Archive of An Unknown

A writer friend of mine recommended me this book when I approached him for something. I quickly read the reviews online and immediately ordered the book. I finished it in just few days burning the midnight oil couple of times. It’s written by a Mumbai-based journalist, P. Sainath. What is that ‘good’ drought? I have the same question too. Even before the book came, I was dumbstruck reading the reviews. This is the first time he has ever recommended me a book. How could he be so precise in judging what could be a good read for me! He could never have recommended me a better book. Why is it so special? The book is all about places that are close to my heart. He has identified the poorest eight districts in India and talked about the problems faced by them. Ramanathapuram (Ramnad) district in Tamil Nadu is one of them. My native place is in Thoothukudi district. Ramnad is our neighboring district. What is more interesting is that our forefathers are supposed to have migrated out of Ramn...

Just finished Freud's "Dream Psychology"... The summary of the book is: 1. It's not for easy reading. The subject is an interesting one but it can be dry and boring if we are not in the right frame of mind to read it. 2. He says that though we have been taught to believe from ancient times that dreams tell us something about future as well, the fact is it's only about our past and how we have processed them on the day before. He doesn't rule out seeing future through dreams but advocates that it's still a result of processing of the past events. 3. Dream is just a wish fulfillment process. What we were not able to get fulfilled will come as dream in a distorted format to make us feel fulfilled. There are many wishes that our unconscious has but the fore-conscious suppresses them due to the societal conditioning, as a result of which they come out in dreams. 4. He is 'the' first one or one of the first few to talk about multiple layers of con...

Attracted by the author’s name and the title of the book, I bought Dr. Amartya Sen’s “The Argumentative Indian” a couple of years back. I never had any opportunity to know about him other than repeatedly reading the title (only the titles) of articles about him in all mass newspapers and magazines when he was honored with Noble prize. Finally, I woke up his book from the shelf only now to start reading it. I had just finished reading Imagining India before starting with this book. Now I feel that it would have been better if I had read this book before Nandan’s imagining. Sen has spent more time than Nandan on history. Thanks to his Bengali background - he deals with the controversial issues more firmly and openly. When I bought the book I was thinking that he would have made good fun of Indians for wasting their time in arguments instead of doing anything constructive. I expected a lot of sarcasm. Only now do I realize that that is not how a Noble laureate would view things. H...

Two ex-Infosysians are forcing me to write a piece on the current challenges of the country. 1. Mr. Nandan Nilekani, ex-CEO of Infosys. 2. My friend Shambu Nashipudi (no title required!), ex-employee of Infosys, Wipro and another small company. How Mr. Nilekani? Just finished reading his book Imagining India. It took months to finish it as I don’t read more than 5 pages per day. It is such a heavy book, literally as well as in terms of its content. Starting with a bit of history, he has explained every major problem of this country in his own corporate style. Thanks to the globalization for bringing in a new perspective to look at things. The corporate world has brought in that. He doesn’t talk about emotionally weakening subjects. He actually talks about some of them in a politically correct tone. We are just used to the kind of people who don’t talk about issues because they would be viewed politically incorrect. Else, there is another group that politicizes everything that they ...