the bits about the father and daughter interactions. When his wife informs him of her decision to move out of their house, David uses the opportunity to accept an invitation from a mysterious lady to go on an all expense paid visit to Venice with his daughter. What happens at Venice leaves David with only a matter of days in which he must decipher clues to retrieve his daughter before she is claimed by the devil for all time. So far so good. The plot has all the ingredients required for a truly gripping and empathetic thriller. Who would not be attracted to a thriller with elements of the supernatural, a race against time, a father's love for his daughter, a cross-country road trip - very American, and more. But if you take all these ingredients and just dump them into a cauldron in the hope that what will emerge will be a savory dish, anyone who has ever ventured into a kitchen will know that does not happen.

As I said, to be fair, some of the passages that describe the father's moments with his daughter, Tess, indeed ring true and heartfelt, and these are some of the redeeming passages in the book. Since they do not quite follow or lead up to anyplace, they feel forced into the narrative.

This is one of those I've-seen-better-film-on-teeth type of screenplays, written post-haste, using a heady concoction of adverb-laden over-wrought prose (sample these: "A quietly beautiful woman too" or "Her hand on my elbow a patch of cool on my suddenly burning skin"), with strategically planted episodes meant to evoke a sense of growing horror, terror, and suspense, but however elicit only a derisive burst of laughter, snort even, but nothing beyond. Yes, we can see how they would fit neatly into a screenplay, and we can even imagine how they may be shot and presented to us, but this is a book, not a movie, yet. The clickety-clack from the rusty springs of a trampoline in the middle of a night is one such episode, but why is it in the novel, and what exactly does it do to drive the plot ahead is sadly never made evident or hinted at. The "Pursuer" is man of such clumsy incompetence you wonder how he manages to even brush his teeth in the morning without choking and drowning.

The plot needed to be developed, the characters fleshed out, the clues needed to contribute to the fabric of the plot. That didn't happen; the result is a constant attempt at smashing adverbs into every sentence in the hopes of producing literary fusion. It has to be "A quietly beautiful woman too", while  "Outside, the interstate hums and yawns", or the truly climatic "Her hand on my elbow a patch of cool on my suddenly burning skin", while the mind bends to wrap itself around "She exhales. And before I can awaken, she releases an endless sigh. One that forms itself into an utterance that grows in volume and force, until it billows out of her as a kind of poem." On the other hand, "I sip the coffee. The taste of liquefied rust" does bring a smile as I remembered the brew that goes by the name of coffee in so many fast food joints.

And finally, it's a jet, it's a plane, but is "The jet humming and whistling, soothing as a mechanical womb"?? This question will keep me awake for hours on end. The plot? Not so much.

Author's site, Twitter handle, Facebook page
Kindle Excerpt:

© 2013, Abhinav Agarwal (अभिनव अग्रवाल). All rights reserved.

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King - Review

From Different Seasons (Signet)
Fascinating Novella; The Screenplay of the Movie Actually Bettered It

 (Kindle)
I must have watched "The Shawshank Redemption" more than a dozen times. It is a testament as much to the movie as it is to the screenplay and the novel it is based on. The Stephen King novella, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" is less than a hundred pages long, and is unlike other Stephen King works from the horror genre. It is the travails of a convict, Andy Dufresne, wrongly sentenced for the twin murders of his wife and her lover, and how he spends his years in the prison, finding his way through the brutal hierarchy of the prison, the brutality and venality of the prison officials, his friendship with Red - this Irish character is played by Morgan Freeman in the movie, and from whose eyes we see and are told this story, and his escape from the prison that is also his redemption in some ways.

Without going into the details, it was somewhat my impression that while Stephen King's novella is very good on its own merits, the movie betters the book, and that is saying a lot for both the movie and the book.




Kindle Excerpt:

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© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

Blindness, by Jose Saramago

Blindness, by Jose Saramago

Human Nature, Seen.

(Flipkart, Amazon, Amazon UK)

Blindness that shines a light on human nature. Haunting and disturbing narrative.

What if you went blind? What if every one also went blind - in your house, locality, town, country, perhaps even the world? Not gradually, but what if the blindness came without warning, leaving only a milky whiteness behind where once sight used to be? What if the authorities, still seeing, for the time being, not knowing what was causing the blindness, and without a cure for the blindness, and fearful of its possible contagiousness, started to quarantine the afflicted in an abandoned mental institution. Where those incarcerated could not leave, alive. Where no human with eyesight would or want to enter the institution. Such is the fate of a growing number of people in this book. 

Written in a peculiar style - minimal punctuation and sentences that run into an entire paragraph, that evokes a sense of blindness when reading, because you have to grope a bit to get a feel for the language and to sense when one person has stopped talking and the other person has begun, the book haunts you with its matter-of-fact observations about human nature, and how it degenerates into the basest of gratifications.

No one is identified by name. It is the "blind man" who is the first to go blind. He is taken to his house by a good Samaritan, and where his wife takes him to "the doctor", at whose clinic there are others, including a man with a black patch over one eye, a girl with dark glasses, a young boy, and others. Each one of them also goes blind, and each one is herded into an abandoned mental institution, where they must fend for themselves, establish rules of living, and wait for food to arrive. Only the doctor's wife, "the doctor's wife", is not afflicted by the blindness, for reasons unknown and untold, and she decides to accompany her husband to the institution. She herself is in a terrible dilemma, whether to tell the others of the fact that she can see, for if she does, then she is sure to be sucked into a never ending chore of attending to each and every person there, for it would be the decent thing to do.

As more and more blind are stuffed into the institution, the facilities, never pristine to begin with, began to fall apart. With excrement flowing all over, the place stinking with the miasma of this excrement, sweat, fear, and hopelessness. There are soldiers guarding the institution, from a distance, and any attempt to escape is dealt with deadly force.

While there are some rules that the inmates accept with a sense of resignation - the loss of privacy is for instance more of a notional loss in a world with only blind people, you however read with a sense of approaching dread the inevitable breakdown of basic humanity. When the descent into depravity does arrive, it still hits you with overwhelming revulsion. Food for sexual gratification was always on the table, and once a group in the institution decides to and manages to gain control over the food that is provided, it becomes a stark reality that the inmates have to rationalize, and accept.

This is a novel that will linger with you for some time after you finish the last page and put it down. The self-feeding spiral of helplessness and growing resignation makes for disturbing reading. Even the style evokes a strong sense of discomfort and unease, even if the paragraph long sentences begin to outstay their welcome by the second half of the book. Sample this:

They came stumbling into the ward, clutching at the air, here there was no rope to guide them, they would have to learn from painful experience, the boy was weeping, calling out for his mother, and it was the girl with dark glasses who tried to console him, She's coming, she's coming, she told him, and since she was wearing her dark glasses she could just as well have been blind as not, the others moved their eyes from one side to another, and could see nothing, while because the girl was wearing those glasses, and saying, She's coming, she's coming, it was as if she really could see the boy's desperate mother coming in through the door. The doctor's wife leaned over and whispered into her husband's ear, Four more have arrived. a woman, two men and a boy, What do the men look like, asked the doctor in a low voice, She described them, and he told her, The latter I don't know, the other, from your description, might well be the blind man who came to see me at the surgery.

• Blindness (Movie)
• Blindness (Harvest Book)

  

© 2013, Abhinav Agarwal (अभिनव अग्रवाल). All rights reserved.

Bus, Passengers, and God

In God We Trust.
You know, no commentary is required here. Just the words, "Ram bharose".

© 2013, Abhinav Agarwal (अभिनव अग्रवाल). All rights reserved.

Full Moon and Associations

On Feb 26, we had a full moon. It was not yet dark, and the moon was visible just over the horizon. I had to go and get my camera, and spent some time shooting, without a tripod. Of all the photos I took, I liked this one the best.

Since the moon has been the inspiration for poets and romantics for millenia, it was but fitting that I also think of this song that describes the beauty of the moon in one line and then how it still cannot compare with the flawless beauty of the smitten.


The other thing I thought of on seeing this photo was Our Moon has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits, by Rahul Pandita (Flipkart, Amazon, Kindle). While the book deals with a sombre and tragic topic, I am talking about word associations here, aren't I?



Kindle Excerpt:

© 2013, Abhinav Agarwal (अभिनव अग्रवाल). All rights reserved.

The Spines of the Mahabharata Books

I had lent the first volume of the Mahabharata translation by Dr. Bibek Debroy to someone I know. I got it back last evening. This completed my collection - I had, for the first time in almost a year, all six volumes published so far. Of course, this is not strictly accurate, because a year ago there were only four volumes that had been published, but you get the picture. And if not, I have a picture below.

After I got Vol.1 the first thing I did was to line them up, slightly askew, and take a couple of photos with my trusty, four-year old camera. Why did I do that? Mention the camera? I don't know. Why did I say I placed the books slightly askew? Ah, that! That is for a reason. These volumes have an almost identical layout and cover. All six volumes so far have followed the same template - the cover has no text on it, only a series of symbols associated with the epic and war - a sign of the sun, a flag ("ध्वज "), a fish, arrows, a lotus, swords, an elephant, and so on. Each volume has a different color - the first volume is a dark shade of red, while the sixth volume is a pale bluish-green.

The spine is the most interesting part of the cover, in my opinion. Apart from the fact that it has the book's title and author, which is not the interesting or exciting part, each volume has a single symbol on its spine. The first volume (my review) has an illustration  of snakes tumbling into a fire. This is the imagery of the "sarpa-satra", or snake sacrifice in the Adi Parva that King Janmajeya organized to avenge his father's death at the hands of Takshaka, the serpent king. The second volume (my review) has the "chausar", the board for the game of dice, laid out, and a few dice ("paasa") strewn about. This - the game of dice - occurs in the "Sabha Parva", where the Kauravas, led by their wily uncle Shakuni, invite the Pandavas for a game of dice. The game of dice resulted in the Pandavas losing everything, including their wife Draupadi, to the Kauravas, and set in motion a chain of events that would culminate more than thirteen years later, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Volume 3 (my review) looks somewhat difficult to decipher, but is quite straightforward if you look at it closely. This volume has a couple of earrings and an armour plate on its spine. These two, of course, are the "kavacha" and "kundala" of Karna, that he was born wearing, and which made him invincible in battle. And which Indra, the divine father of Arjuna, wanted to take away from Karna so as to ensure his son's victory. Knowing that Karna would never refuse anything if asked after his morning prayers, Indra approached Karna in the guise of a brahmana. The rest is history, so to say.

Volumes 1-6 of The Mahabharata, translated by Bibek Debroy

Volume 4 (my review) is a genuinely tough one for the casual Mahabharata reader. The spine feature a bunch of cows. This imagery is of the stealing of King Virata's cows by the Kauravas. The Pandavas had spent the thirteenth year of their exile living incognito in the palace of King Virata. After Bheema, living as Ballabha the cook, had bludgeoned Keechaka, the powerhouse commander of King Virata's army, to death for trying to molest Draupadi, Duryodhana suspected that this deed could have been performed by none other than Bheema. He used the pretext of stealing King Virata's cows to try and smoke out the Pandavas from hiding - which would ensure they would have to go to exile for a further thirteen years. The spine of volume five (my review -1, 2) needs no introduction. It is Arjuna's chariot, with Krishna as the charioteer. Arjuna is standing with the bow in his right hand, meant to emphasize Arjuna's ambidexterity ("savyasachi"). It is also the only volume so far with a person, and two at that, on the spine. The sixth volume, (my review - 1, 2, 3) has a spiral - the chakra vyuha formation - on its spine. The chakra vyuha was the formation that Drona, the Kaurava commander, put in place on the fateful thirteenth day of the war. With Arjuna away fighting the Samshaptakas, it was left to his son, the sixteen year old Abhimanyu, to penetrate the formation. With Jayadratha, at the vyuha's entrance, holding off the four Pandavas, the lone Abhimanyu was done to death by six brave Kaurava warriors who followed Drona and Shakuni's advice on how to disarm the young prince.

The seventh volume will feature the death of Karna - the third commander of the Kaurava army, the battle between Duryodhana and Bheema, and the midnight destruction of the Pandava army by Ashwatthama. If a stuck chariot wheel makes it to the spine, then Karna, in an indirect way, would have made it to the spine of this series twice.

     

 © 2013, Abhinav Agarwal (अभिनव अग्रवाल). All rights reserved.

Mahabharata, Episode 2

When Ganga seems ready to drown the eighth son too, Shantanu can bear no more, and he breaks his promise, and stops Ganga. He saves the eighth son, but loses both Ganga and their eighth son, Devavrata. Ganga recounts two stories, and two curses. One is the story of their divinity, fall, and their reason behind a human birth. The other is the story of the eight sons. They were eight vasus, and were cursed by Sage Vashishta, for stealing his cow, to be born on earth. While seven of them could escape a long life on earth through the grace of Ganga, the eighth vasu's sin was more severe than the others, and thus was cursed to live a long life on earth. While Shantanu waited for the return of his son, he chanced upon Kripa and Kripi, two abandoned siblings, and entrusted them to the care of the royal sage. One day, Ganga returns, and returns Devavrata to Shantanu. Shantanu takes his now young son into his charge. The second episode ends wtih Devavrata taking a horse for a ride, and coming face to face with the Shalva King, bent upon annexing Hastinapura.

 © 2013, Abhinav Agarwal (अभिनव अग्रवाल). All rights reserved.

Mahabharata, Episode 1

Where do yo begin the Mahabharata from? Where do you start? Do you start with the snake sacrifice (सर्प सत्र) ? And what do you do if you are making a television serial of the epic? And what happens if you also want to inject a subtext of political probity, even if the powers that be may see it as less than politically acceptable - of having the king be told that he is a प्रतिनिधि, not a नीतिपति, or that even royal succession has to be on the basis of merit, and not birth? This is not explicit in the epic, but notable is the fact that such a message was only somewhat unpalatable in the 1980s, but would be seen as a direct, full-frontal assault on the royal, imported dynasty in India today.

So, talking about beginnings, what about starting with King Bharata, son of King Dushyanta and Queen Shakuntala, who appointed not one of his sons as his successor, but instead chose someone else as his heir, and thus set perhaps the first precedent of democracy? Would that be a stretch? What if this beginning, the sapling that King Bharata planted, would be uprooted several generations later, during King Shantanu's reign? Such is the beginning of the Mahabharata that BR Chopra's epic serialization of the panch-veda chooses - a tale with time, समय , as the sutradhar, सूत्रधार| King Shantanu is besotted with the river goddess Ganga, and the two marry. But here is a condition. A condition that is the first of several conditions that will dot the epic, and each condition an attempt to control fate, a futile, human attempt. Ganga imposes a condition on Shantanu - that he will not question her, no matter what she does. Shantanu agrees. Ganga tests him, repeatedly, and most cruelly so, by drowning their first born son, and then the second born, and then the third, and so on... Shantanu can only watch.

 © 2013, Abhinav Agarwal (अभिनव अग्रवाल). All rights reserved.

Most Popular Posts of 2012

As per statistics provided by Google Analytics, for the year 2012, these were the most popular posts on my blog. Eight of the top twenty one posts were related to the Mahabharata. The most popular one was actually a photo post on the Mahabharata Panorama at the Gita Museum in Kurukshetra. How apt. Of the Mahabharata related posts, two more were photo posts from the city of Kurukshetra, one on the Gita chariot at the Brahma Sarovar, and other one on Bheeshma Kund. The rest of the Mahabharata related posts were my reviews of Bibek Debroy's ongoing translation of the epic - four of the five volumes that I wrote reviews on in 2012 feature in the list.
There were two other book review posts that made it to the top 21: both excellent books, India's Culture and India's Future, by Michel Danino, and Unnatural Selection, Mara Hvistendahl - both have such a great relevance and timeliness for India that I cannot recommend them enough. Mara Hvistendahl, the author of Unnatural Selection, was kind enough to respond appreciately to my tweet of the review, which is the biggest reason it got as many page views as it did.

Here is the list, ordered by number of page views, in descending order.

1. Mahabharata Panorama at Kurukshetra
2. About
3. Notable Books
4. All Books Reviewed
5. Mahabharata, Vol.5, by Bibek Debroy
6. Notable Photos
7. Mahabharata, Vol.1, by Bibek Debroy
8. India's Culture and India's Future, by Michel Danino
9. Unnatural Selection, Mara Hvistendahl
10. Mahabharata, Vol.2, by Bibek Debroy
11. UB City Mall, Bangalore
12. Gita Chariot at Kurukshetra
13. Page on Mahabharata
14. On the Road to Dalhousie
15. Mahabharata, Vol.3, by Bibek Debroy
16. Bheeshma Kund, Kurukshetra
17. Terminal 3 at the Delhi Airport
18. Books from Flipkart
19. Bandipur and Mudumalai National Parks
20. Travel Map
21. Brihadeeswara Temple, Thanjavur

© 2013, Abhinav Agarwal (अभिनव अग्रवाल). All rights reserved.

Mahabharata, Vol. 6 - The Battle at Night

The Battle at Night

Mahabharata, Vol. 6. Translated by Bibek Debroy
(Part 1 of the review, also see A Note on the Footnotes)

(Amazon US, Kindle US Flipkart, Flipkart e-book, Kindle UK, Amazon UK)

I used to think that the 18-day war of Kurukshetra was a very sanitized affair, an impression only made stronger after watching B.R. Chopra's television epic on the epic. And I must admit here that I am a big, big fan of BR Chopra's TV series. However, I watched silk-clothed warriors aim arrows that killed soldiers from afar and who returned to their camps with nary a drop of blood or gore or signs of grievous injury on them. Several retellings of the epic also did little to dispel the myth that the 18-day war was an antiseptic carnage.

Mahabharata Vol.6 - A Note on the Footnotes

A Note on the Footnotes

Mahabharata, Vol. 6. Translated by Bibek Debroy
(see my review here)
(Amazon US, Kindle US Flipkart, Flipkart e-book, Kindle UK, Amazon UK)

To say that I like **this** particular series among the translations of the Mahabharata would not be wholly accurate, since this is only the first complete translation of the Mahabharata that I am reading, though I have read excerpts from Kisari Mohan Ganguly and am also reading Ashok Banker's Forest of Stories, part one in a dramatized retelling of the Mahabharata. One of the distinguishing characteristics of Bibek Debroy's series are the footnotes that appear on almost every page. In some cases they serve to identify characters in the narration that may not be apparent because of the use of pronouns in the shlokas. For instance, where the translation states, "He was severely wounded...", the footnote clarifies this to be "Dhrishtadyumna". To refer to the person by name may not be accurate, since the Critical Edition's text may itself be using the pronoun, and therefore to substitute it for the proper name would not be, err, proper.

In other cases, when a word in the translation appears as "rakshasas", a footnote clarifies that the "The text uses the word kshanadachara, which means a walker of the night."

Mahabharata, Vol. 6 - Translated by Bibek Debroy

The Incredible Savagery of War, to Restore & Uphold Dharma

Mahabharata, Vol. 6. Translated by Bibek Debroy
(Amazon US, Kindle US Flipkart, Flipkart e-book, Kindle UK, Amazon UK, my review on Amazon)

The sixth installment of Bibek Debroy's translation of the unabridged Mahabharata, based on the Critical Edition by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, (my review of Vols 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) features perhaps the fiercest fighting in the 18-day war, as well as a descent into an all-out, no-holds barred bloodfest with no rules left unbroken. Many warriors ganging up against one. Beheading an unarmed warrior who had given up his arms, twice. Fighting at night. The wanton killing of warriors retreating. The killing of warriors who had laid down their arms. Abuses. Much more, and much worse takes place in these three days of the 18-day war that this book covers. Specifically, this book covers days thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen of the war, and contains six sub-Parvas (Upa Parvas): Abhimanyu-Vadha Parva (67), Pratijnya Parva (68), Jayadratha-Vadha Parva (69, and at 210 pages, also the longest in this book), Ghatotakacha-Vadha Parva (70, and 120 pages long), Drona-Vadha Parva (71), and Narayana-Astra Moksha Parva (72).

Enterprise Analytics - Review

"Lectures, Meanders, Pontificates, But Does Not Educate"

"Enterprise Analytics: Optimize Performance, Process, and Decisions Through Big Data (FT Press Operations Management)", Thomas H. Davenport, et al.

(Amazon, My Amazon review, Kindle US, Amazon UK, Kindle UK, Flipkart)

Or, how a book on Big Data, Enterprise Analytics, and technology can neatly skirt any meaningful discussion of Big Data, Enterprise Analytics, and technology.

While a few chapters stand out for their reasoning and clarity, what is jarringly absent from this book is any meaningful, technical discussion about Big Data itself. Without such a discussion, most of the book's content can be recycled with minimum effort ten years from now and applied to the next big thing in technology. Even assuming that this book is targeted at decision makers and so-called C-level executives, an absence of the nuances and complexities of Big Data mean that executives will be as clueless on that dimension of Big Data knowledge after reading the book as before. If you are responsible for selling sausages, you had jolly well get a look at the sausage factory, if not work there a day.

Notable books of 2012

I wrote a post, Review of Reviews in 2012, listing some of the books I read in 2012, and also the whole experience of writing reviews at the pace of one a week. In this post, I will call out what I consider as the best books I read in the year about to go by. These are in the order that I reviewed them in 2012. I had thought this list would comprise twenty books, and with much planning and figurative pats on the literal back I started tweeting this list. As I came to the last book I reviewed this year, I realized I had goofed up with the Twitter posts, and ended with 19 books. Need to go back and correct that.

1. The year started out with a review of the very, very fine "India's Culture and India's Future, by Michael Danino". Not only is it written in an easy going, engaging manner, it is also very well organized, and gives all the hyperbole one has come to expect from books that talk in a positive light about India. The book is short enough to be read in one sitting, and it is a pity it has not found a wider audience.
Flipkart.com, Amazon.com

2.While Michael Lewis' "The Big Short" was also a look at the origins and some of the players in the makings of the financial meltdown of 2008, his latest book, "Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, by Michael Lewis", is a travelogue, a disaster tourism travelogue if you will, among countries as they cope with the aftermath of the financial meltdown - and it's not a pretty picture that stares us in the face. Lewis' wit and tombstone humour alleviates what could have been an otherwise a very dirge of a tale.
Amazon, Kindle, Flipkart

 3. I forget how, but somehow, somewhere, I learned of an ongoing translation of the Mahabharata - the whole nine yards, mind you, and in this case this would be the whole 80,000 shlokas that form the Critical Edition of the Mahabharata - by economist Dr. Bibek Debroy. I bought the first two volumes (there's a story there too - I ordered the second volume, then realized my mistake, and I could not find a way to cancel that order, and therefore ended up ordering the first volume too). I read them every night till I had finished both, and then was on to the third and fourth volumes. For someone with the gumption to persevere, I believe this is the most approachable translation yet of the entire Mahabharata. It avoids the faux-archaic usage of words like "thee", "thine", "thou", which I have always found to grate on my palate - even when encountered in a Shakespeare play, yes! Short footnotes every now and then help clarify some points. Six volumes have been published thus far, taking us to near the end of the Kurukshetra war, and a further six are planned, including Hari Vamsa and some stories from the epic that have been excised from the Critical Edition. These six volumes are also available as Amazon Kindle e-book editions, so  you can now carry an epic on a phone.
Vol.1, Vol.2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol.5 (1, 2)


4. Perhaps the only way one can tell the history of the subcontinent, or a country in it, like Pakistan, without completely going insane with frustration, is by taking refuge in humour. In "The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power", author Tariq Ali does just that, and the result is an unputdownable mix of information and at times rib-tickling humour, laced with the pickling acid of sarcasm.
Kindle, Flipkart, Infibeam, Junglee, This Ya That, IndiaPlaza

5. How much do we lie? When do we lie? What about when people are looking, and what about when we can get clean away with cheating? "The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone---Especially Ourselves, by Dan Ariely" uses results from real-life experiments run by the author and collaborators and others to look at these very pertinent issues. In some ways this book is also somewhat of a sequel to his earlier book, "The Upside of Irrationality", which covered similar ground, but only in passing.
Amazon, Kindle, Flipkart, Infibeam, my user review on Amazon

6. The skewed gender ratio in much of the developing world, especially India, has been the focus of much hand wringing. "Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, by Mara Hvistendahl" is a simply amazing book on the issue, and uncovers causes you would not have thought of - like colonialism, that instituted so-called land reforms that excluded women from inheriting property, or western institutions and governments that equated a burgeoning population with an increased threat of communism. It forces you to think about the skewed gender ratio in a more informed light. Possibly the best book I read in 2012.
Amazon, Kindle, Flipkart, BookAdda, Landmark, ThisYaThat, Powell's, My review on Amazon


7. This book - "The Parliamentary System, by Arun Shourie" - is as much about 1975, the year India lost her Fundamental Rights for a year and a half, as it is about 2011 and 2012, that saw India battle an increasingly autocratic government and a spate of corruption scandals. Arun Shourie walks us through debates in Parliament that preceded the passing of  amendments to the Constitution, meant to help one and only one individual - Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister, and the uncivil statements made during the course of those farcical debates.
Flipkart, Amazon, Rupa & co, my review on Amazon

8. The only thing more heretical than writing a book trashing Mother Teresa's reputation has to be to write a glowing review of the book. Christopher Hitchens has penned a short polemic, a takedown of sorts, of Mother Teresa, in The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. Read it as much for the use of the English language as for its sarcasm laden wit against the Mother.
Amazon, Flipkart, Kindle, my review on Amazon


9. I found "After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam, by Lesley Hazleton" to be a short and eminently readable introduction to the origins of the Shia - Sunni split in Islam. While the book gets overly melodramatic at places, it is still a stirring and moving account, especially of the adopted son Ali, and that of his son, Hussain. It doesn't quite explain why the Shias and Sunnis should have developed an all-encompassing, visceral hatred of each other as they did, but it provides some pointers for sure.
Kindle, Amazon, Flipkart, my review on Amazon


10. The whole genre of mythological fiction has left me untouched, and the first in this series that I read was proof that this was a genre best left alone. Then Dr. Bibek Debroy recommended I try "Bali and the Ocean of Milk, by Nilanjan P Choudhury", and I did. After reading this book I could not understand why this book did not receive more attention than it did, and why this book was not a blockbuster bestseller. I suspect people went for looks - the looks of the cover - and they found it confusing. The cover hints at a story that is wholly different from what it actually was. I hope the author writes another book; the genre deserves more books such as this.
Flipkart, Amazon, my review on Amazon

11. Islamophobia is a term thrown about fast and easy against anyone who writes about the dangers of Islamic fanaticism. Such is the case in India for sure. "Londonistan, By Melanie Phillips" deserves a careful read. It deserves attention and its context is valid even more so in India. There is a tinge of the extreme in the author's book, to be sure, but you have to filter that out. If you do, what is left should be food for thought for everyone. The author brings together several strands of thought, including anti-Zionism, liberal philosophy, judicial activism, and more, to argue that a systemic bias against Judeo-Christian ethos pervades British society. Strong words.
Amazon, Flipkart, Kindle, Powell's

12. Why yet another Ramayana translation? Well, how about an abridged translation, from a scholar who brings empathy and wisdom to the translation? "Valmiki's Ramayana", Translated by Arshia Sattar renewed the epic for me, and also, for the first time, brought me closer to the Baroda Critical Edition. It is however not a soulless abridgment - it has an emotional and devotional core that is preserved in this translation.
Amazon, Flipkart, my review on Amazon

13. Why do vaccines scare us? And why do people feed on that fear using pseudo-science, quackery, fear-mongering, to put the lives of millions of children at risk? Without remorse. With a fanatical passion that is resistant to facts and reason. "Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All", by Paul Offit is a fact-laden takedown of the anti-vaccine cult, and is written in a mostly approachable manner for the  lay reader.
Amazon, Kindle, Flipkart, Powell's, My review on Amazon

14. "Time Stops at Shamli, by Ruskin Bond" is the kind of book you would want to read just about anywhere, anyplace. The title story is perhaps the best, while the others are also very, very readable. Some are as short as two pages, while most are four to five pages long. There is a near-total absence of overwrought phrases or adjectives dripping with desperate exertions.
Amazon, Flipkart, my review on Amazon

15. What use are children if they cannot be sold to, if useless baubles advertised to them. And what use is childhood if one cannot profit from it. "Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture", by Peggy Orenstein is a useful and well-written book on the topic of commercial exploitation of children.
Amazon, Kindle, Flipkart, Powell's, my review on Amazon


16. As time goes by, as one gets older, wiser perhaps, appreciation for the Peanutes series and the genius of Charles M Schulz only increases. "Good Ol Charlie Brown, How I Hate Him!" is the first book in the very ambitious project to publish every single Peanuts comic strip, and the evolution of Charlie Brown, his angst, his insecurities are all there for us to see. Truly a great comic strip.
Amazon, Flipkart, Powells, my review on Amazon

17. What happens when you yearn for intellectual acknowledgment, but lack the insights to contribute in any meaningful way to the discourse on the impact of technology? "The Net Delusion, by Evgeny Morozov" documents these foibles of putting technology front-and-center - "technology centrism", of trying to seek false equivalence between political and social movements more than two decades ago.

18. Certainly one of the more anticipated books of the year, "How Children Succeed, by Paul Tough" is certainly a good read, but at times accounts of the persons seem to suffocate the underlying message and information that needs to stay on top. Adverse experiences in childhood, too protective a childhood, a lack of focus - all can affect our chances of success, of happiness in life.
Amazon, Kindle, Flipkart, Powell's, Publisher, review on Amazon

19. One of the most anticipated books in India in 2012, "Durbar, by Tavleen Singh" is a journalist's retelling of a pivotal 25 year period in India's history, from the imposition of Emergency in 1975 to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. The underlying thread that runs through the book is not only the insidious reach of a select clique answerable to no one, but also the hand of Rajiv Gandhi in so many decisions that went bad, and the results of which are still being suffered by this nation.
Kindle, my review on Amazon,

20. There are only so many ways you can retell the Mahabharata. So I thought. Then came "Adi Parva - Churning of the Ocean, by Amruta Patil", which is a spectacular graphic retelling of the epic. To be accurate, it is only part of the first parva of the epic, the Adi Parva, and is the first in a planned trilogy. Also, it is much more graphics, illustrations than words. And this works just very well with the book. The drawings, color as well as charcoal black-and-white, evoke certain feelings, moods, and invite you to gaze and ponder at the illustrations, adding to the words and drawings what your imagination brings to the pictures. If you like this book, I venture you will return to this book several times. At Rs 799, it is not cheap, but this is a lavishly produced work of art. As for the price - there are always online comparison sites to look for discounts and bargains.
Amazon, Flipkart, my review on Amazon

© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal (अभिनव अग्रवाल). All rights reserved.