Interview with Bibek Debroy on the Mahabharata

Icing on a Delicious Cake

People following my blog will know that I started reading and writing about Dr. Bibek Debroy's unabridged translation of the Mahabharata in 2012. Some time ago I asked Dr. Bibek Debroy if he would be willing to answer some questions I had on the Mahabharata and its unabridged translation he has been doing. He graciously consented, and soon enough I typed out a list of fifteen questions. Within a couple of days I got his detailed response to my questionnaire.

Mahabharata Ch 6-10, Adi Parva, Pouloma Parva

[Ch 1,2,3,45 « Ch 6,7,8,9,10 » Ch 11,12,13,14,15]

Parva:Adi; Upa-parva:Pouloma; Chapter:6; Shlokas:13

Puloman carried away Puloma, but this angered her unborn son, still in her womb. He fell down, and thus got the name Chyavana ("The word means to be deprived of, or perishing."). Puloman let go of Puloma, but himself fell down and was burnt to ashes. As a weeping Puloma carried Chyavana, a river of tears followed in her footsteps. Brahma named the river Vadhusara.

Mahabharata Chs 1-5, Adi Parva

[Ch 1,2,3,4,5 » Ch 6,7,8,9,10]

Parva: Adi; Upa-parva: Anukramanika; Chapter: 1; Shlokas: 210

नारायणं नमस्कृत्य नरं चैव नरोत्तमम् |

देवीं सरस्वतीं चैव ततो जयमुदीरयेत् ||

"Jaya must be recited after having bowed in obeisance before Nayarana and also Nara, the supreme human being, and also the goddess Sarasvati."

The first upa-Parva in the Mahabharata - Anukramanika Parva - consists of only one chapter, and as stated by Dr. Bibek Debroy, is "clearly a later addition and sets out the background for the recital of the story and summarizes the main incidents...".

In Spite of the Gods, by Edward Luce

In Spite of the Gods - The Rise of Modern India, By Edward Luce

One line review: Crass. Clueless. Sadly Shallow.

Long review: Written by an editor with the Financial Times (Edward Luce was the newspaper's South Asia bureau chief between 2001 and 2006, based out of New Delhi), the book starts off earnestly enough, but falls rapidly into a morass of political biases, cheap shots, shallow-to-nonexistent analysis, ending as another example of those books that people aspire to write, have the connections to do so, yet should not.

Land of the Seven Rivers, by Sanjeev Sanyal

Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India's Geography, by Sanjeev Sanyal

One line review: Five millennia, one history, one nation, one helluva book.

Short review: This book is a second, much grander and a much better attempt by the author to answer one question. This time around though, he goes deeper and farther back in the history of the land of seven rivers - India, presents us with his findings, and posits that India has had a sense of history - one that not only goes back several unbroken thousand years, but has found echo in successive empires and invaders seeking to associate themselves with this history. As the author travels through the country - in time as well as geography - we are treated to some long-forgotten incidents that should have been part of our curricula, as well as fascinating insights into such endeavours as the mapping of the country by the colonials, which itself was a source of competitive advantage in a manner of speaking. The second question, which the author attempted to answer in his first book, but with less than middling success, is why India went into decline a thousand years ago. The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind, and you need to turn the pages to find it. The truth is out there in the hardcover. A must read. Makes it to my best books I have read in 2013 (see this and this for a review of the notable books I read in 2012).

Long review:

Using R to Unlock the Value of Big Data

Using R to Unlock the Value of Big Data, by Tom Plunkett, Mark Hornick

This is a brief (approximately 80 pages) introduction targeted at users with an intermediate-level exposure of R and who want to get a quick look at working with R with Oracle's products. Strictly speaking, this is not an introduction to R, nor is this an R tutorial. It is, very specifically, an introduction to R as it integrates with and relates to the Oracle Database, the Oracle R Distribution, and the Oracle R Connector for Hadoop. The main chapters are "Using Oracle R Enterprise" and "Oracle R Connector for Hadoop", which have sixteen and seventeen examples, respectively, to help you get started.

Krishna on Svayamvara

(edited Aug 4, 2014)
Svayamvaras resulted in much confusion and carnage in the Mahabharata. There is the svayamvara of the daughters of the King of Kashi - Amba, Ambika, and Ambalika. The story of a spurned Amba is an epic in itself.Then there is the most famous of all - Droupadi's svayamvara, where none of the princes and kings could win the competition. It was then that Arjuna, in disguise as a brahmana, won. Krishna attended Droupadi's svayamvar, but did not participate in it. Why we are not told. The svaymvara of Damayanti that Nala attended, but with four other gods also desiring Damayanti is another interesting episode. Krishna was involved in yet another svayamvara, this time not as a spectator but as an active participant - that of Rukmini. Rukmini wanted to marry Krishna, and not Shishupala. Krishna swooped down and carried off a willing Rukmini.

Mohammed Rafi - My Abba - A Memoir

Mohammed Rafi My Abba - a Memoir, by Yasmin Khalid Rafi

One-line review: a daughter-in-law's honest and loving tribute to a legend.
Short review: That Mohd Rafi was a genius at his craft is well-known. That he was also a genuinely good human in an industry known for its cut-throat and back-stabbing competition is what makes him an awe-inspiring legend, even thirty three years after his death. This book collects together his daughter-in-law's reminiscences of Mohd Rafi - her idol, her father-in-law, interspersed with her life before and after marriage, in Indore and later in London. A brief index of songs referenced in the book and twelve pages of black-and-white photographs add to the appeal of this short book.

The Mahabharata and The Godfather

With this one post I may end up offending both the Mahabharata and The Godfather fans.

Let us start with The Godfather, one of the best Hollywood movies and loved by many with the same passion as Sholay is by Indians. In The Godfather there is a scene when Sollozzo, a mafia boss, wants Don Vito Corleone's political and police connections to extend to his proposed drugs business. The Don refuses, saying it is "a little dangerous." Sollozzo offers to have the Tattaglias guarantee the Don's security, at which point Sonny Coreleone, the Don's hot-headed son interjects. The Don shuts him with a cold stare. The meeting ends and Sollozzo leaves, after which the Don addresses his son [emphasis mine]:

Strand Book Stall Sale, July 2013

Valuing Waning Nostalgia

The Strand Book Stall sale used to be a much bigger, better attended, and eagerly expected event than it is now. People's reading habits have not decreased. Online bookstores have proliferated that offer books at 20%, 30%, 40% off and even greater discounts. This is of course great news to both the casual reader and the bibliophile - so no complaints there. The flip side of this trend has been the slow decline of traditional bookstores like the Strand Book Stall. Crossword and Odyssey continue to hurt. Crossword is trying to find new niches by opening small stores inside stores like Shopper's Stop.

The Inferno by Dan Brown

Inferno, by Dan Brown

"An Annotated Frommer's Guide"

Robert Langdon is in a race to read us the entire text of Frommer's "Eight Nights in Rome, Venice, and Florence", and tell us everything we wished and not about Dante's Inferno. Robert Langdon is back, and the tall and handsome professor has to use his knowledge of symbology, yet, yet, yet again, to try and save the world from the diabolical plans of a now-dead billionaire who believes too many humans overpopulate the planet and therefore the only way to prevent the extinction of the human species is by, get this, killing them off, or at least most of them.

WebEx 2002 - Sands of Silicon Valley

Companies on the sands of Silicon Valley: Webex
This is another from the several photos I took while in the Bay Area in the summer of 2002. WebEx was started in 1996, and acquired by Cisco in 1997 2007 in a multi-billion dollar deal. Cisco has continued to preserve the separate brand identity of WebEx, and has allowed WebEx to grow into a leader in web conferencing, despite the presence of several competitors.

© 2002, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.

Mahabharata Quotes - Shalya Parva

Quotes from the Shalya Parva

Shalya, the maternal uncle (Madri's brother) to the Pandavas, took over command of the eviscerated Kaurava army after the death of Karna. He remained commander for not even a full day, and was "slain by Dharmaraja at midday." [9.1] and while the war was over for all practical purposes on the eighteenth day, Shalya Parva continues beyond the eighteenth day and into the nineteenth, and ends only with the duel between Duryodhana and Bhima.

Idiots on Roads - 13

Roads are so scarce in Bangalore that it is ok to use the pavement as a road. Thus goes the philosophy of these four two-wheeler riders. Look closely and you will see a cross-section of society on these two-wheelers. An IT employee for sure, a lady on a scooter, two gentlemen transporting some material. In short, the abuse of the pavement has been completely internalized by people.

No registration plates. No temporary plates. No dealer tag either. No fear of the law either.

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

Nageshwar Jyotirling, Dwarka, Gujarat

On our trip to Gujarat a couple of years back, we knew we would not be able to cover even half the spots we wanted to. Making it a mad dash from one place to the other was not exactly our goal either. Therefore we decided to cover the southern coast of the state of Gujarat, which meant starting from Bhavnagar, where some of our extended family is. We landed at Ahmedabad and took the road to Bhavnagar. Enroute we stopped at the Harappan town of Lothal. There we got a personal guided tour from a dock owner at the shipbreaking port of Alang. From there we got on the road, and made a dash to Dwarka, passing the oil refinery town of Jamnagar. From there we drove down to Sasan Gir, the last preserve of the Asiatic lion. While in Dwarka we also stopped by the Nageshwara Jyotirlinga, one of the twelve jyotirlinga shrines mentioned in the Shiv Purana (see Wikipedia excerpt below).

Waiting for the Biblioburro

Waiting for the Biblioburro by Monica Brown, Illustrations by John Parra

Inspiring short story.
When Ana, the little girl, has time to her own, she spends it with her libro - her book, her only book, a book gifted to little Ana by the only teacher in their village, who has since moved away. One day a man - a librarian - with two donkeys (burros), Alfa and Beto, carrying books, visits Ana's village. Ana has all the books she can carry. When will the bibliotecario on the burro, the Biblioburro, return? Ana can't wait.
This endearing short story is inspired by a real-life biblioburro the author met - Luis Soriano Bohorquez, in Columbia, who delivers books to children in remote villages on his two donkeys.


(Amazon US / UK / CA, Kindle US / UK / CA, Flipkart, Powell's, Indie Books)


ISBN: 9781582463537 (hardcover)
9781582463988 (gibraltar library binding)


Kindle Excerpt:

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

The Joy of X - Steven Strogatz

Image credit, stevenstrogatz.com

The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity by Steven Strogatz  

One-line review: X Marks The Spot. Spot On!!

Short review: This short book, over the short space of 250 pages, covers thirty different topics, grouped into six sections, and is lucid, simple, and yet engaging enough to make you want to learn, re-learn math. Even better, if this book makes you want to bring across the magic of math to children, yours or any, then that is surely worth something, isn't it? The book's success lies in the fact that it successfully treads the middle path between the two extremes that many other books tend to fall into - either picking one topic and getting so technical as to lose the reader somewhere between page 10 and 15, or so unsure of the reader's interest in math as to not talk about math itself and get bogged down with the personalities of math.

HBR - Uses and Abuses of Influence

The Uses (and Abuses) of Influence

From the July-August 2013 issue of the Harvard Business Review comes an "interview with Robert Cialdini by Sarah Cliffe". At least for the time being, the full article is available on the HBR site here, and not behind a subscriber paywall.

Mahabharata Quotes - Karna Parva

Quotes from the Karna Parva

By the time Karna takes over the reigns of the Kaurava army, the fighting has gone on for fifteen days, and the worst is almost over. Cousin will still kill cousin, and brother will still kill brother, but both armies have been decimated, more so the larger Kaurava army, and Karna is commander for only two days. The seventeenth day also sees Shalya appointed Karna's charioteer - a masterstroke of psychological warfare. Shalya ends up completely distracting Karna, leading to his death at his younger brother Arjuna's hands. Bhima tears apart his cousin Duhshasana, and Sahadeva kills his uncle Shakuni.

Mahabharata Quotes - Drona Parva

After Bhishma falls in battle on the tenth day, there are two important decisions taken. The first is Karna's entry into the war, and the second is the appointment of Drona as the commander of the Kaurava army. The fiercest, bloodiest battle takes place in this parva. It is perhaps most famous for the killing of Abhimanyu, the sixteen year old son of Arjuna, but there are several other incidents that are noteworthy, especially for the way in which they bring out the utter despair of war.

"Learned ones say that in this world, association with the virtuous is more important that a relationship resulting from birth. Do not make your association with the Kurus false."
[Bhishma to Karna, Dronabhisheka Parva, Drona Parva, Ch 4]

"Someone whose objective is at stake, sees things in a different way that another person never can."
[Karna to Duryodhana, Dronabhisheka Parva, Drona Parva, Ch 5]