Imagine by Jonah Lehrer - Review

Imagine: How Creativity Works, by Jonah Lehrer
Anecdote-heavy travels through the world of creativity, and its practitioners
(Amazon, Flipkart, Infibeam, IndiaPlaza)


This is an enjoyable, surprising in places, though somewhat anecdote-heavy, travel through the world of creativity and a look into what drives the spark and sustains the fire of creativity in people who are masters of creativity in their disciplines.

If you read Jonah Lehrer's, the author, articles in Wired magazine, you will know two things. First, he writes exceedingly well, a craft honed no-doubt over thousands of hours of focused practice, and secondly, his writings are very much into understanding how the mind works and how we decide, incidentally the title of his previous monster blockbuster bestseller, How We Decide. This book is no different - written with a flowing felicity. Its focus is on a specific capability of the brain - creativity.

Whether it is designing a better mop, writing songs (Bob Dylan), becoming a renowned playwright (Shakespeare, of all people), creating movies (Pixar), performing as a soloist (Yo-Yo Ma), creativity works in somewhat surprising yet also reassuringly familiar ways. The single biggest rule of creativity is that it is open to almost everyone. Even people traditionally bucketed as "handicapped" or "disabled" (autistic people for instance) are blessed with a brain that is differently wired from others, and therefore better adept at creativity in specific areas.

Drugs too can help - yes, I would call that a tad controversial, but the evidence does lend itself to the supposition that certain drugs can help free the mind from the shackles of conformity and set it on a path of creativity. And not just drugs, even stimulants like tea or coffee can help. "Paul Edros... is said to have remarked that a 'mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems.'" Actual drugs work by changing the way the brain works. "Amphetamines act primarily on a network of neurons that use dopamine, a neurotransmitter, to communicate with one another. ... the drug dramatically increases the amount of dopamine in the synapses, which are the spaces between the cells." However, this creativity needs to be followed up by long, long hours of drudgery, so to say, where this spark of creativity is refined, again and again, and then some more, till it reaches the pinnacle of perfection. "If you are doing it right, it's going to feel like work." or "In fact, there is evidence suggesting that the ability to relentlessly focus on a creative problem can actually make us miserable." To wit, if the next time you complain to your boss that he is making your life miserable, he may well respond it's all to make you creative!

Day-dreaming is for the creative types too - disciplined daydreaming, if ever there was a conundrum. Working in teams can dramatically, and provably so, increase productivity and creativity. The example of Pixar is used, and describes some extreme steps like moving the bathrooms at the Pixar team's office into the atrium, which meant, in Steve Jobs' words, "Everybody has to run into each other." Did it help? Well, consider Pixar's track record - every single movie of theirs has been a commercial and artistic success. There is also the story of how Toy Story 2, less than a year before its release, was "Well, it's okay". It took radical steps, like getting everyone close together, physically, and long, long hours of debate and criticism and debate, to get the movie out in the form everyone saw it. Did it take a toll on people? Yes, severe. Tradeoffs I suppose.

Lastly, cities are often derided as agglomerations of decay, pollution, crime, corruption, and moral decay. And certainly, cities and their denizens work overtime to fulfill that promise. However, cities also act as a multiplier when it comes to creativity. Again, provably so. From the times of Shakespeare, or even much before that, densely populated regions have acted as creativity catalysts.

To summarize, this book can be read as a loosely connected collection of essays on creativity. Each chapter focuses on a particular aspect of creativity, held together by scientific evidence and anecdotes. I would strongly recommend this book to one and all.

These are the author's previous novels:

• Proust Was a Neuroscientist
• How We Decide

Some other books I would recommend:
Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five, by John Medina
Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, by John Medina
(Flipkart.com link, All results, Kindle edition, my review on Amazon.com)
The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home

 



Kindle Excerpt:

© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

Lying with Charts - Google Finance

Here's a short post on visualizations and distortions, unintentional but still there.

There was an article on the web that remarked on the rather steep fall-off in Apple's stock over the past week or so. I went over to Google Finance to take a look. What I found was interesting. I took some screenshots and have added them to this blog post.

I wanted to find out how much the stock had actually fallen, which is easily done, and how much the line chart was portraying as the fall in the stock, also fairly easily done.

Let us do some math now. Simple math, the kind I like, the only kind I can probably do now.

First, let us calculate how much the stock has actually fallen. The Google Finance page on Apple,  http://www.google.com/finance?q=aapl , tells us that on April 16, the stock closed at $580.13 - which we will round off to $580. Next, we find that its 52-week trading high was $644. 

So, you can see that the stock has fallen $64 from its peak, which translates into a 10.2% fall from its peak (64/640).

So, the first number of significance is 10.2% - we will format it bold to make it noticeable.

Next, take a look at the first chart. Even with a linear scale, the problem is that the axis does NOT begin from zero. Notice the first number on the vertical axis is $420 - Google is using a broken axis, which is useful for highlighting the magnitude of changes, as in this graph, but misleading because of its very nature; it inaccurately magnifies increases and decreases. By how much? Let's calculate.

If you were to take a measure and see what is the height of the stock chart from the base to its maximum, i.e. $644, you would find it measures 4" from top to bottom - approximately.

Next, you measure the fall from the peak of $644 to the current trough of $580. It measures approximately 0.95".

So, in this chart, a peak of $644 equates to 4".

A drop of $64 measures 0.95"

Therefore, the chart plots the drop as a 23.75% drop as seen on the chart - we will bold it to make it noticeable.

There you have it - an actual drop of 10.2% looks, note, looks, like a 23.75% drop.

To put that in perspective, had the stock actually fallen by 23.75%, it would have sunk by $152. Yes, and it would have been trading at $492.

Apple Stock Graph in 2012

Even when you change the time-scale to 5 years, it does not help completely, because the vertical axis is STILL a broken axis. The inaccuracy as displayed on the chart is a lot less, but it is still there.

Apple Stock Price over 5 Years

It is only the 10-year plot that has a true, non-distorted picture of the stock. But because of the 10-year plot, the recent rise and steep 10% fall is not very visible. If you zoom only into the current year, 2012, then the distortions creep right back into the graph.

Apple Stock Price over 10 Years

What Google Finance needs to do is add an option, a checkbox, in their Settings panel to allow a user to select whether they want an unbroken axis or not - i.e., to let the charting engine plot a broken axis when it sees fit, or to always display an unbroken axis.

© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

Strand Book Stall, Mid-year sale, Bangalore

The Strand Book Stall is having its mid-year sale, just for this weekend. It is taking place in the compound of the Wesley Tamil Church, which is located behind Garuda Mall on Magrath Road in Bangalore.

This is the hall where the book sale is taking place.

This is the Wesley Tamil Church; it has an unassuming but elegant facade.

 The hall is to the right of the church. Behind the hall you can see the massive Garuda Mall.

On the road that connects Magrath Road to Richmond Road, you can see a couple of signs that point you to the Wesley Tamil Church compound and the sale.

The hall is is not a very large one, but still big enough to have four aisles.

As always there were some good and interesting books to be spotted in the collection. This is one that I had not heard of before, but will do so now.

Paul Theroux is a noted author, and this is a book with a very striking cover, shall we say. Most people will recognize the photo as that of Goddess Kali, but one can imagine that many in the west would find the cover rather striking. I have not read the book, so cannot say whether the cover has any bearing on the plot, or it is more by way of exercising creative instincts. In any case, I have added A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta to my wishlist.

The day was very hot and dry, and quite unlike Bangalore summers. This has been a particularly long and hot and dry spell in Bangalore, and with no respite from the short but refreshing showers that provide much-needed cooling down of the city. That heat could probably explain the low attendance at the sale. I could also point to the explosion of online sales of books via vendors like Flipkart, IndiaPlaza, Infibeam, and others. What is not in dispute is that online sales have been hurting traditional retailers.
Nonetheless I would also suggest improvements that Strand could have made to their sale. The books had been laid out in one long, continuous heap, arranged very broadly by theme, but not much more to guide visitors by. They could have selected the 500 bestsellers and given them prominence. These bestsellers should have been surrounded by similar books. The visible placement of bestsellers attracts people's attention - they do not have to hunt around the whole hall searching for books. The hunt is something that appeals to some people, and there's nothing wrong in that, because the hall had enough books to satisfy the motivated hunter of books also. For the majority of the people however, a better thought-out placement would have helped.

View Larger Map

© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

Laxman's Questions - Pratham Books

Laxman's Questions, by Lata Mani (Author), Zainab Tambawala (Illustrator)
(Flipkart)

A small and cute book about a young boy's questions.
Laxman has questions. For birds and trees. About animals and nature. He wonders. And he learns that questions are as important as answers. His grandmother is always encouraging, while his mother is secretly proud of her son's inquisitiveness.

Book Synopsis:
Laxman’s head was full of questions: Why did seeing a bird fly make him happy? Did the birds who saw him feel just as happy? Read this book to see if you have such questions too.
Reading Level :3
Level 3: Reading Independently For children who are ready to read on their own
As part of Pratham Book's initiative to have volunteers conduct reading sessions, I contacted Maya and offered to conduct a reading, or two. She agreed, and a few days later I had the book in my hands. A few days later I was able to conduct a reading at http://www.magicpuddles.com/, an amazing school for pre-schoolers, run by Ravi and Viji.

There were about twenty toddlers in the room - Magic Puddles follows somewhat of a Montessori model, where children different ages are mixed together to provide for a more enrichening learning experience.

Having children between two-and-a-half and four-five years of age meant reading out the story page-by-page would be a challenge.

What I instead decided to follow was to not read out the story, but rather use the rich, full-page and double-paged color spreads to tell the story.

Holding up the book, spread open, and then asking the children to guess what was happening turned out to be a winning strategy, and injecting humour in-between kept the kids' attention.

There was one child who had read the story earlier - rather, her father had read the story out to her, and she was super-super-excited to participate in the story telling session! I can imagine the excitement she would have felt - I was taken back more than thirty years back to my own childhood - as best as I can remember it now :-)

One thing that I realized was that the kids were too young to quite understand the importance of speaking to plants and animals, in a metaphorical sense. They understood the importance of asking questions. And were very willing to demonstrate it in practice too!

I shot this too soon... the little fella had not yet finished putting the book up.

And now he has. And now seeing the photos again, I sure hope the little angel in the brown t-shirt got his turn, because in the photo below, he is looking very hopefully, but still without the book in his hands.

And did I tell you the book is priced at Rs 30!! I think all of Pratham Books' books are priced at below Rs 50 - that is simply amazing!

© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

The Fifth Witness, Michael Connelly - review

The Fifth Witness, by Michael Connelly
Sticks and stones do break the bones, and yes, words too can hurt.
(my review on Amazon)

Michael Haller's law business is running on low, and he is handling house repossession cases, arising as a result of the financial meltdown. Therefore, he is sort of surprised, or maybe not, when one of his clients, Lisa Trammel, a "nuisance client" in Haller's words, is arrested and charged with the murder of Mitchell Bondurant. Bondurant was a senior vice president at the bank that was foreclosing on Lisa Trammel's house. To spice things up further, Lisa had been issued a restraining order (a temporary restraining order, to be precise) by a judge and ordered not to come near the WestLand Bank. Therefore, Lisa was a person who had the motive, and perhaps the opportunity too. To defend Lisa, Haller needs to find a strawman, an alternative theory, and introduce probable cause and sufficient doubt in the jury's minds to acquit Trammel of the charge. Facing him, as the public prosecutor, is Andrea Freeman, a shartp, smart, and no-nonsense person who plays to win. There is a shady Hollywood hustler, Dahl, who is trying to secure a lucrative deal for himself and Lisa for the movie rights to this story, something that Haller is also trying to sew up, more to get himself paid since Lisa is more or less financially incapable of paying Haller. There is a serious assault on Haller by unknown thugs that lands him in hospital with broken bones. In a nod to the prevalence and increasing ubiquity of social networking, there is somewhat crucial role that Facebook, the social networking site, plays. And there is a reference to Matthew McConaughey - who, incidentally, or not, played the role of Mickey Haller in the successful movie, "The Lincoln Lawyer" (see my review)!

Running along a parallel track is Haller's somewhat complicated relationship with his first ex-wife Maggie McFierce, yes - there are two ex-wives, and their daughter Haley.

The book ends with a slight twist in the tale, as has been the case with the author's two earlier Mickey Haller novels, and then there's a new, and major twist to the tale that should make the next installment of the franchise interesting.

This is Michael Connelly, the author's, third book that I read, and all three have been Mickey Haller books. Of the three, this is probably the weakest, in my (humble) opinion. There is a considerable amount of space devoted to the trial itself, in the courtroom, and to the frequent interruptions, objections, motions, and sparring between all three characters - Haller, Freeman, and judge Perry. While the basic plot and narration holds your attention, it somehow feels less than satisfying, compared to the earlier two novels. It still rates an entertaining thriller, but suffers somewhat in comparison.

Kindle Excerpt:

© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

Oracle Nasdaq Times Square Manhattan New York City

This is another photos I shot in 2002, on 35-mm film, using a Canon A2 SLR, in Manhattan in New York city, in Times Square. The giant eight-storey high NASDAQ screen has a logo of Oracle on it. This giant screen was launched in 2000 I think, and apart from displaying stock and market-related information, the giant screen is utilized for displaying  the logos of companies listed on the NASDAQ exchange. Even amongst the crowded digital screen madness in Times Square, the NASDAQ screen stands out.

When taking this photo I had two challenges. The first was that this display would display the Oracle logo for a few seconds, and then move on to an animation that lasted for a few more seconds, and then return to the Oracle logo, and so on. I knew it was going to move to some other company's logo after a few rounds of showing the Oracle logo. So I had to make sure that whatever I wanted to shoot I shot quickly, before the logo changed to another company, and also, at the same time, make sure that I did not end up capturing some meaningless-looking animation in transition. Basically I had a two-three second window of opportunity, that would present two or three more times, in which to take this photo, or wait an hour, or more, for the Oracle logo to cycle back.
The second challenge was the lighting. This was not a digital camera, so I could neither peek on the camera's LCD screen and get a preview to make sure I had the exposure right, nor could I switch the ISO value to something higher, like ISO 800, and be guaranteed a sharp shot, and not one that was blurred due to hand movement and a slow shutter speed. The trick was to do spot metering, and then adjust the aperture till I got at least a 1/30 or 1/45 sec shutter speed. Spot metering was essential because I was interested in only the digital screen being properly exposed. If I tried to include the surroundings and try and have them also exposed properly, the screen was going to turn out totally white, and useless. HDR - high dynamic range - photography probably did not exist at that time either. Careful hand-holding of the camera when taking the shot would ensure that the photo would not be a complete wash - I did not have a tripod with me.

As it turns out, not bad. I was reasonably happy with the results, which I saw after moving back to India a few days later. That, I think, is another story.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2000/01/33533

© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

The Litigators, by John Grisham - Review

The Litigators, by John Grisham - my review
A Return to Form of Sorts for Grisham

(my review on Amazon, buy from Amazon, Kindle, Flipkart, Infibeam)
After a long time John Grisham returns to writing a decent legal novel. Thriller it is not, enjoyable it is.
David Zinc is a bright, young, and burned-out attorney, working with a large firm that employs thousands of bright and young attorneys like him. David has a meltdown one fine morning, and spends the rest of the day, and afternoon, and evening at a downtown pub, drinking himself beyond drunk. He spends the night at the offices of Finley and Figg, partners at a boutique law firm. Calling it boutique and firm would be a stretch, and calling Finley and Figg laywers an even greater one. These are two past-middle-age lawyers who make their money by handling quickie divorces, DUIs charges, and have a dog's keen ear-sight, shall we call it, for car wrecks. This is where David Zinc, the bright, young, and now burned-out lawyer, decides to work at. While Figg (Wally) pokes around and dscovers a retirement-rich pot of gold jackpot waiting in the form of a cholesterol-reducing drug that may have been causing heart-attacks, David gets involved in trying to get justice for the undocumented immigrant parents of a now mentally-handicapped child, who got exposed to chemicals in the paint on a toy.

That, in a nutshell, is the plot of the book. The book is replete with hilarious send-offs of almost everyone in the book - lawyers mostly. The plot is not too complicated or multi-layered to make it a heavy read. The characters are mostly, and transparently so, transparent, shall we say, and in one case, we can see the train wreck coming from a mile away.

Kindle Excerpt:

© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

Macromedia

Companies in the sands of Silicon Valley - Macromedia.
I had taken this photo in 2002, while in the San Francisco Bay Area for a business trip to my employer, Oracle. On a weekend, when I had time and a camera in hand, I went for a short drive and took some photos. One such photo was of a company called Macromedia, which was the maker of the highly popular Flash and Dreamweaver line of products, among others. In 2005 it was acquired by Adobe, primarily for its Flash and Flex line of products and technology. Unknown to me, or perhaps forgotten, was the fact that Microsoft executive, Stephen Elop, now CEO of Nokia, had been the CEO of Macromedia at the time of its acquisition by Adobe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia). In 2002 Macromedia introduced Flash MX, which was to  quickly become Flex, and became the catalyst for Adobe's acquisition of the company. One of the reasons cited by Adobe's CEO at the time was the fact that Macromedia had, in Flash, a runtime whose distribution required less than 2MB of space. This was a huge consideration then, especially with companies starting to think on how to distribute rich interactive experiences to users on phones. Adobe tried to take the Flash/Flex platform to the next level, of making it a computing platform with the introduction of Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), codenamed "Apollo", in 2007. This ambitious goal never quite fructified for Adobe, was exacerbated by the introduction of the Apple iPhone in 2007, the move of the web towards HTML5, Adobe's own inability to bring out a Flash runtime that could run performantly on smartphones, and finally saw Adobe donating Flex to the Apache Foundation in 2011 (http://www.techworld.com.au/article/407714/adobe_donates_flex_apache, http://blogs.apache.org/flex/) and moving its own efforts more towards development tools for building HTML5-based applications.

• Next CEO aims to take Adobe mobile while staying grounded | News Blogs - CNET News
• Adobe names Macromedia exec to be CTO | Underexposed - CNET News
• Macromedia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

Mahabharata Vol. 4, by Bibek Debroy - review

Mahabharata, Vol. 4, translated by Bibek Debroy

"Negotiating and Preparing - The Inexorable March to Destruction"
(Amazon, Penguin Books, India Plaza, Flipkart, Flipkart e-book)
(My review on Amazon - highly censored version, because four times Amazon rejected my submission.)
   
(Revised and edited September 13, 2012; for clarity and to correct errors)
With the twelfth year of exile coming to a close, the Pandavas need to - "... spend the thirteenth year in disguise, but in inhabited places", as per the conditions of the bet (Ch 292, Anudyuta Parva). They settle upon the Matsya kingdom, and decide how each of the six is going to disguise themselves and enter the kingdom. The thirteenth year safely negotiated, but not without Bheema almost giving the game away, twice, and a concerted effort by Duryodhana to force the Pandavas to come out of hiding, the negotiations begin. The Pandavas ask for their kingdom, and the Kauravas refuse. After several rounds of discussions, war is inevitable. The preparations for the war begin, and the last sub-Parva in this volume ends with Bhishma, the commander of the Kuru army, enumerating the warriors on both sides - Ratha-Atiratha Samkhya.

This fourth volume contains the entire Virata Parva, the fourth parva (as per the 18-parva classification), and most of the fifth parva, Udyoga Parva. Going by the 100-sub-Parva classification it contains Sub-Parvas 45 through 59, the 45th Sub-Parva being Vairata Parva, while the 59th Sub-Parvas is Ratha-Atiratha Samkhya. Vol. 4 contains all the sections (adhyayas) of the Udyoga Parva, with the exception of the last adhyayay, Ambopakyana Parva, which I guess recalls the tale of Amba after she left the Kuru assembly, seething with rage and looking for revenge against Bhishma. The longest parva in this volume is Bhagavat-Yana Parva, clocking in at 2055 shlokas, which, as the name suggests, covers Lord Krishna's travel to Hastinapur to plead for peace one last time.

The first parva in this book is Vairata Parva, in which Yudhishtra and the Pandava brothers discuss how and where to spend the thirteenth year of their exile, incognito. In this unabridged translation of the critical edition, Arjuna states, "I promise that I will undertake the duties of a eunuch." Without any additional information here, it is difficult to understand why Arjuna alone decides on this particularly embarrassing disguise. The Critical Edition excises the episode where Urvashi the apsara curses Arjuna. That would have at least provided a narrative coherence to the very handsome and manly Arjuna disguising himself as a eunuch. On the other hand, Arjuna was ambidextrous ("savasachi" (सव्यसाची ), and could shoot arrows using both hands. Should we read into this an explanation, a hint, to explain Arjuna’s transformation? In any case, Arjuna had learnt the arts and dance from Chitrasena, the Gandharva, while in heaven - this comes in handy since he spends the thirteenth year teaching Princess Uttaraa (the Prince was named Uttara, hence the princess is sometimes spelled with an additional “a” to differentiate the two in writing) dance. Yudhishtra acts as an advisor, Bhima as a cook - of course, and Nakula and Sahadeva as stableboy and cowherd respectively.

Before the Pandavas leave for the Matsya kingdom, their preceptor Dhoumya instructs the princes on how to lead the life of courtiers and commoners, lest they attract unwanted attention.

"For an entire year you will be unknown and will not be shown any honour, even though you deserve honour. When you are shown the door, take to the door.
...
Kings dislike those who disagree and people who speak lies.
...
When there is an occasion for laughter, one should laugh gently, and not like one who is mad. But one should not be too solemn."

Droupadi, before entering Queen Sudeshna's service, places two conditions that the queen accepts - "... I am not served any leftover food and where I am not asked to wash anyone's feet."

The first real sign of danger comes as the thirteenth year is nearing an end. Kichaka, the chief of King Virata’s army and also the brother of Queen Sudeshna, sees Droupadi, and is smitten by her - not the first, but certainly the last of the villainous characters who will lust after her. Kichaka’s end is described in the Kichaka-Vadha Parva. This is also the parva where we see a considerable amount of humour too - perhaps more humour is packed into this parva than all other parvas combined. Sample this line describing Kichaka's state of mind upon hearing from Droupadi that she was willing to come see him, at night, in the dancing hall: "Though he would soon be freed of all prosperity, he seemed to increase in prosperity." Or when Bhima, lying in wait in disguise for Kichaka, tells him, "I do not think that you have ever been caressed the way you are going to be  caressed." However, Kichaka's end is anything but a matter of levity. Bhima pounds Kichaka into a pulp - "He forced his feet, his hands, his hand, his neck and all his limbs into his trunk..." - so much that when the guards entered the dancing room and saw Kichaka's corpse, they wondered, "Where is the neck? Where are the feet? Where are the hands? Where is the head?"

By the time the Kauravas launch an expedition against the Matsya kingdom, the Pandavas’ thirteenth year has come to an end. Why they continued to live in disguise is however not clear. The Pandavas break their disguise only after the mini-battle in the Go-Grahana Parva. As the name suggests, this sub-Parva describes the stealing of the cows from King Virata's kingdom. Again, contrary to popular opinion, Duryodhana does not suspect that the killing of Kichaka may have something to do with Bhima and the Pandavas. it is King Susharma, ruler of Trigata, who decides to launch an expedition against the Matsya kingdom to rob it of its riches, jewels, food-grains, and cattle. It is only when the Kurus, on the battlefield, hear the roar of the chariot and the "blast of the conch" (Devdutt), that Drona recognizes it as Arjuna's conch: "From the roar of the chariot, the blast of the conch shell and the trembling of the earth, it can be no one other than Savyasachi."
As the fight begins in earnest between Arjuna and the Kuru army, you can sense that the battle between Arjuna and Bhishma is not being fought in earnest - "Using weapons to counter weapons, those bulls among men seemed to be playing." - neither warrior, grandfather and grandson, is as yet ready to engage in a deadly duel. That will have to wait.

The thirteenth year over, the negotiations begin. This is the Udyoga Parva - the name of both the fifth Parva as well as the first sub-Parva within the Udyoga Parva - and it begins with consultations between the Pandavas and the others in King Virata's assembly hall. Abhimanyu's marriage to Uttara has been concluded, and it is time to start negotiations with the Kurus for the return of Indraprastha to the Pandavas. Krishna suggests sending a messenger to Hastinapura - "With the intentions of the enemy not being known, how can one decide on an appropriate course of action?" After Krishna, Balarama and Satyaki also speak. Balarama is not in any rush to pass judgment on Shakuni, and leads a possibly lone voice of dissent among the Vrishnis - "Yudhishtra was addicted to gambling and they approached him with affection. ... He was warned by all his well-wishers. ... Having commenced, he lost his head and was convincingly defeated. Therefore, there is no crime that attaches to Shakuni."

While Drupada's priest prepares to leave for Hastinapur, preparations for war have already begun in earnest. Two important events take place during this time. The first is Arjuna and Duryodhana's visit to Dwarvati (Dwarka) to ask for Krishna's help in the war between the Kurus. The second is when Shalya, the maternal uncle of the Pandavas (he was the brother of Madri, mother of Nakula and Sahdeva), is tricked by Duryodhana and drafted into the Kaurava camp.

At this point, however, rather incongruously so, the main story takes a pause, a wholly unexpected pause, and we are taken into a different time and the story of Indra and Vritra is recounted.

Drupada's priest, and messenger, delivers his message to the Kurus. Bhishma is somewhat taken aback by the tone of the message, and opines, "It is my view that because you are a brahmana, your words are too sharp." Karna, on the other hand, is having none of this, and remains implacably hostile  - "... Karna glanced in Duryodhana's direction and angrily and insolently said, 'O brahmana! What you have said is not unknown by any being in the world. What is the point of repeating it again and again?"
Thus ends Udyoga Parva (of the 100-parva classification, and also the first parva of Udyoga Parva in the 18-parva).

Sanjaya-Yana Parva talks about Sanjaya's mission to Upalavya as Dhritarashtra's messenger.  Dhritarashtra, despite the long message he has for Sanjaya, actually has only item on his agenda - "... whatever you think should be said for the welfare of the Bharatas, say that in the midst of the kings, but do not say anything that incites them to the war." Without anything to offer to the Pandavas, it is clear that Sanjaya's mission is bound to fail. As it does. The actual chapters that detail the exchange of views between Sanjaya and Yudhishtra, and then between Sanjaya and Krishna, are riveting. We are still some ways away from the battlefield of Kurukshetra and the Lord's message to Arjuna - that the world would later come to know as the Bhagavad Gita -  but there is still no mistaking Krishna's philosophy. This is what he has to say on deeds and knowledge, in a manner that really leaves no room for doubt as to the Lord's stance on the superiority of deeds over knowledge.

"On the present issue, there is a difference of opinion among the brahmanas. Some say that deeds bring success in the hereafter. Others discard deeds and say that success comes from learning. It is known to brahmanas that those who have food, but fail to eat it, will remain hungry. It is only knowledge which leads to deeds that bears fruit, not other kinds."

Krishna is also very clear on where the fault lies: "Whether riches are stolen secretly in private, or whether they are stolen forcibly in public, the two crimes are equally reprehensible. O Sanjaya! How is the act of Dhritarashtra's son different? ... You did not speak of dharma in that assembly hall. But you see it fit to instruct the Pandavas now."

Before Sanjaya departs for Hastinapur, Yudhishtra makes his final offer - "We wish for peace. Give us one province from your kingdom - Kushasthala, Vrikosthala, Asanti, Varanavata and whichever else you pick as the fifth and the last."

Sanjaya returns to Hastinapur, and is granted an audience with Dhritarashtra even though it is night. His message is not palatable - "I censure you for discord among the Bharatas." Dhritarashtra is restless after hearing Sanjaya. He cannot sleep. He calls for Vidura and asks for words of wisdom.

Thus begins Prajagara Parva - a brilliant exposition on right-and-wrong, on dharma, on political philosophy, and one of several mini-philosophical treatises that dot the epic. Here's a brief sample:

"
There are two sharp thorns that dry up the body - desire on the part of those who are poor, and anger on the part of those who are powerless.
...
.. a greatly strong king should avoid consultations with four - those who have limited intelligence, those who procrastinate, those who are lazy, and those who are flatterers.
...
There are five who follow, wherever you go - friends, enemies, those who are neutral, those you live on and those who are supported by you.
...
There are six who live off six others and there isn't a seventh like this...
"

Krishna now decides to make one last effort at peace. He will go to Hastinapura and appeal for peace. While all the Pandavas speak with Krishna before he departs for Hastinapura, Bhima's message is uncharacteristically mild and contrary to his nature - "O Madhusudhana!You should speak in such a way that the Kurus resort to peace. Do not frighten them with war!" Why Bhima chooses to speak thus is not clear - after all, hadn’t he taken two terrible vows in the gambling hall at Hastinapura? What would happen to those vows should the Kauravas accept the offer of peace?

As Krishna proceeds to Hastinapura, Duryodhana has palaces built for him along his journey, and Dhritarashtra discusses with Vidura the gifts he is planning to give to Krishna. Vidura is unimpressed, and tells the king bluntly, "It is because of deception and falsehood that you are giving him all these gifts. O king! Despite your external deeds, I know your inner secrets."
Krishna meets Vidura, Kunti, and the Kuru elders. The talks fail, expectedly, but not without Duryodhana attempting yet another villainy by trying to have Krishna captured.

Krishna, on the other hand, pursues his policy of sama, dama, danda, and bhed (साम दाम दंड भेद). He takes Karna in his chariot and tells him the secret of his birth. This is the Karna-Upanivada Parva. When Karna responds, "I also know everything about my being Pandu's son under the norms of dharma" it is not clear when and how did Karna came to know the secret of his birth. Or was he saying this to hide the shock at this revelation?

The book ends with the Ratha-Atiratha-Samkhya Parva, where Bhishma gives his assessment of the strengths of the warriors on both sides of the armies, but not without causing more grief to Karna. The book ends on a tantalizing note, with the promise of the story of Shikhandi, and Amba, to follow in the next parva.

"I will never kill someone who has been born as a woman, or someone who has been a woman earlier. O king! You may have heard that Shikhandi was earlier a woman. ... I will not fight with him. ... I will kill all the other lords of the earth, whomsoever I encounter on the field of battle, with the exception of the sons of Kunti."

Bibek Debroy, the translator, is an economist with a difference. How so? Well, let's just say different. Consider this. In the early 1980s, while at the Presidency College in Kolkata, the author wrote a paper where he did a "statistical test on the frequency with which the five Pandavas used various weapons in the Kurukshetra war." Yes. Different.

The author has followed the Critical Edition from the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (Pune), for his translation. The entire series is expected to run into ten volumes, and so far, at the time of my writing this review of the third volume, four volumes have been released, with each volume appearing roughly every six months, the most recent one, Vol. 4, published in Nov. 2011.

You can get these books from Amazon in the US, or from most quality bookstores I would hope. In India there is a plethora of choices. Several brick-and-mortar stores sell them, including Crosswords, Landmark, and Sapna Book House (in Bangalore). For online shopping, while Flipkart continues to offer amazing service and blazingly fast deliveries, their prices are no longer competitive for several books, and their discounts are substantially less than what other online stores offer. They are selling this fourth volume for Rs 509, a 15% discount. However, IndiaPlaza is selling the book at a whopping 40% discount, for Rs 359 - truly a bargain. The fourth volume has seen a 50 increase in price over the previous volumes, with a list price of Rs 600.

• https://twitter.com/#!/bibekdebroy
• Bibek Debroy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Penguin Books India page for Bibek Debroy

Vol. 4 Kindle Excerpt:

Mahabharata, Vol. 1
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My blog post
My review on Amazon.com



Mahabharata, Vol. 2
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My blog post
My review on Amazon.com


 Mahabharata, Vol. 3
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© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

Truck Signage, Alang, Gujarat

Shot on the drive back from the Alang Shipbreaking yard in Gujarat.

This one reads,
Ram janam meu doodh miley, Krishna janam mei ghee,
Kalyug mei daaru miley to soch samajh kar pi.

Yes, can't argue with that, I suppose.

राम जन्म मे दूध मिले, कृष्ण जनम मे घी,
कल्युग मे दारू मिले तो सोच समझ कर पी |

© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

Mahabharata Vol. 3, by Bibek Debroy - review

Mahabharata, Vol. 3, translated by Bibek Debroy"A Time for Learning and Preparing"

(Amazon, Kindle, Penguin Books, Infibeam, India Plaza, Flipkart, Flipkart e-book)
(My review on Amazon )

  
(Revised and edited Sep 08, 2012)
Review in brief:
This volume contains most of and completes the Aranyaka Parva. The Pandavas' time in the forest is spent mostly in listening to the words of the wise, and in going on  pilgrimages. To some extent, much of the content in this parva seems like later insertions, simply because there is little here that advances the story, and little that happens in this parva has a direct bearing on the story, with three exceptions. Having said that, the stories that are recounted in this parva are themselves well-known and probably owe their survival in no small way to their inclusion in the Mahabharata.

This volume completes the Aranyaka Parva, the third Parva (as per the 18-parva classification), which began in Vol 2, and is a time of learning for the Pandavas. While Arjuna treks to heaven to obtain knowledge of weapons and dance from Indra, Yudhishtra is educated on dharma by a host of learned men, primary among them being sage Markandeya.

From the Aranyaka Parva, this volume contains Sub-Parvas 33 through 44, 33 being the "Tirtha Yatra" parva, and Sub-Parva 44 being the "Araneya" parva  (within the 100-parva classification). The very first sub-parva, "Tirtha Yatra" is massive, clocking in at 2,422 shlokas, and is by far the longest sub-parva in the epic so far. (However, there seems to be some anomaly when adding up the shlokas in the Teertha Parva. The table in the Introduction states the Tirtha Parva as having 2422 shlokas, while page 1, where the Tirtha Parva starts, states that it has 2294 shlokas.) This sub-parva however is going to be eclipsed in length by nine sub-parvas before the epic ends!

After the almost frenetic pace of the Sabha Parva, which sets the frame for the war to take place and also where several pivotal incidents take place, the Aranyaka Parva is almost glacial in pace. There are possibly three major episodes in this volume of note which have a direct bearing on the story. One is Arjuna's departure to Indraloka in search of divine weapons, that Yudhishtra has determined will be needed if the Pandavas are to win against the might of the Kurus. This episode, while part of the Aranyaka Parva, is present in Vol. 2.

Vol. 3 therefore has two major episodes. The first is the kidnapping of Droupadi by her brother-in-law, Jayadratha, the husband of Duhshala, sister of the 100 Kaurava brothers. This is recounted in the Droupadi-Harana Parva, the 42nd sub-parva, and runs for more than 1200 shlokas. Letting Jayadratha go alive has a very direct bearing on the happenings on the 13th day of the battle in Kurukshetra. This parva also sees the retelling of two tales - the Ramayana, and the story of Savitri and Satyavan, as a result of Yudhishtra's lament on the state of affairs. The stories are recounted by sage Markandeya in response to two specific questions by Yudhishtra. When Yudhishtra laments, "Is there any other man who is more unfortunate than I? Have you seen, or heard of, any such person earlier? " Markandeya tells the story of Rama and his travails in 18 chapters. Yudhishtra's second question, in response to which the story of Savitri is recounted, is, "Have you ever seen, or heard of, a woman as immensely fortunate and as devoted to her husbands as Drupada's daughter?" Perhaps sage Markandeya was trying, gently, to tell Yudhishtra about the circle of time - what has happened in the past is repeated in the future, what is happening has happened before, and what is to happen will also have happened in the past.

The second major episode is even more critical to the epic. It is the Kundala-harana Parva, and is recounted immediately after the Droupad-harana Parva. In this parva, Indra, Arjuna's celestial father, disguised as a brahmana, comes down to earth to ask, beg, rob, Karna of his armour, his "kavacha", that make him invincible in battle. Karna parts with them - and gets an unanswerable, use-once, weapon from Indra in return, and which will return to Indra after it has killed one person it is fired at. Therefore, we can see that several fates have been sealed as a result of this exchange. Karna is now no longer invincible. He will die on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. The weapon that Karna has obtained will kill one of the mighty warriors on the Pandava side. While Karna intended to use it on Arjuna, he would end up using it on Ghatotakacha, the mighty son of Bheema. Arjuna's life will be spared as a result. Whatever hope the Kuru army, and Duryodhana, may have harboured of victory till that point will vanish.

Apart from these two well-known stories, some of the other stories recounted in this volume, and parva, are that of sage Agastya, Lopamudra Ilvala and Vatapi, Indra and Vritra (and which is expounded upon in greater detail in Vol. 4), Ganga, sage Rishabha, sage Kashyap's son Rishyashringa, who was born as the son of a deer, sage Jamadagni, his wife Renuka, and their fifth son Parshurama, Sage Chyavana and Sukanya, King Shibi, and Ashtavakra. One gets the feeling that the Aranyaka Parva became, over time, the repository of stories that were deemed important and needed to be made part of the Mahabharata to ensure their permanence. While you have sections in the epic that serve as mini-philosophical treatises, tales as those found in this Parva may have been acutely incongruous elsewhere. The Pandavas have to spend twelve years in the forest, so telling and hearing stories to pass the time seems quite a natural thing to do.

Summary and Excerpts:
Arjuna has gone to the heavens in search of divine weapons that the Pandavas know they will need to get their kingdom back. The remaining Pandavas are missing Arjuna terribly. The sage Narada comes visiting, and Yudhishtra asks him to expound on the merits "obtained by someone who circles the earth and visits all the tirthas". The sage asks the Pandavas to listen in turn to what rishi Pulastya had told Bhishma in response to the same question. Thus begins Tirtha Parva. While we have been told in some detail the importance of Kurukshetra in Vol 1, in the Adi Parva, this parva contains more details on the holiness of Kurukshetra as a tirtha. "Even if one only wishes to go to Kurukshetra in one's mind, all one's sins are destroyed and one goes to to Brahma's world." and later "But in all the three worlds, Kurukshetra is special. Even the dust carried away by the winds in Kurukshetra takes the performer of evil acts to the supreme objective. ... Those who live in Kurukshetra live in heaven, "I will go to Kurukshetra, I will live in Kurukshetra," He who utters this single sentence is cleansed of all sins."

The stories of Agastya, Lopamudra Ilvala and Vatapi, Indra and Vritra (which is expounded upon in greater detail in Vol. 4), the Vindhyas are also to be found in this single tirtha. The story of Ganga, and how the ashes of the sons of King Sagara were immersed in the Ganga is then recounted starting with adhyaya 104 (of the Aranyaka Parva). We then get to hear about sage Rishabha, sage Kashyap's son Rishyashringa, who was born as the son of a deer, sage Jamadagni, his wife Renuka, and their fifth son Parshurama. The story of Sage Chyavana and Sukanya, which is also available as an Amar Chitra Katha, is recounted in chapter 122 and 123. The story of King Somaka and his lone son Jantu is heart-rending in some ways. A line from that adhyaya (128) is worth repeating here:

Dharma replied, 'O King!No one ever obtains the fruits of someone else's action.'

Chapter 130 and 131 retell the story of King Shibi, who was confronted with a familiar dilemma of dharma, whereby protecting a dove would have meant depriving the hawk. (Read the Amar Chitra Katha, "Indra and Shibi", for a nice illustrated retelling of the story). Chapters 132 onwards the story of Ashtavakra is recited. Chapter 134 contains the famous debate between Ashtavakra and Bandi. You could read that adhyaya again and again, such is the cascading crescendo of the debate between the learned sage and the twelve-year old Ashtavakra.

There is a considerable amount of space devoted to Bhima's travels towards the Gandhamadana mountains and his meeting with his half-brother, Hanuman. It is in chapter 161 that we see Arjuna return after completing his stay in the heavens.

Ajgara Parva is somewhat similar to Araneya parva. In both, it is Yudhishtra's knowledge of dharma that saves his brothers. One can also interpret these parvas in different manner. While it was Yudhishtra's love of gambling that saw him lose his kingdom, his brothers, and his wife, in gambling to Shakuni, it is his recently acquired knowledge from the sages in the forest that sees him redeeming himself and saving his brothers.
While it is Bhima in the Ajgara Parva, it is all his four brothers that Yudhishtra saves in the Araneya Parva.

From the Ajgara Parva, there are a few lines that bear repeating, if only to highlight what Yudhishtra has to say about who is learned and who is not; in other words, who is a brahman and who is not.
Yudhishtra replied, "If these traits, not even found in a brahmana, are seen in a shudra, he is not a shudra. A brahmana in whom a brahmana's traits are not found, is a shudra." In other words, it is conduct that determines your caste, so to say. Putting it in even simpler words, one is noble or not based on actions. Karma is prime; birth is not. "All men are equal in speech ... birth, and death."
Immediately afterwards, in Chapter 178, we see a profound exchange between Nahusha and Yudhishtra on dharma. Yudhishtra asks,

"O serpent! Between generosity and truthfulness, which is seen to be superior? Between non-violence and good conduct, which is superior and which is inferior"
'The serpent replied, "The superiority or inferiority of generosity versus truthfulness or non-violence vis-a-vis good conduct is determined by whether the effects of these deeds are more or less important."

This emphasis on karma, deeds, is a recurring theme in the epic.This parva, Ajgara Parva, is profound in itself and bears resemblance to some of the principal Upanishads themselves.

There is yet another fascinating episode where the sage Markandeya tells the Pandavas the story of the sage Koushika, who, on being berated by the wife of a householder as not being conversant with the true meaning of dharma, left for the city of Mithila, where a hunter, who bought and sold the meat of deer and buffaloes, enlightens the sage on dharma. Yet another reminder of how it is our deeds that define who we are, and not where we are or how we were born. There is a passage where the hunter tries to disabuse sage Koushika of the notions of ahimsa (violence) by saying:

"Agriculture is known to be a virtuous occupation. But it has been said that there is great violence in this. Ploughing kills many beings that lie inside the ground and many other hundreds of beings. What is your view on this? ... Man hunts, kills and eats animals. They also cut trees and herbs. O brahmana! There are many living beings in trees and fruit. There are many in water too. What is your view on this? O brahmana! Everything is full of life and living beings. Fish eat fish, What is your view on this? O supreme among brahmanas! Beings live on other beings. O supreme among brahmanas! Beings live on other beings. ... But in this world, who does not injure living beings?"

This volume ends, as does the Aranyaka Parva, with chapter 299, and with the Pandavas ready to enter the thirteenth year of exile incognito.

Bibek Debroy, the translator, is an economist with a difference. How so? Well, let's just say different. Consider this. In the early 1980s, while at the Presidency College in Kolkata, the author wrote a paper where he did a "statistical test on the frequency with which the five Pandavas used various weapons in the Kurukshetra war." Yes. Different. While his interest in the Mahabharata "remained, I got sidetracked into translating. Through the 1990s, there were abdridged translations of the Maha Puranas, the Vedas and the eleven major Upanishads."

The author has followed the Critical Edition from the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, in Pune, for his translation. The entire series is expected to run into ten volumes, and so far, at the time of my writing this review of the third volume, four volumes have been released, with each volume appearing roughly every six months, the most recent one, Vol. 4, published in Nov. 2011.

As far as purchasing these volumes are concerned, you can get these books from Amazon in the US. In India there is a plethora of choices. Several brick-and-mortar stores sell them, including Crosswords and Landmark. For online shopping, while Flipkart continues to offer amazing service and blazingly fast deliveries (a less than 24-hour turnaround time from order to delivery is not uncommon!), their discounts on books have fallen steeply over the past several months. They are selling this book for Rs 440, a healthy 20% discount off the list price of Rs 550 Rs 468, a 15% discount. However, check out other sites like Infibeam, that is selling the book for Rs 413 (25% off), and IndiaPlaza, which is selling the book at a whopping 40% discount, for Rs 330 - truly a bargain.

• https://twitter.com/#!/bibekdebroy
• Bibek Debroy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Penguin Books India page for Bibek Debroy

Mahabharata, Vol. 1
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My blog post
My review on Amazon.com


Mahabharata, Vol. 2
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My blog post
My review on Amazon.com



Mahabharata, Vol. 4
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Kindle Excerpt:

© 2012, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.