Confessions Of A Washed Up Geek

Battlestar Galactica is back!

2008-04-11T15:46:00.000-07:00

Battlestar Galactica is one of those rare shows that actually are better than the hype! Right from the mind blowing pilot, this series is one hell of a roller coaster ride and is on route to a glorious finale in the 4th and final season that has just started two weeks ago..

The plot is - Humanity, in BSG, consists of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. A long time back, they created robot slaves called Cylons to do their work. The Cylons eventually revolted and a bloody war ensued; then an armistice was signed and the Cylons left the Twelve Colonies. The pilot begins with the Cylons nuking the twelve colonies, thus killing billions of humans and virtually annihilating human civilization. The only survivors are about 50,000 people who were in space at the time. These survivors band together along with the only surviving warship, Battlestar Galactica, under the aegis of Commander William Adama and President Laura Roslin, and over the next three seasons they set out to escape the Cylons and to find the fabled 13th Colony called Earth.

What sets this series apart form others is the way events in BSG eerily resemble events that occur on our Earth. Suicide bombers, prisoners of war, religious fundamentalists, "racial" profiling- BSG has them all. BSG is bold enough to display the war in Iraq through the prism of the resistance movement- the humans in the show settle on a planet which the Cylons later invade, occupy and govern in conjunction with a puppet government. And the humans begin an insurgency and use suicide bombers against the Cylons!

BSG is definitely better than several much hyped TV shows like Heroes, Lost, House et al. With a taut storyline, some really great actors and cool SFX, it sure rocks! BSG is a study of sorts of humanity in times of adversity- of people who become leaders and of others who fall apart. And even the Cylons are fleshed out characters- some of them even being good! But the true star of the show is James Callis who plays Dr. Gaius Baltar, a brilliant scientist whose only objective is self-preservation, who is possibly TV's most interesting villain.

IMHO, Battlestar Galactica is one of the most intelligent TV series we have had in a long time- alongwith Rome and Dexter. And all that remains is to see whether the survivors manage to reach Earth. Hopefully, they will. So say we all!

And frak the Cylons! :)

Damn da dams!

2007-09-06T23:54:00.000-07:00

[ My little sis is a prolific writer- short stories, novels, poems, she does them all. This is a piece she wrote while researching for her Social Science project... Check it out!]

They were once regarded as the temples of Modern India by our former PM, Jawaharlal Nehru. They are now regarded as the watery graveyards of many hundred thousand Indian hopes, dreams and aspirations. Yes, they would have become the temple of modern India if the power hungry politicians of today gave a little importance to the ambitions of the common man.

In the India of today, plans for building new dams are being discussed everyday. The reason they are made- for fulfilling the politicians greed for money, for corporate factories and industries and capitalist farms. They are being built too on a massive basis, almost everywhere in the name of service to mankind, in the name of solving the endless water scarcity problems of the common man who is in turn evicted from the land his ancestors tended and is given a piece of barren, uncultivable land in the name of rehabilitation.

Is this the marvelous vision Pt. Nehru had for Modern India? Unfortunately, this is the reality for most of the ppl in India. As the cons of the dams keep outweighing the pros and the scales start tipping in the favour of other methods of water conservation like rain water harvesting ,its high time we realized that dams literally damn the nation to an endless cycle of damnation.

- Shruti Nair

Its SPANDAN time, baby!

2007-08-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

The devil's wrath fanned the fires of hell,

But the lusty cheering indicated that the audience was swell.

The music of fallen angels destroyed the vestiges of conscience,

The fury of the dances incited a frenzy in the audience.

Alluring damsels showcased the magic of adornments, brightening the place heathen,

Hell rang with joy and laughter- the sounds of heaven

The devil ranted and the devil raved

But his empire in hell stood to the ground grazed.

Welcome, O Stranger, to this new hell,

Lets break free from the shackles of this mortal shell

Music of angels intermingled with the devil plays on

Neither alluring damsels nor the dance of fury is gone

A slice of hell awaits you tinged with heavenly joy

Why don't you for five days with the darker side toy?

Check out our SPANDAN website for more details!

Come, be a part of the SPANDAN experience! :)

Harry Potter- an era has ended!

2007-07-20T00:04:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that ten years have passed since the release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone? I, for one, cant. I picked up the first part in a bookshop in Abu Dhabi in 1997- much before all the hype began- and the rest, as they say, is history.

Right from the first book, Rowling's language impressed me a lot. Perhaps it was the fact that i was 11 at the time, just like young Harry! :~) She could describe Harry's feelings so well and the spells seemed so exquisite. But what I liked the most was her numerous quirky references, that make me laugh even now, eventhough i have read the books so many times.[ I'm a compulsive re- reader. I like reading stuff over and over again. I think I've read the Lord of the Rings atleast 18 times, Ashok K. Banker's Ramayana series about 10 times, and most of the Harry Potter books atleast 15 times each]

Another feature that distinguished Rowling's series from other children's books is the fact that the characters mature. Unlike the Secret Seven and the Hardy Boys, Harry Potter and his friends actually grew older. And Rowling was able to brilliantly capture this process of maturation on paper. Eventhough she has utilised most of the standard fantasy tropes, it was the way in which she wrote that made things interesting. Each book of the series has been so good that it is hard to choose one of the six that have come out.

But, if I were to choose my favourite of the series, then I would go for a tie between Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the book that made readers realise that this series was no ordinary children's series- whatever it was, Rowling had a plan for the entire series and the backstory about Harry's parents was proof of it. More importantly, it introduced Sirius Black, Harry's godfather who would assume a pivotal role in the series. Wheras Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix dealt with adolescent angst and Harry's explorations of love so brilliantly that critics praised it to the skies eventhough it is considered by fans as a book that could have been edited further. Furthermore, it is in this book that Harry Potter discovers that his destiny is entwined with that of Lord Voldemort- setting the stage for the final two books of the series.

Now that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is almost out, the question that is on everyone's mind is- Will Harry live? Now that Dumbledore is dead, hope seems to have run out. Is it possible for Harry to discover and destroy the remaining Horcruxes? All these questions shall be answered by tomorrow. But irrespective of the ending, I will say this- its been a great ten years with Harry. Growing up with Harry Potter has been one of the best things ever! I know that when i read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows tomorrow, I shall be sad- because a part of my life will have ended too. Thank you, Rowling, for giving us Harry Potter!

Book Review: The Last Mughal by William Darlymple

2007-07-04T00:12:00.000-07:00

Now this is one book that will pique your interest in history. Scottish travel writer and historian William Darlymple comes up with The Last Mughal, a groundbreaking work that poignantly portrays the events that occurred in and around Delhi during the Revolt of 1857. The Last Mughal is a refreshingly new perspective of the Revolt of 1857 and probably the first ever to present the viewpoints of ordinary people who lived during that tumultuous age.

The Last Mughal is not a biography of the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, though he is one of the major characters; instead, it is an account of the Indo-Islamic civilisation which he represented. It also deals with the fall of Delhi in the face of the uninvited arrival of the mutinous Indian soldiers of the British Army, and then its destruction at the hands of the British invaders. At the end of the Revolt, Bahadur Shah Zafar was put on trial for treason, his beautiful capital was ransacked and destroyed, his palace [an architectural marvel] was detonated and a British barracks was constructed within it, and the composite Hindu-Islamic culture which he stood for had been eliminated.

Over the last four years, Darlymple tirelessly worked through many of the nearly 20,000 virtually unused Persian and Urdu documents relating to Delhi in 1857, known as the Mutiny Papers, found on the shelves of the National Archives of India. These documents allowed 1857 in Delhi to be seen for the first time from a properly Indian perspective and not just from the British sources through it has been viewed till date. Meanwhile, the Delhi Commissioner’s Office Archive contained the records of the revived British administration, which describe the full scale of the viciousness and brutality they unleashed in the city after regaining it. Darlymple was also able to gain access to the Punjab Archive in Lahore, which contained the complete pre-Mutiny records of the British Residency in Delhi. And a visit to Rangoon yielded Bahadur Shah Zafar’s prison records.

Using all these disparate sources, Darlymple succeeds in creating a masterpiece that challenges the existing theories about the Revolt. Instead of the single coherent mutiny or patriotic national war of independence beloved of Victorian or Indian nationalist historians, Darlymple says that there was in reality a chain of very different uprisings and acts of resistance that were determined by local and regional factors.

Darlymple sets the stage by introducing the main characters and describing how people lived in Delhi in the 19th century. The city of Shahjahanabad becomes alive through his marvelous prose and we begin to get an idea of the problems that the people faced. Bahadur Shah Zafar was an emperor only in name when he succeeded his father, but he managed to create a court of great brilliance and fostered a literary renaissance. He was extremely talented- an expert in calligraphy, verstaile poet, architect, Sufi mystic, patron of painting and much more; but he was not an able king and had a tendency to be indecisive- his greatest failing.

Darlymple suggests that the influx of Victorian Evangelists who tried to disrupt the Hindu- Islamic synthesis practiced by the successors of Akbar and regarded Indians as heathen natives who needed to be emancipated, was one of the major factors that led to resentment among Indian sepoys and civilians alike. This aggressive Christian sentiment in turn led to the rise of militant Islam- the jihadis who played a prominent role in the defence of Delhi till the end.

Once the sepoys came to Delhi and declared Bahadur Shah Zafar to be their leader and emperor, the die was cast. Even though the unruly sepoys looted the city, killed every Englishman they could find and harassed courtiers, Zafar felt that this was a God-given opportunity to re-establish the Mughal Empire and so he made the critical decision that linked the fate of his dynasty and that of the city of Delhi to the Uprising. Zafar’s openness to the Uprising, though never whole-hearted and always ambivalent, transformed the whole nature of the rebellion- a simple army mutiny evolved into the biggest war any empire had ever faced in the 19th century.

Ironically, it was the sepoys who were to blame for the failure of the Revolt in Delhi. Since the sepoys were not trained to command regiments and had no knowledge of battle strategies, their strikes almost inevitably failed. Although Bakht Khan’s arrival in Delhi almost led to the defeat of the British forces stationed nearby the city, political intrigues by his enemies among other regiments and the Mughal courtiers led to his departure from the city alongwith his regiments.

In the end, as people began to see the writing of the wall, thousands of sepoys began a mass exodus from the city of Delhi. Meanwhile, Muslim jihadis kept pouring into the city for a battle to the death. If the Uprising in Delhi started as a contest between the English and a largely Hindu sepoy army drawn mainly from Awadh, it ended as a fight between a mixed rebel force, atleast half of which were Muslim jihadis, taking on an army of British-paid Sikh and Muslim mercenaries from the North West Frontier and the Punjab.

Upon victory, the British celebrated their triumph by letting loose a reign of terror on the fleeing insurgents and Delhi's inhabitants. The Mughal princes who had participated in the Uprising surrendered unconditionally to a British officer, William Hodson, hoping that their lives would be spared. Hodson stripped them naked and immediately shot them in cold blood. Then he promptly proceeded to strip the corpses of their rings and amulets, which he pocketed. In the Kucha Chelan neighborhood, Dalrymple says, about 1,400 residents were cut down: "After the British and their allies had tired of bayoneting the inhabitants, they marched forty survivors out to the Yamuna, lined them up before the walls of the Fort, and shot them." Among them were some of the most distinguished poets and artists of Delhi.

The victors made very little distinction between insurgents and civilians. George Wagentrieber wrote in the Delhi Gazette Extra: "Hanging is, I am happy to say, the order of the day here." Believing that the rebels had sexually assaulted their women (this was proved false by a subsequent inquiry commission), the British officers did little to stop the raping of the women of Delhi. To escape the victors' wrath, most of Delhi's residents fled to the surrounding countryside, finding shelters in tombs and ruins and scavenging for food. Looters went house to house, seizing whatever they could, while Prize Agents stalked the city, confiscating native property and delivering it to Europeans.

To punish the residents for having supported the Uprising, the British considered leveling the entire city. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. Even so, great swathes of the city- especially around the Red Fort- were still cleared away. Many fine mosques, Sufi shrines, palaces and the houses of notables were demolished. Dalrymple relates this story in all its horror, quoting extensively from the melancholy descriptions written by Delhi's literary elite and from accounts by the victors, who gleefully recorded the terrible vengeance they wreaked on the vanquished in what became known as the City of the Dead.

Zafar was tried and convicted for hatching an international Muslim conspiracy against his English benefactors, and exiled to Burma. The charge was legally and factually absurd. Since Zafar had never renounced sovereignty over the Company, he could not possibly be guilty of treason. In fact, Dalrymple explains that, from a legal point of view, a good case could have been made that it was the East India Company which was the real rebel, guilty of revolt against a feudal superior to whom it had sworn allegiance for nearly a century. Equally groundless was the allegation that Zafar was behind an international Muslim conspiracy stretching from Constantinople to Delhi. "The Uprising in fact showed every sign of being initiated by upper-caste Hindu sepoys reacting against specifically military grievances perceived as a threat to their faith and dharma; it then spread rapidly through the country, attracting a fractured and diffuse collection of other groups alienated by aggressively insensitive and brutal British policies." The British "bigoted and Islamophobic argument" reduced the complexity of the rebellion to an oversimplified and fictional picture of a "global Muslim conspiracy with an appealingly visible and captive hate figure at its centre." Back in England, the Uprising and the aftermath of British bloodlust shocked the Parliament into assuming direct rule over India. Company rule was abolished, and Queen Victoria became the Empress of India.

In the years after the Revolt, there began a rift between Hindus and Muslims that widened under the “divide and rule” policy adopted by the British and finally led to the Partition of India. Indian Muslims, themselves, got divided- the modernists, led by Sayyid Ahmed Khan, embraced Western learning while the extremists created a madrasa at Deoband that went back to Koranic basics and stripped out anything Hindu or European from the curriculum. And more than a century later, the Deobandi madrasas in Pakistan and Afghanistan were instrumental in the development of the Taliban, “the most retrograde Islamic regime in modern history”, and the Al Qaeda who committed the most powerful and destructive counter attack the West has ever encountered. Darlymple draws parallels between 1857 and the world post 9/11- an ongoing struggle between Western Evangelicals/Imperialists and Islamic jihadis.

Darlymple portrays the Uprising as a human event of extraordinary, tragic and capricious outcomes, and shows us ordinary people whose fate it was to be accidentally caught up in this great upheaval.The Last Mughal is a beautiful elegy in prose of the composite Hindu-Muslim civilization of the Later Mughals. Darlymple has written a masterpiece- a scholarly work and yet a hugely enjoyable read, especially for people who have a keen interest in Indian history. I would definitely recommend it to any student who had to read about the Revolt of 1857. Books like this are required to make history interesting.

Book Review: An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire by Arundhati Roy

2007-06-24T00:20:00.000-07:00

With The Algebra of Infinite Justice, Arundhati Roy proved that she could write non fiction as well as fiction. Hell, that’s an understatement- the book was a brilliant collection of polished essays, in which she displayed her trademark intellectual rants and lucid reasoning. And with this second collection of essays, she goes one step further. An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire consists of 14 well constructed, passionate articles between June 2002 and November 2004- some of which were delivered as speeches while others were published in newspapers- in which Roy deconstructs the concepts of empire, neoliberal capitalism, corporate globalization, and state terrorism with a degree of both passion and erudition that is truly astounding.

“ahimsa” deals with the struggle of the Narmada Bachao Andolan to make its voice heard in India’s policy deciding bodies. In this world that is increasingly fixated on terrorism and other movements of violent resistance, it is increasingly difficult for the votaries of non violence to be heard. She notes that “Any government’s condemnation of terror is credible only if it shows itself to be responsive to persistent, closely argued, non violent dissent”. What Roy fears is that people will be forced to abandon modes of non violent resistance and commit violence in order to grab headlines in today’s ‘free media’. Should such a thing come to pass, it would be a veritable deathblow to the theory of ahimsa that Mahatma Gandhi propounded and executed to great effect during the struggle for independence against British rule.

Roy says in “come September” that nationalism was the cause of genocides in the 20th century. Like a surgeon wielding a scalpel, she deftly shreds our most sacred doctrines. "Flags are bits of coloured cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead." She enumerates the innumerable crimes committed by the United States government against humanity right from Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the penchant for engineering coups and regime changes throughout South America, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and finally the staunch support to Israel in order to prevent an equitable solution to the issue of Palestine issue- all under the excuse of ‘championing the cause of freedom’!! Arundhati Roy accurately points out that the real reason for the war against Iraq is to grab control of its oil resources. After an incisive analysis of the corporate globalization project and its end results, she concludes that just like Soviet–style communism, the American style market capitalism is doomed to failure- because it allowed too few people [“a handful of bankers and CEOs whom nobody elected”] to usurp too much power.

“the loneliness of noam chomsky” is Arundhati’s tribute to one of the world’s greatest and most radical intellectuals- Noam Chomsky, who showed us that nothing is what it seems to be in the free world. He showed us how phrases like ‘free speech’, the ‘free market’ and the ‘free world’ have little, if anything, to do with freedom. And he analysed the penchant of the United States to commit crimes against humanity in the name of ‘justice’, in the name of righteousness’, in the name of ‘freedom’. Chomsky brought out the grisly truth behind the American Dream and the American Way of Life. The USA has successfully rewritten its grisly history of massacre of millions of native Americans, and the kidnapping and enslaving of millions of Africans. And yet, it is amazing that Americans believe that theirs is a peaceful nation, a nation built on fundamental values! The sheer amount of research and analysis Chomsky did on the American invasion of IndoChina [Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia] in his book For Reasons of State is astounding. Arundhati praises Chomsky for revealing the “pitiless heart of the American war machine, completely isolated from the realities of war, blinded by ideology and willing to annihilate millions of human beings, civilians, soldiers, women, children, villages, whole cities, whole ecosystems- with scientifically honed methods of brutality”. The unsaid inference is that the United States has learnt nothing from its misadventure in Vietnam- and continues to make mistakes in Iraq, at the cost of millions of innocent Iraqi lives.

In her speech at the World Social Forum 2003 titled “confronting empire”, Arundhati Roy identifies the many arms of the monster called the New American Empire- the US government, organizations like the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, and the multinational corporations. Using India as an example, she elucidates how dangerous byproducts like jingoistic nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and terrorism are created by the corporate globalization project. Thus, empire is nothing but a “loyal confederation, this obscene accumulation of power, this greatly increased distance between those who make the decisions and those who have to suffer them.” Hence, if we are to tackle the spectre of Empire effectively, we must be prepared to lay siege to it. Roy says that America’s ugly past is out in the open; hence, this is the moment to convince the American public to rise up in defiance. As she concludes, “Remember this: we be many and they be few. They need us more than we do.”

“peace is war” deals with the importance of the ‘free media’ in the corporate globalization project. Roy describes how neoliberal capitalists have managed to subvert democracy- by infiltrating the judiciary, the press and the parliament, and moulding them to their purpose. As she says, “Free elections, a free press, and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities available on sale to the highest bidder.” Roy points out that six major companies own America’s main media outlets, a disconcerting fact; this is why the American mainstream media does not critically examine the reasons for invading Iraq: a majority of the U.S. corporate media is owned and managed by the same interests. She commends the efforts of New Media in showing what Old Media really is- an elaborate boardroom bulletin that reports and analyses the concerns of powerful people. The mainstream media practice “crisis reportage,” but Roy challenges journalists in New Media to become “peace correspondents instead of war correspondents,” and expose the “policies and processes that make ordinary things… such a distant dream for ordinary people.”

In “an ordinary person’s guide to empire”, Roy depicts the brutal barbaric destruction of a civilization by the American army. Agreed, Saddam Hussein was a dictator, but the fact is that the American and British governments supported him during his military excesses, against Iran and during the extermination of Kurds. It was only when he invaded Kuwait that he turned into a liability- a dog who wouldn’t obey his master anymore. And so, he deserved to be killed. The enormous level of double standards that the United States committed during the war is appalling. Bombing civilian areas is just one example. Western ‘embedded’ journalists are called heroes for doing their duty from the frontlines of war but Iraqi viewpoints were denounced. In fact, the Allies even bombed the Iraqi television station. And the most ironic thing is- while the American taxpayers end up footing the spiralling war costs, the MNC friends of Bush, Cheney et al gain plump contracts for the ‘reconstruction’ of Iraq. The American Empire is “a superpower’s self destructive impulse towards supremacy, global hegemony.” Roy commends those Americans who have opposed the war as the ‘true heroes’, not the soldiers fighting in Iraq.

Roy suggests in “instant-mix imperial democracy,” a talk originally in New York City, that some of her listeners might think it “bad manners” for an Indian citizen to come to New York to criticize the U.S. government, but “when a country ceases to be merely a country and becomes an empire, then the scale of operations changes dramatically. So may I clarify that tonight I speak as a subject of the American empire? I speak as a slave who presumes to criticize her king.” In snappy, provocative prose, Roy argues that democracy “has become Empire’s euphemism for neo-liberal capitalism” and gives numerous examples from India, South Africa and the United States itself! She urges Americans to engage in civil disobedience in resistance to the war in Iraq because “the only institution more powerful than the U.S. government is American civil society.”

“when the saints go marching out” was first broadcast on the BBC and reflects on what has happened in the lands of Martin Luther King, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Nelson Mandela after their times have passed. These three public figures were the representatives of three different struggles, the only common feature being the reliance on the mode of non violent resistance. Yet, in today’s India, religious fundamentalism is on the rise; South Africa is still festering with the pre-apartheid problems of extreme economic and social disparity; the United States has lost all manner of legitimate authority by the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq- more importantly, the blacks, for whom Martin Luther King devoted his life, make up nearly one fifth of America’s armed forces and nearly one third of the US army [though they account for only 12% of America’s population] by way of the poverty draft. Roy appeals to black Americans to follow the teachings of King and to take to the streets in protest of the war in Iraq.

In a talk held at Raipur in October 2003, Arundhati Roy gave a tribute “in memory of shankar guha niyogi” to the leader of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, who passed away twelve years earlier. Roy lauds him for defending people’s rights, whenever they have been in danger. Shankar Guha Niyogi launched the CMM in order to fight for the rights of workers at a time when the Indian government was busy undermining labour laws. She praises the CMM for its numerous positive contributions to society, like building Shaheed Hospital for the poor and starting several schools to educate the children of the workers. Hence, Roy considers him to be a pioneer in the struggle against the forces of neo-imperialism.

“do turkeys enjoy thanksgiving” deals with the contours and the elements of what Arundhati refers to as ‘New Imperialism’. Unless countries surrender their resources willingly to the corpoates, either civil unrest will be fomented, or war will be waged. Roy explains the concept of New Racism, which is the cornerstone of New Imperialism, wonderfully using the allegory of the ‘pardoned turkey’ during Thanksgiving: “A few carefully bred turkeys-the local elites of various countries … wealthy immigrants, investment bankers … some singers, some writers- are given absolution… The remaining millions lose their jobs, are evicted from their homes…” Another instrument of New Imperialism is New Genocide which is facilitated by economic sanctions- the most notable case being Iraq, where more than half a million children have died during the last decade of sanctions. Since the Empire is so powerful, it is necessary that "local resistance movements should make international alliances in order to inflict real damage and force radical change”. She urges the WSF to lead the charge against the American Empire by rallies, non cooperation and economic boycotts.

Arundhati Roy explores behind India’s glittering facade and uncovers some bitter truths in her article “how deep shall we dig?” Some of the numerous problems facing us are terrorism in Kashmir and the Northeast, the rise of religious fundamentalism, POTA, targeting of minorities, incidents of starving or malnutrition. It is increasingly difficult for people to confront their own government. As Roy remarks, “The space for non violent civil disobedience has atrophied. After struggling for several years, several non violent peoples’ disobedience movements have come up against a wall and feel, quite rightly, the need to change direction.” Since the poor and the minorities are the most affected by the dual assault of communal fascism and neoliberalism, she urges them to take the lead in opposing the growing influence of Empire in India.

“the road to harsud” is Roy’s blistering take on the contentious topic of Big Dams and the struggle by the poor people who haven’t been rehabilitated as yet, to make themselves heard. Harsud is a town in Madhya Pradesh which is slated to be submerged by the reservoir of Narmada Sagar Dam. What use is a dam if the drawbacks outweigh the potential benefits? Roy says that the dam will submerge more land than it will ever irrigate, will produce power that is even costlier than Enron, and will destroy a vast reservoir of biodiversity, wildlife, and medicinal plants. And yet, the government of Madhya Pradesh relentlessly plows ahead with its disastrous plan and in the process, has rendered more than 30,000 families homeless. And worst of all, in spite of repeated assurances by the government, the displaced people have not yet received adequate rehabilitative measures.

Roy analyses the power ordinary people like us wield in today’s world in her essay “public power in the age of empire”. The world today is a deeply skewed reality. She says that both terrorism and the war on terror share the same excruciating logic- they make ordinary citizens pay for the actions of their government. And eventually, Roy concludes that “radical change cannot and will not be negotiated by governments; it can only be enforced by the people. By the public. A public who can link hands across national borders.” If we are to successfully confront the Empire, then we have to channel our energies into ‘concrete action’. Arundhati speaks in detail about three dangers that threaten resistance movements across the world- the meeting point between mass movements and the mass media, the dangers of NGO-isation of resistance, and the confrontation between resistance movements and repressive states.

“peace and the new corporate liberation theology” was a speech first delivered in Sydney on the occasion of Arundhati Roy winning the 2004 Sydney Peace Prize. She says that war in Iraq is a sign of things to come- a logical conclusion to the corporate globalization project. History, it seems, has turned full circle with the return of imperialism like a phoenix from the ashes. The corporate-military cabal has been busy at work, dispensing its unique brand of ‘justice’ and ‘freedom’ to the world at large. Roy concludes by saying that it is our duty to join the ‘war against Empire’ now or it will be too late.

In conclusion, although the essays deal with various movements in different countries (the U.S., India, and South Africa, to name a few of the prominent examples Roy cites) the common cord running through each one is empire, which Roy defines as “a superpower’s self-destructive impulse toward supremacy, stranglehold, global hegemony.” Arundhati Roy draws parallels between various resistance movements and with her lucid analysis, she succeeds in elucidating the forces that work against ordinary people everywhere. But she also illustrates the great strength those ordinary people can muster if they can cooperate in opposing, for example, the building of a dam that will wipe out the homes and livelihoods of thousands of people. Despite its title, this book is not a guide to empire, rather it is a call to arms. Roy, thus, motivates those who may already be passively critical of U.S. policies to join the activists out in the streets. “History is giving you the chance,” she writes. “Seize the time.” And so we should. Before its too late. Before all that we treasure in this world and stand for is lost.

The Revolt of 1857: A Million Mutinies

2007-06-21T00:30:00.000-07:00

What is history? Simply speaking, history is that which has happened- Wikipedia defines history as "the systematic narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all events in time, in relation to humanity". We arrive at an idea of how things might have occurred at a particular age by deciphering the written texts and accounts of people of that age, inscriptions, archaeological excavations, etc…

But is our idea of history perfect? No. Since our historical records are limited, our history can only hope to be a summary at best- a pale shadow of what actually happened. Hence, history is never static. It can be best described as a flux of ideas. With each new discovery [of artifacts/documents, etc], our concepts of history undergoes changes.

And the best example that I can think of at the moment is the Revolt of 1857. In 2002, William Darlymple and his colleagues Mahmood Farooqui and Bruce Wannel discovered a treasure trove of Persian and Urdu documents relating Delhi in 1857, which are now known as the Mutiny Papers. He also was able to get access to the Punjab Archive in Lahore which contained the complete records of the British Residency in Delhi until 1857, and the National Archives at Rangoon which had the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar’s prison records. Incorporating all these new information, Darlymple wrote a book titled The Last Mughal, in which he challenges “the traditional concepts of the single coherent mutiny or patriotic national war of independence beloved of Victorian or Indian nationalist historians”. He says ”it was not one single unified movement but many, with widely differing causes, motives and natures”. But more of Darlymple in my next post.

A couple of days after my first post, I received a reply from a visitor to my blog who referred me to an editorial in the Times of India on the Revolt of 1857 by a historian named Amaresh Misra. In this editorial, he argued that contrary to popular opinion, the Revolt of 1857 was neither confined to a particular geographical region nor organized by a particular caste or community. He also provided numerous examples from different parts of India to give credence to his statement.

In fact, he says that-
New research reveals that the 1857 uprising encompassed not only the entire Indian subcontinent but also several castes, communities and classes. Bahadur Shah Zafar’s August 1857 Delhi manifesto is path-breaking. It has separate sections dealing with material benefits accruing to peasants, landlords, merchants, public servants, artisans as well as pundits, fakirs and other learned persons. The attempt to move beyond religion and caste is clear.

For those who didn’t know, the Manifesto of the King of Delhi, as it came to be called, was almost wholly secular in tone and was aimed at a broad base of different interest groups; indeed it was akin to a manifesto of national independence. It notes that “both Hindus and Muslims are being ruined under the tyranny and oppression of the infidel and treacherous English” and calls on “pundits and fakirs” to join the Mughal armies. But most of its space is devoted to complaints that the English have overtaxed the landowners, monopolized “all the posts of dignity and emolument” in the civil and armed services, and put Indian artisans out of business by flooding the market with cheap British goods. With its explicit mentions of economic and social grievances, it also says that the revival of Mughal rule shall rectify these problems.

Mr. Amaresh Misra’s next statement is-
Though it is commonly believed that Sikhs, incensed by the Poorabia sepoys’ pro-British role during the two Anglo-Sikh wars in the 1840s helped the colonial rulers in crushing the Delhi and Lucknow rebellions, documents in the Patna archives reveal that there was a plan even in the 1840s of a Poorabia sepoy mutiny in conjunction with the Khalsa army.

Moreover, after the disbanding of the Khalsa army, it was the ex- Khalsa soldiers who took the lead in several Punjab mutinies- in Sialkot, Peshawar and Lahore. Punjabi Muslims and Pathans also played prominent roles in revolts all over what is now Pakistan, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

Meanwhile, in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, revolutionary movements were begun by diverse castes like the Jats, Gujjars, Mewatis and Meenas.

Mr. Misra also offers numerous examples of uprisings by various communities as well as revolts by sepoy regiments throughout west, south and east India.

What is interesting is that the groups who collaborated together were usually of disparate castes, communities and religions. The most prominent among this is the rebellion in Hyderabad by anti-Nizam Rohilla Pathans, Hadhrami Arab warrior/traders and Hindu Kayasthas in July 1857. Another major civil rising along the east coast, in the Godavari-Andhra region, saw Girijan adivasis collaborating with anti-British Reddy landlords. Further south in Malabar[now a part of the state of Kerala], Moplah Muslim and Nambuthiri Brahmin agitators jointly organised a revolt that was sadly short lived and were arrested for unleashing anti-British propaganda. In Saurashtra, the Okhamandal-Dwarika area produced the only instance of anti-British naval resistance, which continued till the 1860s. From 1858 to 1860, a regular guerilla war spearheaded by Mahar, Maratha and Poorabia sepoys, as well as Konkan Bhandaris and Chitpavan Brahmins, raged all along the Indian west coast in the Raigad-Mangalore belt. There were also numerous instances of revolt by the sepoy regiments in Bombay, Karachi, Gujarat, Salem, Assam and Chittagong. Thus, inference is that the Revolt of 1857 took place on a much larger and widespread scale than was previously thought of.

But then, if so many revolts and uprisings occurred in that period, why dint the Revolt of 1857 succeed? The fragmented nature of the revolt is probably the main factor.Most of these movements had totally different natures and were led by different sections of society. And the British [alongwith those regiments who hadnt revolted] were better organised to fight such a war and had access to the latest in munitions, artillery, etc.. If there was a unified leadership that had coordinated the revolt, the British East India Company would have definitely lost the war lock stock and barrel. What would have happened if Bahadur Shah Zafar was a young man? What if….? Such questions are never easy to ponder.

It is of utmost importance that we do not forget the factors that led to the rise of British East India Company as well as the root causes of the Revolt of 1857 and the reasons for its failure. For, as Edmund Burke said, those who fail to learn from history are always destined to repeat it.

Vote for the Taj!

2007-05-30T00:33:00.000-07:00

It might be the ultimate monument dedicated to eternal love and on the must-visit list of all lovers and state dignitaries, but the Taj Mahal's popularity is probably not going to be enough to get it a place amongst the new Seven Wonders of the World.

A worldwide movement was started in 2001 to protect humankind's heritage across the globe by bringing out a new list of theWonders of the World. It was exactly 2,200 years after Antipater of Sidon compiled the original list of Seven Wonders of the World. Twenty-one monuments across the world were in the fray for six slots, as the Pyramids of Giza are already a part of the list, being the only surviving ancient wonder. The Taj was easily shortlisted as one amongst the 21 monuments, but the journey after that has been turbulent.

The contest is to be decided on the basis of votes each of the monuments receive, and the result will be announced at Lisbon, Portugal on 7/7/07. And it is here that the Taj has fallen way short of the goal. Peru is leading the list with its Incan sanctuary, Machu Picchu, getting 25.5 per cent of the total votes. Other front-runners for the six slots are The Easter Island Statues in Chile, Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza in Mexico, the Statue of Christ Redeemer in Brazil, Petra in Jordan, and the Alhambra in Spain. The Taj Mahal is at the 14th position, having garnered a mere 0.7 per cent votes.

Says Bharat Kapadia, chairman of an organisation that wants to ensure that the Taj gets its due place amongst the Seven Wonders of the World, "While there is no doubt that the Taj holds a special place in every Indian's heart, voting from our country has been abysmally low. A proactive stance is needed."

Even music composer A R Rahman wants the Taj to get its due place and has composed an anthem for it. He says, "The idea is to inspire Indians to vote for the Taj. We have composed the anthem at a very short notice, but we did it because the reason is so special. I am sure Indians from all over the world will feel motivated and vote for the Taj."

Even the tourism ministry has decided to do its bit. "We are planning to take an active part in this campaign. We will ensure that the Taj makes it to the list," says Amitabh Kant from the ministry.

So what are you waiting for? Go vote for the Taj here!

The Revolt of 1857- A New Perspective

2007-05-27T00:40:00.000-07:00

150 years have passed since the tumultuous events of 1857, and yet we still haven’t shed our Victorian mindsets. To this day, children grow up studying that it was a “sepoy mutiny”. Even though most Indians refer to it as the First War of Indian Independence, it is indeed surprising that our history books don’t mention it as such. What does this say about us? We’ve been content studying the “British” viewpoint for the past six decades. The saying “History is written by the victors” comes to mind. It is time that we wrote our histories, rather than read the version written by an outsider. After all, it is our birthright. Besides, it is time we updated our antiquated history text books with recent developments and discoveries.

It is unfortunate that sometimes the Revolt of 1857 is denied a national character since the ideal of a unified all-India nation state was premature for most people of nineteenth century India. But how can we deny a national character to a popular outburst against an alien regime, particularly when it enjoyed the support of a large mass of the population and affected a considerable part of the country?

Consider the facts- the Revolt of 1857 was the most widespread challenge against the British East India Company. It brought together soldiers of different regions and many rulers and chiefs of different rulers and principalities together- all with the common aim of ousting the British from India. The sepoys of the Bengal regiment revolted and were joined by other section of society-landlords, peasants, artisans, scholars- who made common cause against the exploitation of the British officers.

There were uprisings against the British all over India, right from Punjab to Assam. But the fiercest battles were fought in north and central India. Delhi, Meerut, Kanpur, Lucknow, Jhansi, Awadh were some of the prominent centres. The Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was acknowledged as the rightful Emperor of India and the sepoys fought in his name. Even the Marathas, the Mughals’ eternal antagonists, supported the emperor. Such was the interest among [most of] the Indian ruling classes to rout the British. Leaders like Nana Saheb, Kunwar Singh, Rani Lakshmi Bai, and Tantia Tope became famous for their bravery and leadership.

Almost a lakh Indian sepoys revolted against the British and along with the armies of Jhansi, Awadh, the Marathas & other kingdoms that had joined the War, they nearly succeeded in defeating the British. The main reason for their failure was the lack of a coordinated military strategy, and the Indian kings who chose to either side with the British or dint fight at all. But for this, the battle might have been won and India would have attained freedom much earlier.

What then is the lesson to be drawn from the 1857 Revolt? The uprising underlines the importance of fighting imperialism at all costs. The 1857 rebels fought and died for a cause – the cause of national liberation from an alien rule. They raised the standard of revolution when the English power in India was at its ascendant height, and fought relentlessly shoulder to shoulder for a national cause till the last hour, irrespective of religious, ethnic and regional divides.

Since the success of the Revolt certainly would have meant freedom from colonialism it is difficult to imagine what might have occurred. One thing is certain: it would have saved the country from the "benefits" of colonial modernity. Would it have led to the “resurrection of the feudal order” as Jawaharlal Nehru felt in his Discovery Of India or would it have enabled an independent path of development towards modernity? There is no definite answer.

If we want to truly honour the martyrs of 1857, then we should strive to achieve self reliance in all spheres of development. For it was their memeory that inspired the freedom struggle. As Somnath Chatterjee said in the Lok Sabha, "The War of 1857 was undoubtedly an epoch-making event in India’s struggle for freedom. For what the British sought to deride as a mere sepoy mutiny was India’s First War of Independence in a very true sense, when people from all walks of life, irrespective of their caste, creed, religion and language, rose against the British rule.... Not only did these martyrs give up their lives for the sake of the country’s freedom but also left a message for the future generations --- a message of sacrifice, courage of conviction, a strong belief in the ultimate victory of the people in their war against oppression." I couldn't agree more.

My forays into SFF

2007-05-15T00:41:00.000-07:00

Until I joined college, I was never really entranced by fantasy or science fiction. I’d read the requisite Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov, J R R Tolkien, C S Lewis, et al; I really liked them, but that was it. I was more interested in Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, John Keats, et al. Did I mention that my reading habits are indiscriminate? Hell, I would read a Hardy Boys or aNancy Drew with the same enthusiasm as I would read Rajaji’s Ramayana or Mahabharata!

But things began to change when I joined college in 2004. I had bought the first two parts of a retelling of the Ramayana by an author named Ashok K. Banker that had received rave reviews. And I was hooked right from page one. I liked them so much I bought the sequels and joined his online community Epic India. There, I met lots of like minded people who shared a common fascination for science fiction and fantasy novels. I began buying the books which were highly recommended- and thats when my journey truly began.

Over the last two years, I have read quite a lot of books that would be termed SFF. I’ve travelled through galaxies at speeds faster than light, jousted with knights, killed Greek gods [!], and made love to many a woman [:~)]. I’ve discussed the relative merits of Shakespeare vis-à-vis Proust [in an SF novel!], cast magic spells more devious than the 3 Unspeakable Curses of HP lore, fought numerous battles and dodged more characters than I could imagine. Ah! The vicarious thrills of reading… Such is the magic of SFF- it broadens our horizons, its beauty both inspires and reflects nature, it offers a large canvas on which the quirks of humanity are dealt with unconventionally [perhaps, even ironically!]

In the west, SFF has managed to create a niche of its own, but it’s the stupendous success of the Harry Potter books that allowed it to enter the mainstream. All of a sudden, YA fantasy [or, young adult fantasy] has become the most successful genre in the publishing industry. Just consider the sheer number of fantasy or SF movies that come out nowadays, and you will realize that SFF has come a long way…

So, if you are interested in skinny dipping in the realms of fantasy and science fiction, here are some of my picks. Trust me- most of these books have either defined or redefined the genre. Hope you go ahead and try them out!

Fantasy :-

1] George R R Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire
2] Steven Erikson’s A Tale of the Malazan Books of the Fallen
3] Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series
4] Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series
5] Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy
6] Jonathan Stroud’s Bartemius trilogy
7] Terry Prattchett’s Discworld series

Science Fiction :-

1] Dan Simmons’s Hyperion Cantos
2] Frank Herbert’s Dune series
3] Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy
4] Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space series
5] Dan Simmons’ Ilium and Olympos
6] Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide series
7] Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga

Series Review: The Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F Hamilton

2007-04-05T00:46:00.000-07:00

Book 1: The Reality Dysfunction
Book 2: The Neutronium Alchemist
Book 3: The Naked God

Peter Hamilton established his status as one of the finest British SF writers of all time with the Night's Dawn series. With nearly 4000 pages, this trilogy is a landmark in SF- the space opera kind. Writing a review for a series this huge is a nightmare worthy of Quinn Dexter, but here goes-

Once you're past the first 60 or 70 pages, The Reality Dysfunction is an extremely good read. What we have waiting for us is epic SF, with interplanetary warfare, an innocent transcendental race being drawn into something that might have disastrous implications for humanity all over the galaxy, a treasure hunt in the orbiting ruins of a long-lost alien civilization. And more, much more.

Though the story contains literally hundreds of characters, the plot goes on hyperdrive when swashbuckling daredevil cum treasure hunter Joshua Calvert, while scavenging the remnants of the mysterious and long-dead Laymil civilization, stumbles upon a Laymil storage cell that can be restored. On examination, it reveals information that might help explain the Laymil's sudden and catastrophic annihilation, an event that is mysteriously referred to as the Reality Dysfunction.

Joshua's newfound wealth after discovering the Laymil relic ensures him an invite into the life of the rich and famous, and after numerous adventures including a bit of smuggling and lots of sex with the heiress who rules the bitek habitat Tranquillity, he bags a deal to export the exotic wood mayope throughout the galaxy. And mayope is only found on an insignificant backwater colony world called Lalonde. But all is not what it seems and there are problems, to put it mildly, on Lalonde.

What at first appears to be a common uprising among convict labor on the planet takes on a more sinister turn when reports start trickling in of colonists who appear possessed, whom no weapon will kill. And their numbers are swelling rapidly, leaving burned out colony towns in their wake. At first there is alarm that this could be the work of a renegade Edenist (a "Serpent") whose crimes resulted in the deaths of thousands and whose name is still widely feared years after his apparent disappearance. But it is soon clear that there is much more to it, that the Confederacy is in fact facing an invasion the likes of which has never been dealt with before. Can this be the Laymil's Reality Dysfunction, come again to sound the death knell for humanity?

In The Neutronium Alchemist, three subplots unfold simultaneously. The first subplot deals with the machinations of Al Capone, who returns from the dead -- sans syphilis -- to begin an organization of Possessed, bent, essentially, on galactic domination. The second of these subplots is the attempt by the Possessed to take over the habitat run by a sentient identity named Rubra. The third subplot is the fate of the device known as the Alchemist -- a weapon with the power to extinguish a sun. Dr. Alkad Mzu, whose entire planet was destroyed in a war, has vowed to use the Alchemist as vengeance. Mr. Hamilton succeeds here as well in putting together a taut conclusion to this storyline.

The Naked God is the concluding part of this trilogy in which the Adamists and the Edenists combine forces to find out solutions- conventional or unconventional- to the possession that threatens humanity's existence.

In this series, Peter F Hamilton has created a stage of interstellar commerce, politics, war, and faith; a loose alliance of numerous colonized worlds called the Confederacy. Humanity has split off into two branches, the Adamists, whose bodies are extensively nanoenhanced, and the Edenists, who have gone one step further- they developed an "affinity gene" which allows them to communicate telepathically not only among themselves, but also the organic and sentient spacecraft they pilot. TheEdenists have also perfected a "bitek" technology that has resulted in the creation of the sentient orbital environments where they live — and into which, once they die, their affinity-bonded consciousnesses are absorbed; effectively creating a "habitat with a soul". Hamilton's Confederacy is an extraordinary panoply of contrasts, and there are many moments throughout the story where readers are invited simply to bask in the majesty of the universe, recapturing that sense of wonder we all look for in SF.

His characters are also very well done. From the easy manner of the irrepressible Captain Calvert to the frighteningly vivid Quinn Dexter, Hamilton's created a large and formidable cast of characters. Chapters frequently switch between points of view, and although this may seem a bit complex, it allows for the series to maintain a frenetic pace. Hamilton manages the daunting task of keeping all characters equally interesting quite ably, making the temptation to skip to another character's chapter almost nil.

One of the best features of the series is the smooth blend of science fiction and horror. It's not often that a science fiction book can actually make you scared, but if any of them can pull it off, it's the Night's Dawn trilogy. Hamilton also includes some excellent technology, and the explanation and implementation of innovations such as affinity, neural nanonics, and even his take on spaceflight make for an exciting, if not interesting, read. It's almost unheard of for a series so huge to not drag on at points, but between the engaging characters and fantastic storyline, Hamilton manages just that.

The Night's Dawn trilogy is absolute vintage science fiction: grand, interstellar space adventure crammed with lots and lots of ideas and action! Peter F Hamilton succeeds in writing a mammoth masterpiece. If you've got to do it big, then do it like Hamilton! This one is definitely near the top of my all time SF list. 10 on 10! :~)

Internet Books List- heard of it yet?

2007-04-05T00:44:00.000-07:00

Imagine a place where every book ever written is available at the click of a button...
Envision a place where You have the power to influence which books are read by others...
Picture a place where authors and readers can communicate with each other across the world...
Visualize a place where You can always find out what to read next...

...well, stop it – this is the best we can do, for now.

Thus begins the introduction to the site called Internet Books List, a site where members can rate and review books that they like and dislike. A kind of IMDB for books, if I may say so. With over 55,000 books and 13,000 users as of now.. And rapidly increasing.

This is probably the next big thing, guys. So check it out!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows covers unveiled

2007-03-29T00:54:00.000-07:00

Yeah, this is it. The much awaited final installment of the Harry Potter series. HP 7's covers were revealed yesterday with great fanfare; after all, this was the series which revived reading, wasn't it? :~)

They look good, dont they? For detailed views, check out Muggle Net.

Each book of the series has broken records, and HP7 is expected to break even more. An unprecedented 12 million copies have been printed for bookstores in USA. Realists estimate that it might all be over in the first three days! Thats the magic of J K Rowling. Will she ever be able to shake off the tag of "the creator of Harry Potter"?

Well, I'll be getting my copy of the hardcover edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on July 21st itself courtesy Landmark, Spencer Plaza, Chennai [Landmark rules!!!!]- and will post my review asap. What about you all? :~)

What the fuck is going on here?

2007-03-20T00:58:00.000-07:00

Are you surpised by the heading? Cos I got several mails from a couple of frequent visitors that go on and on in this spirit. So I thought its time for an explanation.

I always thought that 6th semester would be a very productive time for my blogging activities; but I'm sorry to say the opposite has occurred. Too much leisure time has resulted in laziness, thus continuing an endless feedback loop. Hence, this long break. I'll be back, I promise you. Just let me relax for some more days. Or weeks. Or months!

Series Review: A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin

2007-02-22T01:24:00.000-08:00

Book 1: A Game of Thrones
Book 2: A Clash of Kings
Book 3: A Storm of Swords
Book 4: A Feast for Crows

Definitely the finest fantasy series ever written. Martin succeeds in portraying a world where there is no black and white, only varying degrees of grey. Will post my review as soon as i finish the fourth part!

Well, this is politics at its best, or should i say, the worst? I'm already rooting for Daenerys Targaryen to return to Westeros and assume her place as the rightful queen of the Seven Kingdoms. But I hope nothing bad would happen to the Stark children [especially Arya!], Jon Snow, Tyrion and Jaime... The only problem is that its extremely frustrating to wait for the next part. Can you believe that he has taken ten years to write these four books? Considering that he still has three parts left, it could easily take up another decade, before the series is finally over!

Interview: Junkyard Groove

2007-01-17T01:05:00.000-08:00

Well, I’d talked to Junkyard Groove sometime back about having a chat, and after the win at Dubai, I thought that this was probably the best time to do it. So I chatted online with Siddharth, the lead guitarist [left], and Craig, the bassist [right], and mailed them a list of questions which they promptly answered. Here is the transcript of the “conversation” that took place:

Can you tell something about your background, and how you all met and thought of starting a band together?

Siddhu: Well, I used to play with this band called "Powder in the Ashtray" before Junkyard Groove. I met Ameeth at IIT Madras 2005 when Powder in the Ashtray was playing (we won the competition that year). So it was Easter and I was at Ameeth’s place for dinner at a family gathering. We then decided to put a band together and Ameeth had met Jerry and Craig earlier. So they were roped in to play drums and bass respectively. From there on, we planned to take part at our first competition which was held at a local club.

Junkyard Groove... Its a cool name, rolls off the tongue in a very stylish manner. Well, which one of you thought of it?

Siddhu: Thanks for the compliment, man. Ameeth and myself were walking around my block one night, just talking about what we were going to do- the big plans we had back then. Lol! And lots of band names were being floated, and I guess this one pretty much stuck on. And besides our music is synonymous with the name- you can find anything and everything in a junkyard. Our philosophy has always been "Anything goes" when it comes to music.

Craig: I think Ameeth and Sid thought of the name together, however after the first few shows, there were talks about changing the name, but then stuck with it to avoid further confusion. I guess now, after such a long journey together it fits in just right.

You people have built a reputation of winning in every competition you've participated in. How did that come about?

Siddhu: Well, I hope I dont sound bashful when I say this, but its not that we have won every competition that we have played. Rather, we have never walked away from a competition empty handed, but also most often we have won. I guess IIT Madras 2006 was one such time when we didn't win. But never have we walked away empty handed.

Craig: Well there were a couple of shows were we came in 2nd, but yes we've always walked away with something or the other every time. Well, we practice real hard, hang out with each other as much as we can, and we're united, even though we fight a lot. Its only with JYG that made me realize that, making a great band does not involve being good musicians alone, but each one's individual goals and how far he is willing to go to achieve them, the way we gel with each other, and realizing that there are no boundaries.

Well, lets talk about the songs then. All your songs- be it Twinkle Twinkle, Say Goodbye or Its Okay [to name just three] have really amazing tunes. How did you guys go about creating them? Is one person in charge of the process or do all of you contribute? And who does the songwriting?

Siddhu: Thanks again. Well, the creation process in our band is very simple- one person comes up with a basic idea, like a bunch of chords or something, and the rest of the band pitches in and contributes by coming up with their own parts for the song. So I guess its more of a band thing than an individual responsibility.

Craig: All of us do contribute to the creation of the songs. They have amazing tunes cos the musicians that we look up to as Idols are simply brilliant. There have been a lot of influences from the greats, like Dave Mathews, Coldplay, RHCP, GNR to name a few. One more reason is that our music does not involve one genre alone. We are very different, in a good way. The song writing process involves what you feel at that precise moment, and that makes it so magical.

I wanted to talk about the song Folk You separately. It has a brilliant amalgamation of three languages- English, Tamil and Malayalam. How did you get the idea of converting a Malayalam rowing song into rock? The song just blows people away. Tell me how you did it?

Siddhu: Ameeth was with a pop band before, and its still sort of unclear how or when he came up with it. But when we heard it we liked it, and we all came up with parts for it. As I mentioned earlier, our philosophy is that anything goes when it comes to music. So you can expect Junkyard Groove to come up with more stuff thats out of the box.

Craig: Ameeth wrote that song so I guess he would be the best person to answer you. However I love that song because even though we love the western style of music, we think it is very important to stay true to our roots. The world is starting to get so diverse, and so is the music.

You people must be in pretty high spirits right now after winning the Shamal: Battle for Dubai Desert Rock Festival on Dec 15. How was the experience of performing in Dubai in front of all those heavy metal fanatics?

Siddhu: Playing in Dubai was very nice . We were received very well by the crowd considering that we were the only non metal band playing. It was a great experience and there were lots of nice people whom we met, and we hope to meet them again. We frankly didn't know what to expect before we got on stage, but once we got on stage we sort of got the crowd going and then we knew that things were going to be just fine!

Craig: Absolutely! we are on top of the world. I am so proud of India, cause the only 2 Indian bands grabbed 1st and 2nd place. We were scared before going to Dubai cos we had heard that there are a lot of metal heads who might not appreciate our music, but it was so different. We were treated real good. There were people in the crowd who were singing along, and that was such a comfortable feeling.

And you people won bigtime that night, dint you? A 3 year recording contract with Creative Kingdom Records, USA. A reality show by Zee Arabiya. A music video shot by Zee Arabiya. Whew! Thats really something, right?

Siddhu: Yes, it definitely is something for a small time Chennai band to land up winning so much. Hard work always does pay off, I suppose. We definitely are very excited about this whole thing and I cant wait to see where it leads us.

Craig: Yes the stuff that we're getting is like a dream come true. The people at Creative Kingdom and Zee Arabia are amazing. We got the feeling that they are pretty serious about what they promised us, and we feel reassured that they would be taking us under their wing. Looking forward to it.

So whens the album coming out?

Siddhu: I dont want to make any promises, but it should be done by mid 2007 or so. But then again who is to say how these things work…

Craig: Cannot give you an exact date, but we would be going to Dubai as soon as Sid's exams are over. So I'm guessing by the second half of next year.

Where do you see yourself in the near future, say, three years from now?

Siddhu: Well, I really cant see myself doing anything different from what I'm doing now. I love making music with my band and that is how it shall be. I wouldn't want it any other way. Three years is a long time but I'm sure I'm still going to be doing the same thing I love doing now. Just play all over the place..

Craig: I see us in a position where we could give up our regular jobs and move in to music completely. We'd love to be touring in other countries by then.

Almost all the people who have watched you perform live believe that you have the talent to be the first Indian band to become famous, I mean, really really famous. I think that's testimony to the incredible rapport you create with the audience. Its like you were born to play. What do you say?

Siddhu: I say there’s nothing else in the world that makes us happier than being on stage and playing for people. Its simple- its because we love music and playing. The people whom we play for are one of the reasons we play, because without their encouragement and support we would be nowhere at all. But I'm only too happy to know how much people appreciate the work we do.

Craig: Yeah we came a long way in just a year and a half and we're going to keep moving on till the "BIG GIG" happens. Sometimes its difficult for us to believe as well. But to put India on the map, as far as rock music is concerned, JYG would be honored to be responsible for something like that.

Finally, before we end this interview, do you have anything you would like to say to the JYG fanatics all over the world?

Siddhu: To the people who know us and like us, thanks a ton for everything, being there at our shows and screaming your lungs out. Keep rocking, and if you’re a musician, never ever give up on your dreams!! They really do come true (atleast in our case). And to the people who dont know us- WE'RE COMING TO GET YOU!!!

Craig: Thank you guys for all your support! We have been deeply humbled by the response that we've received. We love you!!!!

Junkyard Groove: The meteoric rise of an Indian rock band

2007-01-10T01:14:00.000-08:00

"What do you get when you put a drummer with heavy metal roots, a guitarist with classic rock roots, a bassist crazy about Jazz and a very drunkin vocalist, in 1 band?"

Thus begins the bio of Junkyard Groove on their website.

Junkyard Groove is an alt/punk rock band from Chennai, India. It consists of Ameeth Thomas on the vocals and rhythm, Siddharth Srinivasan on the lead guitar, Jeremiah John on the drums and Craig Maxworth on bass. This group of exceptionally talented musicians has created a dedicated fan following among college students and rock crazy yuppies in South India over the past year and a half.

They have an exemplary track record of winning prizes in every competition they have taken part in. Some of their achievements include:
[1] Le Royal Meridian, Chennai {2005}: Junkyard Groove landed up in second place and bagged the best guitarist award too.
[2] Spandan 2005 {JIPMER, Pondicherry}: Junkyard Groove won best band, vocalist, guitarist, drummer, own composition and second best bassist and rhythm. Never really left much for anyone else!!!
[3] Strawberry Fields 2005 {NLS, Bangalore}: The band walked away a lot richer and won best band, best vocalist and best guitarist.
[4] Madras Christian College: Junkyard Groove won in the best band and best drummer categories.
[5] IIM Bangalore: The band came in second and also won best bassist.
[6] Raagam 2006 {IIT Chennai}: The band made it through to the finals and walked away with best guitarist and a fancy little guitar as a prize.

In the one and half years since the band was formed, Junkyard Groove has established itself as one of India’s premier rock bands. They recently made international headlines when they won the Shamal: Battle for Dubai Desert Rock Festival on December 15 in Dubai. As you know, Shamal is a talent hunt by music industry experts for the best, unsigned rock band in and around the Middle East to open up for some of the biggest international rock bands in the world. Junkyard Groove beat seven other participants- DaVinci [Egypt], Point Of View [Dubai], Pin Drop Violence [India], Gorthall [Dubai], Hydrophobia [Dubai], Wasted Land [Saudi Arabia] and Whimagon [Iran] in the finals.

Just check out the official Shamal press release:

Seven unsigned bands from in and around the Middle East took to the stage in this intense battle between India, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt. All genres of rock music were played from metal, melodic, death metal, acoustic, alternative, funk and gothic.
The event was an intense 4 hours, with the crowd pulsating to the music. At least 1,000 people attended with bus loads turning up from Abu Dhabi to give their support. All cultures attended, here to support their countries, here to support their music scene.
The bands' standard of live performance and musical composition was high. The judges commented that it was a hard decision to decide on a winner, but there could only be one band that could walk away with this phenomenal prize…
Junkyard Groove from India were that band! Fusing rock with funk to give an uplifting style that reaches out to all ages, they wowed the audience with a tight, high energy, flawless, musical stage performance. ....

The victory at Shamal gave Junkyard Groove a 3 year worldwide recording contract with Creative Kingdom Records USA, a reality show by Zee Arabiya and a video to be shot by the same channel. Most importantly, they will be playing at the Dubai Desert Rock Festival on March 9th and 10th. They will be opening both nights of the Dubai Desert Rock Festival for international acts like Iron Maiden, Incubus, Children of Bodom, Mastodon, In Flames, Stone Sour, The Prodigy, Prime Circle and Lauren Harris.. Incredible, isn’t it?

Well, I first saw them play in Spandan 2005 in JIPMER, Pondy, and I admit I was simply bowled over by their incredible music. And since then, I’ve watched them onstage four times till date, and I must tell you that these people create magic onstage! This band has the potential to break into the big league, and can succeed at the international level. If you are curious, just listen to their music at their MySpace site. And check out this homemade video of their song "Its Okay":

Well, here's some info about each member of the band...

Ameeth Thomas [vocals/ rhythm]:
Ameeth has played in quite a few bands in the past and has a talent for songwriting. Like most of the other members in JYG, Ameeth's quest for the right band did not quite work out until he found JYG.
Despite his eccentric behavior on stage, he has a talent for making one listen to what he has to say, which is rather entertaining, and has shaped JYG's style.
He is open to any genre and fulfills the requirement of any song thrown his way. An extremely enthusiastic personality and has music in his family for years now. A complete treat to watch on stage, the party kinda person with a party kinda job. Loves to smoke and laugh in the most inappropriate of situations.
Ameeth’s influences include Dave Matthews Band, John Butler Trio, Pearl Jam and lots more. His sense of commitment to Junkyard Groove proves that this band is here to stay.

Craig Maxworth [Bass]:
Born and brought up in Chennai, Craig played bass for quite a few bands in his early days. After his previous band did not work, he gave up playing bass and resorted to the simpler life. But things were about to change when he met Jerry and Ameeth.
Calm as can be, yet capable of snapping into a fit of violence with that guitar of his. Liquid like bass lines and funk underlined tones bring him down to fitting in just right. A hard worker and a team player, he’s highly appreciated by the rest of the band.
His influences have been Dave Matthews Band, Audioslave, RHCP, Rage Against the Machine, Miles Davis, Marcus Miller and loads more... Craig now vows to go through the hard work and create some good quality music with Junkyard Groove.

Jeremiah John [drums]:
Jerry, a Dubai born Indian, came down to India for further studies and to get back to his roots. Like any other Dubai born Indian who uses the excuse to come back to India to study, he attempted drumming for a few bands, trying to find that special something. After about 4 years of living in India and about 4 bands later, he realized that Junkyard Groove shared the same passion as he did.
He drives this message home with his hard pounding yet soulful work on the skins. One of a kind around the city and loves to break it down to killer funk beats and once in a while, he spits out some gut wrenching thrash beats. There's no stopping this guy when he's on a roll. Having been at the skins many years now, the fluency shows in his many "Best Drummer Awards", proof that he has indeed worked his ass out.
His influences are Dave Matthews Band, Incubus, Dennis Chambers, Carter Beauford etc…. Jerry has given up a lot for Junkyard Groove, to reach his own goals, which by the way works out just right for JYG.

Siddharth Srinivasan [Lead guitar]:
Baby face would be apt to describe this guy. Siddharth has played in numerous bands throughout school and college and takes a lot of pride in playing with JYG. Influenced by funk and blues bands, Junkyard Groove fits him in just right.
Cool calm and collected, his sound is unique and different. He takes a lot of care to ensure that he gets the best sound out of those pedals and leaves sound engineers confused when he tells them what he needs!
Sid, the youngest of the lot, leaves guitarists, much older than him, spell bound. Whether its razor sharp riffs or cleverly crafted solos, he’s the kinda guy that adds to JYG’s unique sound. He certainly is a versatile musician and can throw you into a wall of sound, letting you know that JYG is in the house.
His influences have been a lot of classic rock, mixed with some funk. Bands like Guns in Roses, Deep Purple, Red Hot Chili Peppers etc… have been his Idols. JYG just wouldn’t be the same without this kid.

Series Review: The Alexander trilogy by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

2006-12-23T01:18:00.000-08:00

Book 1: Child of a Dream
Book 2: The Sands of Ammon
Book 3: The Ends of the Earth

The Alexander trilogy are probvably the most famous books written by famous Italian author Valerio Massimo Manfredi. Manfredi succeeds in bringing Alexander [and all the people of his time] back to life, with his brand of imaginative story telling. Alexander the Great is one of those legendary figures with awe inspiring deeds that we ordinary people can only marvel about- after all, conquering almost the entire known world is not an easy task.

Since he believes that he is the son of Zeus himself, he makes the conquest of the entire world his ambition. With the encouragement of his mother Olympias and the tutelage of Aristotle, his philosopher teacher, Alexander learns the lore and knowledge required to assist him in his future journey. Because he answers to the call that awaits him, he proves his mother's assertions about his divine status correct when he ventures to the sands of Siwa to have an oracle reassure him of his divinity. As the son of Zeus, he can now overcome all the obstacles that lie before him, and his troops and friends follow him with a devotion and determination that is truly mindboggling.

Child of a Dream deals primarily with Alexander's childhood and education. Manfredi introduces Hephaestion and Leptine, two people who play important roles all through his life. Both his parents, King Philip of Macedon and Olympias, influence young Alexander's personality considerably. Philip's war exploits prompt Alexander to do more, while Olympias' manipulative nature affects Alexander in more ways than one. Aristotle and his nephew Callisthenes are promiment characters, and their influnce on Alexander's transition from boy to king is evident. Manfredi narrates the story effectively, and the book progresses at a steady clip.

The Sands of Ammon deals with the early years of Alexander's succession to the throne in which he asserts his own rule and personality to prove his mother's belief in his divinity correct. After successfully securing his kingship through battles in Thebes and all of Greece and Turkey, he goes and consults the oracle who assures him that he is truly son of Zeus Ammon. Armoured with the faith in his calling and his divinity, King Alexander, after becoming Pharaoh of Egypt, moves on to conquer Persia. The battle startegy is explained beautifully, and its here that Manfredi's academic background helps him [he is a renowned archaeologist]. Lots of really good action scenes, though Manfredi tends to write as a detached narrator.

In The Ends of the Earth, Alexander succeeds in leading his troops to Afghanistan, and all of Iran and finally into India. Because he was successful in solving the riddle of the Gordian Knot, he is confident of truly being the rightful King of Asia. The way in which he solves the riddle- by cutting it with his sword- is certainly interesting. And the way he continues to weave in side stories to Alexander's conquests add another layer of beauty to the story as a whole.

Throughout the series, Manfredi projects Alexander as an extraordinary individual with a singleminded devotion to his "purpose"- to conquer the entire world. His personality and drive inspires his friends, his comrades, his soldiers to share the glory of never ending conquests, and they follow him literally to the ends of the earth. As Alexander intertwines the old with the new, the Greek with the Persian, the troops and the King change slowly from one cultural heritage to another. Manfredi treats what some consider to be the tragic end of Alexander with due respect, and make the reader have sympathy for the cause of Alexander. As Alexander becomes more and more Persian, his Greek allies and Macedonian brothers become less and less trusting and faithful to him. Having had to change from the democratic practices of Athens to the more Kingly and authoritative ways of the Persians has created rift and friction.

Alexander marries into the Persian families and brings a GrekoPersian culture into existence. He longs to introduce the Hellenistic culture to the Persians and Indians and creates cities after himself as he travels onward throughout the region. But his men have grown old and in a most interesting mutinous scenario, Alexander delivers a stirring speech to his troops, reminding them of their past, his father, and his long time spent with them, causing them to regret their desire to leave him.

Finally, the prophecy of Siwa is nearly complete when his great and dearest friend dies before him as did Patroclus before Achilles. As Achilles built a great funeral pyre for his companion upon his death, Alexander builds a pyre for Hephaestion. It is interesting to note how often Alexander deliberately copies Achilles behavior.

Fortunately, Manfredi does not try to penetrate the heart and soul and mind of Alexander. Instead he explores Alexander's character form a third person's point of view and lets the reader judge for himself. Alexander was a brilliant student, a great military strategist, a king who tried to be as just and honourable as the classical Greek heroes whom he admired. But he also has to eliminate those who oppose him, whether from within his own troops or the worthy adversary. On the whole, the trilogy is a rivetting read. Manfredi succeeds in dissecting through the legends of Alexander's exploits, but at the end of it all, we are left with the feeling that yes, Alexander could do anything. After all, didn't Alexander climb every mountain, ford every stream? Surely, one of the finest works on Alexander's life and deeds. A must read for anyone interesteed in ancient Greece. Worth a 9 on 10!

Junkyard Groove wins Shamal!

2006-12-16T01:20:00.000-08:00

Its celebration time for Junkyard Groove fans now, cos JYG just won Shamal: Battle for Dubai Desert Rock Festival yesterday.

Junkyard Groove gets
- a 3 year World Wide Recording Contract with Creative Kingdom Records USA
- a reality TV show with Zee Arabiya
- a music video to be made by Zee Arabiya
- the opening slot on both days for Desert Rock Festival 2007 on March 9th and 10th!

Check out this review by a guy who watched the competition.

For pictures of Junkyard Groove at Shamal, check this out.

Junkyard Groove at Strawberry Fields: videos

2006-11-27T15:27:00.000-08:00

The NLS rock show, Strawberry Fields 2006, began yesterday and it was headlined by none other than Junkyard Groove, who won the event last yeear. Ameeth, Jerry, Siddharth and Craig regaled the audience with their popular hits like Folk You, Its Okay, Twinkle Twinkle, and many more ...

A dude named Raunak, who watched the show, was considerate enough to upload videos of the band in YouTube. And so, here they are! Check them out..

Twinkle Twinkle:

Folk You:

Its Okay:

Coldplay- Yellow:

Jerry's drum solo:

Siddharth's guitar solo:

Thank You:

Junkyard Groove: Its Okay video

2006-11-10T15:24:00.001-08:00

Its out, finally.. The amateur video for the popular song Its Okay by the alternative/punk rock band Junkyard Groove. Check it out!

Viva Blues

2006-11-06T15:23:00.000-08:00

My send up exams begin tomorrow. If you want to know how the average JIPMERite feels about exams, read this article by a friend of mine, Aseem Mahajan, in which he describes his experiences. Wonderful post!

And all of you out there, who check out this blog, wish me luck! I'm gonna need lots of it this time... :~)

Series Review: The Dune saga by Frank Herbert

2006-10-12T15:31:00.000-07:00

Book 1: Dune
Book 2: Dune Messiah
Book 3: Children of Dune
Book 4: God-Emperor of Dune
Book 5: Heretics of Dune
Book 6: Chapterhouse Dune

Frank Herbert's masterpiece- the Dune hexology- has been acclaimed as one of the greatest science fiction series of all time. The first part had a killer concept, brilliant characterisation, and a radical plot; definitely on of the best opening novel of an SF series, alongwith Dan Simmons's Hyperion. But the succeeding novels lack the panache and elegance of the first part. Overall, defintiely a great series, but not the best.

Expressions: Issue 4

2006-10-02T15:37:00.000-07:00

With the recent release of the movie Lage Raho Munnabhai, generation Y has begun to consider Gandhi and his guiding principles of Satya and Ahimsa in a new light. We have an article on the relevance of Gandhi in today's world, plus short stories, a couple of poems and the usual quota of baloney in this issue of Expressions.

Well, it's that time of the year again - pre-exam blues. With the send-ups and University right down the corner, we bid you farewell for the year. We'll be back in January 2007 after our vacations.

A Bientôt!!!

Does Gandhi matter?

2006-10-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

In an age of terror, violence and slavery, an apostle of peace was sent to India, the hurt enslaved mother of millions. The angel worked tirelessly for the freedom of his nation's people, and with a Herculean effort he removed the chains that had bound them to the British Empire for so long.... That angel of truth was Mahatma Gandhi, who is still affectionately referred to as Bapuji, the Father of our Nation. Of him, the great scientific genius, Albert Einstein once said, "Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this, ever in flesh and blood, walked upon this earth."

A prediction that has surely proved true in the present age. For us, what Gandhiji achieved was something no mortal could have dreamt of doing...so, was he immortal? A god sent down to free the disillusioned Indians? This belief was tragically proved wrong by the bullets of Nathuram Godse on the 30 th of January 1948. An apostle of peace falling prey to violence, an angel of secularism gunned down by the bullets of intolerance that had infested the minds of a few.. An irony of fate, or a cruel twist of destiny? Godse was sentenced to death, an eye for an eye.. But, the question staring India in the face today is- "Does the message of Gandhi matter today?".

In my opinion, Gandhiji's message of love, peace and non-violence have never been as essential for the Indian society as today. Intolerance has not died with Godse. It has survived in the hearts of those who look at the Indian flag and only see their own community, not their motherland. The merciless massacre of Sikhs by the Hindus after Indira Gandhi's assassination, in 1984, the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, the Hindu-Muslim riots that followed and the recent pogrom in Gujarat in 2002 make us ponder a second question-"Did Gandhi die in vain?" He sacrificed his own life for the ideal of Hindu-Muslim unity, which has slowly disappeared from our society after his death. And what tribute do we Indians pay him? We erect gigantic statues of him in bronze and gold, adorn them with heavy garlands, write biographies glorifying him, all the while disregarding his noble message of satya and ahimsa and squashing his plea for love and tolerance to pulp. We have even allowed fanatics to marginalise the Mahatma, in our History texts by ignoring his assassination, and instead glorify Hitler and Savarkar for their "principles"! We have looked on without a word as secularism is given new dimensions and definitions like "pseudo secularism" etc. In fact it is only on the 2 nd of October that we even make an attempt to pay a tribute to the Mahatma.

It is in this context that I say, Gandhiji matters today, to the whole world as much as to India, more than ever. It is indeed an irony that his life has inspired great leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, etc from all over the world, but none have emerged from modern India, bold enough to tread the holy path that he laid...Gandhiji's policies are the perfect solutions to all the evils which plague our nation today. Gandhiji's autobiography is best summed up as the tale of how a simple boy persevered against all the temptations and difficulties life threw in his way and emerged a Mahatma. His truth looks down at the corruption infesting the country with scorn. His teachings of tolerance and equality make us feel ashamed of our ill treatment of Dalits and Harijans, as well as the monstrous riots that have taken place since he died. But no, even in the darkest hour, we can clearly see Gandhiji's noble legacy still living amongst us. In fact, he is partly responsible for the liberal and tolerant behaviour of the new generation of Indians. He still lives on in the hearts of all secular Indians and as long as he is remembered, he will serve as a guiding light for the future of India.

Strings: "Beirut" video

2006-09-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

Well, the new song by Strings is available on YouTube. Its called Beirut and is an anti war song.

Strings is a Pakistani band comprising Faisal and Bilal, which first became famous in the early 90s. They eventually became a household name in India and Pakistan with their melodious numbers, and succeeded in redefining Indirock. With the magnificent successes of their albums Duur and Dhaani, they have managed to remain on top of the countdown charts and way ahead of their competitors, and Beirut will continue the trend.

Check it out!

Exams dead ahead...

2006-09-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, it is that time of the year again to face the music. Yes, I'm referring to my University exams, that are scheduled to be in December.

But thats not the problem. You see, one of the reasons why JIPMER is considered one of the best medical colleges is that the education is really top notch, and each department conducts regular tests and monitors the students' performances. But sometimes, this policy can lead to ludicrous situations. For instance, there are 18 tests [thats right, eighteen tests!!!] scheduled for the period of September 15, 2006 to October 31, 2006. And thats not all- more tests will be announced in the days to come!!!. Then we have the Model Exams probably in the first two weeks of November, and finally the University exams in December.

So now, we are all in an extended hang over. Sitting late nights, trying to cover as much of the portions as possible, revising for the all impostant University exams at the same time, sleeping off in classes due to the sheer exhaustion, cutting down on all recreation, God! This is terrible. And I used to be a guy who seriously loved studying!!!

And yet, I know why they put up this gruelling schedule. Its because we have to be the best of the best. The medical profession is definitely not easy. Being a doctor is a full time job, it requires us to make decisions that could mean the difference between life and death. And thats why we have to go through this- to become as good as humanly possible.

Wish me luck, people. I'm gonna need lots of it. Sayonara!

Series Review: The Ultimate Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams

2006-09-27T15:41:00.000-07:00

Book 1: Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
Book 2:The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Book 3: Life, the Universe and Everything
Book 4: So long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Book 5: Young Zaphod Plays It Safe
Book 6: Mostly Harmless

Does this book actually require a review? I think not.. Suffice to say that this is probably the best SF book of all time! Join Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect as they undertake the most dangerous and funniest journey of their lives- across the friggin universe!!! And the humour is "celestial", man!

This book is a must have for anyone who considers himself an SF nut.. And hey, even if you dont like SF, chances are you would probably end up loving this book. Three cheers to Douglas Adams!!! A 10 on 10, definitely...

A Comparison of JIPMER, AIIMS and PGI

2006-09-18T15:05:00.000-07:00

AIIMS, PGI and JIPMER were set up around the same time in the decade after Independence. Each institute was located in a Union Territory, meant to be a "Centre of Excellence"- a tertiary care centre for patients in neighbouring areas. But something went wrong somewhere down the line. While AIIMS and PGI have become prestigious institutions, JIPMER has lagged behind, due to various obstacles.

One problem has been funding. JIPMER had been receiving a paltry sum of Rs 59 crores annually till 2005, compared to Rs 240 crores for AIIMS and Rs 160 crores for PGI. This has resulted in the lack of super speciality departments, poor facilities in labs, and even the existing features are not maintained well. But in the last two years, a lot of money is being pumped into JIPMER by the Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss. A cancer ward, a super speciality block, an auditorium, and a nursing college are some of the high profile projects launched recently.

Another issue is the lack of autonomy. Since JIPMER is under the "direct" admininistrative supervision of the DGHS, every decision taken in JIPMER requires the sanction of the bureaucrats in the DGHS; decisions take years to be passed, thanks to red tape. But AIIMS and PGI are autonomous institutes, and hence they are able to implement their decisions faster and efficiently. The demand for autonomy has been going on and off for the past few decades in JIPMER. Ramadoss has made this one of his main objectives [for what reason, I cant fathom] and it seems like it will be achieved in his tenure.

Another curious point is the reservation of almost one third of the seats in a "national" college like JIPMER for students of Pondicherry. This is unnacceptable. Please note that I dont have a grudge against Pondy students. Its just that there are already five medical colleges and two more starting up, including the Pondicherry Govt Medical College, so there is no need for them to have a quota in JIPMER. A couple of decades earlier, the Delhi quota in AIIMS was scrapped for precisely the same reason: reservation on the basis of domicile is simply not possible in a national institution.

Now with the OBC quota coming into play, the seats in JIPMER will be increased from 75 to 125. This will put a strain on our facilities. So, autonomy will go a long way in helping the JIPMER Administration in this situation, and bring JIPMER back to its rightful place as one of the best medical colleges in India.

Expressions: Issue 3

2006-09-17T15:03:00.000-07:00

Well, SPANDAN - ah, those five days of joy! , is over, and now we are back to the normal tedium of life in JIPMER. In this September issue of Expressions, we present to you "Graffiti on the Great Wall" - the magazine of Curie Day 2006 organized by our batch girls.

We also have the usual articles from the regulars. An issue that has been raging inside our campus for the last week (and also responsible for the delay of this issue's release) - the autonomy issue - also comes under our scrutiny. We present an article and pictures on the strike by the employees that have paralyzed JIPMER.

Ciao!

Junkyard Groove selected for Shamal

2006-09-16T14:58:00.000-07:00

Good news, JYG fans! Junkyard Groove has been selected as one of the finalists for Shamal: Battle for Desert Rock Festival, Dubai. As most of you in the Gulf know, Shamal is a search for the most talented bands in the subcontinent and the Middle East. Shamal intends to act as a launchpad for bands of the region into the international level.

The finalists are:
DAVINCI - Egypt
Point Of View - Dubai
Pin Drop Violence - India
Junkyard Groove - India
Gorthall - Dubai
Hydrophobia - Dubai
Wasted Land - Saudi Arabia
Whimagon - Iran

The winners will get
- a 3 year World Wide Recording Contract with Creative Kingdom Records USA
- a reality TV show with Zee Arabiya
- a music video to be made by Zee Arabiya
- the opening slot on both days for Desert Rock Festival 2007 on March 9th and 10th!

All the best, Junkyard Groove!!!

Check out Shamal's website and MySpace profile for more information.

The Issue of JIPMER's Autonomy

2006-09-13T14:52:00.000-07:00

I wanted to express my thoughts on an issue that is relevant to the college that I am studying in- the autonomy of JIPMER. The demand for autonomy has been sprouting up often in the last couple of decades, but protests from the employees have always led to this issue being put on the back burner. Until now. On the 7th of September, the Union Cabinet took an extraordinary decision. This article came in The Hindu the next day.

Seems like the perfect deal, right? But then the employees began their "spoiler" act. Until now, these employees had the privileges of being Central Govt employees, and reaped huge benefits without working at all, because the Director is at best a lameduck, who cant even hire or fire anyone, without the sanction of the DGHS. But now, with all that to change, the employees played out their ace in the hole- STRIKE!

For the last 6 days, the entire Staff, with the exception of professors, resident doctors and students, has been on a complete strike, thus paralysing the working of JIPMER, and rendering it incapable of providing treatment to the thousands of poor patients who enter the hospital each day. We students try our level best to assist the doctors, but its an uphill task, and so we have asked all the in patients to go to the neighbouring hospitals for treatment.

And what comes in the papers? Long articles sympathising with the "plight" of the hospital employees, who "will be fired for no fault of theirs", and denouncing the "tyrannical measures of the dictatorial Administration to break up this movement for justice", etc.. Leaders from CPI M announcing their "solidarity" with the hospital employees, and God knows what else! And worst of all, very few articles showing the other side- how the strike is affecting patients.

What do we do? Wait patiently. Cos we are no match for the fanatical party supporters who have been holding the Institute to ransom for the past few days. But we cant watch the situation unfold passively. This issue will have a bearing on the college. Autonomy is a dream that JIPMERites have wanted for the last three decades. And it is almost within our grasp. Let this opportunity not fly away!

The era of Indian comics?

2006-09-07T14:44:00.000-07:00

There has long been a vacuum in the Indian comics market, one that has, till date, been inadequately filled by static reproductions of mythology and history by Amar Chitra Katha on the one hand, and mass marketed but culturally alien reprints of popular American comics by DC and Marvel. For those comic book fans who find themselves vacillating between these two extremes in search of a product that combines the best of both worlds, the newly formed Virgin Comics might come as a welcome change.

The basic idea behind Virgin Comics is reinterpreting classic Indian stories and making them relevant to today's youth. Virgin promises to utilise classic tales as a springboard for the development of newer, more contemporary versions of myth — representations of "the Indian ethos of seeing everything in grey rather than black and white".

But in a world mainly dominated by American themes, one might ask, "why pick Indian stories now?" Virgin Comics believes that in the next decade, Asia will become one of the largest producers, as well as the largest consumers, of entertainment products. Virgin Comics intends to look to Asia, and India in particular, as both a growing market for consumers of entertainment products and also a source for unique, innovative content to be brought to the world in comics and licensing into movies, animation, toys, video games and consumer products.

In that sense, the company has a lot of models to look at and learn from, the most successful of which have been the Japanese forms of manga and anime. Reportedly, the worldwide market for manga stands at somewhere near $5 billion. Indeed, manga represents some of the best lessons for Indian comic makers, with the need for authenticity topping the list. And what will set Virgin Comics in a league of its own is the authenticity of the tale and the myth.

Sharad Devarajan and Gotham Chopra, the principal architects, are spearheading the new Virgin Comics and Virgin Animation, in collaboration with Deepak Chopra, Shekar Kapur and Richard Branson. In this pursuit of authenticity and quality, the company is working on creating a platform for indigenous artistes and writers. Thus, although some of its first collaborations boast big names such as John Woo and Guy Ritchie, it is working on going the long haul with Indian talent that has had success creating content, like Samit Basu, Shamik Dasgupta, Sourav Mohapatra et al.

And so you have it — the voice of the new Indian generation, in the form of "organic stories from modern urban cities," as Gotham put it.The comics that are being released in the Indian market now are Devi, The Sadhu, Snakewoman, and Ramayana Reborne. Right now, after the spectacular sales of these comics in the USA, Virgin Comics is on a high. All that remains to be seen is if young India likes the way Virgin Comics says it sounds.

Junkyard Groove: Here They Come!

2006-09-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

Junkyard Groove is one of the finest bands in the Indian rock scene at present. It consists of Ameeth on vocals / rhythm, Craig on bass, Jeremiah on the drums and Siddharth on lead. They had been invited to play on the 1st of September in JIPMER as a non competitive entry in Western Music. And they played with a lot of exuberance in their typical style, and had a considerable crowd [including yours truly!] dancing to their music at 4 in the morning!!!

Luckily for us, the JIPMER Executives had invited them to play as the opening act for the next day's Rock Show. And Junkyard Groove played some of their popular compositions, and effectively upstaged the more famed bands like MotherJane and Moksha , that played later.

What I [and a lot of other people, I'm sure :~)] like about Junkyard Groove is the way they play their music. They seem to genuinely love playing, and they build a rapport with the audience. And the best part is- their own compositions are just AWESOME. Be it Folk You, Its Ok, Twinkle Twinkle, Say Goodbye or Let You Go, each song rocks and has a lot of fans in their regular audience.

To conclude, Junkyard Groove is a bunch of exceptionally talented musicians, that is creating sensational music at the moment, and is extremely popular among the rock loving college students of South India. I hope that they go places. Who knows, lets wait till their CD comes out!!!

Check out their website here. Sound clips of some of their popular songs are also available!

SPANDAN has begun!

2006-08-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

The serene ambience of the mist sprayed landscape, the distant roar of the crystal surf crowning the turquoise depths of the intriguing splash of the sun-pondicherry, the land with the unique mélange of the Indian culture and the French spirit. A kaleidoscope so fierce and yet so heartening –the ultimate synergy.

The hail of ideas ricocheting in the confines of the mind finally erupts in t a burst of creativity and competition- its SPANDAN once more, the time when youth from some of the best institutes in the country come together in a display of talent and brilliance. The blurs of magnificence snap into focus as the bounds of the ordinary and common place are breached in this five day stretch of exuberance.

3500 BC- first settlers in the Nile Valley
3100 BC- hieroglyphic script developed
2700 BC- first stone pyramid built
800 BC- papyrus is discovered
2006 AD- JIPMER rediscovers the magical Egyptian civilization

Spellbound, we transcend the bounds of time,
And step back in a trip that’ll be worth every dime,
Ah Egypt!
With pyramids, mummies, scarabs we’ll enthrall.
But wait that’s not all!
Of Anubis, Ra and the Sphinx we talk,
Memories, the shadows in your mind will stalk,
An attempt, the mystical culture, to rediscover.
Its Spandan again, Strike before its over!

Check out the official SPANDAN site .

Northwest Airlines 'terror' fiasco in Netherlands

2006-08-27T14:35:00.000-07:00

When I read the article of 12 Indians arrested on a jet by Netherlands for "suspicious behaviour", the first words that came to my mind was - "How could they?" Indeed, thats what everybody ought to think...

Agreed, the Indian passengers had shifted seats among themselves without informing the airplane crew, and apparently exchanged a mobile and laughed more than once, but the question is - How can this be sufficient grounds for arresting them?? This was either an act of stupidity or racial prejudice. Throughout the one and half day ordeal, the passengers were treated as terrorists, irrespective of their vociferous denials and the lack of actual evidence that would point to any terrorist activity- the police considered them guilty. And the reports in newspapers all over the West announced this with great fanfare, as if a major terrorist plot had been prevented.

Would this have happened if the the passengers were boisterous Americans or drunk Europeans?? Would the Netherlands authorities behave so insolently, interrogate them so relentlessly, infringe on their privacy, and then announce their innocence without even an apology??

The so called "guardians of democracy and equality" are guilty of double standards: they have one set of rules for their white/black Christian citizens, and another set of rules for everybody else. Is this sensible? It will only fan the fires of anger in the Third World and enable terrorists to strengthen themselves. Are the governments of Europe and America so blind to the current reality that they cant see that all their measures to "control" terrorism have backfired?? Have they no respect for the dignity of others?

Instead of tyrannical measures like "racial profiling" or the infamous "shoot at sight" statement [which led to the death of the innocent Brazilian at the hands of the British police- or should I call it murder?], they should understand the root causes of terrorism- the Palestine issue, a mistrust of the West, and an underlying frustration due to the Arab governments' inability to improve their peoples' condition- and try to address these issues by extending the olive branch to the Arab nations. But no, they dont- they act like matadors and get gored by the bull in the process. As the saying goes, history repeats itself...

Now, it was 12 Indian passengers.. What next, o ye defenders of the "free" world???

SPANDAN 2006: The clock is ticking!!!

2006-08-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

Fiends, roamers and journeymen, lend us your ears!!

Well it is that time of year again, SPANDAN 2006 is upon us. A time when we open our gates to fellow college goers from across the country with a view to pleasure rather than business. When the prized scion of the best institutions of the country, descend upon our enclave for a few days of unadulterated entertainment, all in keeping with the spirit of festivity along with competition and camaraderie that has been the hallmark of SPANDAN for what has now been more than 20 years.

Well for those of our friends, who still haven’t quite gotten the drift, SPANDAN is our 5 day annual intercollegiate literary, cultural and sports festival drawing an audience of in excess of thousand, from over 70 colleges across the country.

The beat is intensifying…the beat of hearts… SPANDAN!!

The fever is catching on. And believe us when we tell you that it is contagious.

DON'T PANIC..

We have the cure. SPANDAN begins on the 29th of August, 2006.

Join us and let your ‘spirits’ rise!

Expressions: Issue 2

2006-08-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

The second issue of our batch mag, Expressions, has come out.Here's my editorial:

Well, to put it lightly, the last month had not been favourable to mankind what with all the explosions in Mumbai, the civil war in Iraq, the relentless Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, the tsunami in South East Asia, the floods in Mumbai, the attacks in Kashmir, the guerilla battles in Columbia - almost every part of the globe is in turmoil.

In response to the Hezbollah strikes, the Israelis have indiscriminately butchered hundreds and thousands of innocents in Lebanon under the pretext of "retaliation" and "upholding territorial integrity"; while the US and UK blame the Hezbollah for what happened and argue that Israel is "doing the right thing". Since when did blasting city and massacring civilians become "the right thing"? What Israel is doing is absolutely reprehensible.

Closer home, the explosions in Mumbai some weeks back, pointed out the biter truth that even after the city has suffered so many terrorist acts of violence, the authorities are yet to formulate a plan of action in case of emergencies. Any observer would have notices that, it was not the police or fire fighters who were involved in the initial stages of rescue work; in fact, they stayed away from the sites, fearing further explosions, while it was the ordinary people - commuters, railway coolies, neighbours - who were the real heroes. Mumbai tends to forget acts like these and tries to get back to business - quite a contrast with cities like New Delhi, Madrid, London: where people who died in similar acts of terrorist violence are remembered and honoured.

And a few words on the Interclass events. As expected for a Second year (5th Semester) batch, we got second place overall. Let's hope we the Invincibles2k4 can raise the bar of excellence and fairness in the next Interclass events.

So until next month, adios amigos!

Debate: Society needs theism as an end in itself, irrespective of the existence of God.

2006-08-13T14:23:00.000-07:00

The Interclass Debate occurred a couple of days back. I managed to get the 3rd prize for the Best Speaker. Here is my speech:

"People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves free and happy, for a few minutes anyway."

A stand-up comedian once remarked,"Most sermons sound to me like commercials, but I cant quite make out if God is the sponsor or product."

Respected Chairman, fellow speakers and dear friends, a very good evening to one and all. I'll be speaking against the motion- Society needs theism as an end in itself, irrespective of the existence of God. Almost all the speakers before me have spoken about the semantics of the motion and defined theism in detail. Hence, I'll talk about atheism for a change.

Atheism can be broadly defined as the lack of belief in the concept of God. This encompasses both those who believe there are no gods- the "true atheists"- and those who make no claim about whether God exists or not- the "non-theists".

But before we go ahead, we have to consider religion, because as one speaker remarked, theism and religion are intricately related. What exactly is religion? In my opinion, religion is that relationship which exists between man and his creator, whether real or imaginary. An ideal religion is that which is centred on the individual, broadminded and allows a lot of scope for personal interpretation. Hence, all organised religions- be it Christianity, Islam or Judaism- fail in this respect, as they attempt to enforce an artificial uniformity among people, which is both unnatural and unrealistic, as each person will naturally tend to have a different idea of how God is or ought to be.

And this enforced uniformity results in fundamentalism- a conservative mindset that remains impervious to new ideas and becomes an obstacle to progress. A case in point being the attitude of the Vatican during the Renaissance of the 16th and 17th centuries, or the ongoing efforts by the neo-conservatives to include "intelligent design" as an alternative theory to Darwinism in schools all over the United States.

When almost every religion proclaims that theirs is the true faith and their path the only path, then tensions are bound to rise and intolerance to other faiths is inevitable. Violence in the name of God has cast bloodstains on almost every religion, and is probably the final nail on the coffin of theism. Isnt it ironic that all this occurs in a world where truth, peace, brotherhood and tolerance are touted as the guiding principles of all religions?

Supporters of theism may argue that fear of God has prevented many a person from commiting crimes, but that is just a ploy to deflect attention from their many faults. What about the atrocities commited in the name of God? What would God think of the Holocaust? The Crusades? The numerous communal riots in our nation since Partition? September 11? The so called "war against terror"? Would He approve of it? Definitely not.

If God exists, I dont think he'll want us to squabble over Him, and kill innocents in His name. Hence, its evident that theism has failed in its basic purpose of uniting man with God, rather, all it has succeeded in is dividing mankind. It is imperative that we find an alternative, and this is where atheism comes in.

To quote Albert Einstein," I cant conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures. I would rather contemplate the mystery of Life and the marvellous structure of the existing world and try to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in Nature." And as George Bernard Shaw put it," I believe in God; only I call him Nature."

So lets forget our differences, become rational selves with faith in Nature, ignore dogmas and superstitions, and try to improve the world from the mess that it is in right now.

I'll conclude with this comment by Mark Maron,"I believe in God........ just in case. Its like there's this list somewhere and you dont wanna be on it. I dont want to say THERE IS NO GOD and then die and say,'Oh, hi, Mr. God, is there some kind of community service that I can do?' "

Series Review: The Endymion Omnibus by Dan Simmons

2006-08-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

Book 1: Endymion
Book 2: The Rise of Endymion

It's about 250 years after the events of The Fall of Hyperion. It all begins with the hero, Raul Endymion, a prisoner in an unusual execution device, writing how he became the bodyguard of the One Who Teaches, the messiah foretold at the end of The Fall of Hyperion, who is a twelve-year-old girl (at least at the beginning of this story). His tale starts as a native guide to off-world hunters on the planet Hyperion and then transforms into a travelogue-cum-chase through several worlds of the old Hegemony.

Endymion is probably the weakest book of the tetralogy. While some plots were left dangling for a sequel, Endymion feels a bit rushed at times and Dan Simmons engages in reinterpreting the past story. It's also a less interesting story because it doesn't have the storytelling brilliance of Hyperion or the enormous sweep of The Fall of Hyperion. It is mostly a travelogue; as a result, how much you enjoy the book is likely to have a lot to do with how interesting you find the exploration of the various worlds of the old Hegemony.

There is a larger plot, though. Endymion introduces the Pax- the revamped Catholic Church- the new "government" that has taken over after the conclusion of The Fall of Hyperion and now dominates mankind far more than the Hegemony ever did. Half the book is told from the perspective of Raul Endymion and the other half from the perspective of a priest of the Pax who is chasing Raul and Aenea, and I thought that the Pax sections were the strongest of the book. The Pax government is chilling but believable given their technology, and for most of the book Simmons does a good job slowly building a picture of their nature and motives.

Much of the trouble with Endymion is that it's a bridge book. It's trying to take the world of a mostly completed space opera story and prepare it as a backdrop in which to tell a very different story about religion, belief, and messiahs. Accordingly, it is neither chalk nor cheese, ends up feeling occasionally forced, and leaves one with the feeling that not a lot really happened. The Rise of Endymion is the real payoff to this story, and Endymion serves primarily to get the reader to the point where that story can be told. But I still did like it, largely due to the enjoyable conversation with the ancient poet Martin Silenus at the beginning of it, the Pax portions of the book, and Aenea.

The Rise of Endymion completes the transition begun in Endymion and takes the story in a totally different direction. This is defintiely not a story about interstellar governments or space battles, although both do feature in it. Rather, it is the gospel of a messiah of empathic humanism, set against the backdrop of a space opera universe. If you're not comfortable with the idea of love being a fundamental force of the universe and with the science and technology being backgrounded into a supporting role for the symbology that Simmons is trying to create, you may not like this book.

The symbology impressed me a great deal. Countering the Old Testament world of politics, war, vengeance, and collapse found in Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, Aenea's philosophy focuses on individuals and their relationships, on trust, communities, forgiveness, redemption, and non-violent resistance. The story is told in the form of a first-person account written by her companion and lover, and Catholic and Christian imagery is used extensively throughout. The traditional form of Church rituals are a centerpiece of the Pax church, which lays claim to Catholic tradition while underneath is an exercise in cynical technology. Aenea's rituals are superficially ways of interacting with physical laws and science, but take on the form of those same Christian rituals, redeeming them for something closer to their spiritual purpose.

The messiah Aenea's life and teaching methods parallel the stories of Jesus, making similar moral points and frequently producing echos that will cause the reader to nod in recognition. However, Aenea has the advantage of having a spirituality that can produce obvious and measurable effects on the world, and Dan Simmons uses this to change the moral struggle from one of faith to the choice between safe, controlled, and artificial existence and uncontrolled, dangerous, and dynamic life, a leap of faith of a very different and more humanist kind.

Aenea is one of my favorite fictional characters, and that's an amazing feat for a character who is cast in the role of messiah, carrying with it both foreknowledge and near-infallibility. Throughout the story she exudes an enthusiastic joy and love of life that's infectious and delightful to read. She also has the best two-word mission statement of any religious figure I've read about.

This series is one of the most marvellous ones I've read. Together with the Hyperion Omnibus, these 4 books probably rank among the all time greats of SF writing. Dan Simmons rocks!!! And the ending packs a huge emotional punch... Worth a 9.5 on 10.

Series Review: The Hyperion Omnibus by Dan Simmons

2006-08-12T14:16:00.000-07:00

Book 1: Hyperion
Book 2: The Fall of Hyperion

Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion have a continuous narrative, but they are totally different structurally. The series is set in the 29th Century.The human Hegemony has spread all over the spiral arm of the Milky Way, the various planets linked by a mysterious network of "fatlines" and instantaneous travel a reality by devices called "farcasters". Humans live in an uneasy coexistence with a society of AIs, and the Ousters are threatening to invade the Hegemony.

In Hyperion we are introduced to seven pilgrims from totally diverse backgrounds selected to travel to the eponymous planet where exists the Time Tombs, mysterious artefacts where time appears to flow backwards. In the Time Tombs lurks the Shrike, a mysterious being with its own cult of followers and a nasty way of dealing with its victims. The structure of Hyperion is a sort of SF homage to the Canterbury Tales. In the hope of figuring out why they, out of all of the possible people, were chosen to go to the Time Tombs and what might be going on, the pilgrims agree to tell each other their stories and their reasons for going to Hyperion.

Each pilgrim's tale is absolutely wonderful. There's a first contact story, some military SF, social satire, literary symbolism, colonial rebellion, cyberpunk, hard-boiled detective, a touch of horror, and two beautiful stories of personal tragedy. Each story has its own distinctive voice, its own style, and its own narrative technique. They're all wonderfully told, each one separate and unique, and yet all blend together into a larger narrative. This is nott a collection of unrelated tales; after the first few stories, we can see deeper patterns, can sense forces coming together, can see effects of one story in another, and feels the storm gathering. Hyperion is an extremely well-written book. It attempts a risky narrative structure that could leave it feeling fragmented, but instead pulls off the convergence of the diverse threads with elan.

Picking up directly after the end of Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion takes a step back and starts to tell the story from the perspective of the Hegemony government. Now the subtleties of the Hegemony government and its relations with the AI TechnoCore are brought into the picture.

A reincarnation of the poet John Keats, a body created from DNA and a mind via AI download, who was introduced in the first volume, becomes more central here. Occasionally, Dan Simmons moves into present tense for scenes filtered via the Keats character's mind. Things get complex, very complex -- possibly too much so for one reading -- but the author maintains exemplary control of his material.

The beautiful and slowly constructed rising action from the first book was a hard act to follow, and The Fall of Hyperion feels occasionally frantic as it tries to get everyone in place to resolve as many of the dangling subplots as possible. The action occasionally gets choppy, and some of the Hyperion stories get short shrift. The implications of the detective's story turn out to be the most important in the broader stage. Dan Simmons has an amusing take on AI discussions, though, and the conversations with Ummon speaking in Zen wisdom sayings are some of my favorite parts of the book. Weintraub's continued struggles with the ethics of faith are very very intriguing; the progression of sacrifice and man's relationship with God is presented here in a previously unexplored direction. And the climaxes, when they come, are suitably catastrophic on multiple levels.

All in all, the Hyperion Omnibus is one of my all time favourite SF series... Dan Simmons deserves special recognition for the way his books contain elements of several genres, and the overall effect is highly satisfying. 9.5 on 10!

Series Review: The Ramayana by Ashok K. Banker

2006-08-10T14:03:00.000-07:00

Ashok K. Banker's Ramayana series belongs to that rarefied category of books whose contents are as good as, if not better than, the blurbs. Let me tell you that this series is not a straightforward translation of the epic; on the other hand, it is a retelling attempted by Banker according to his own imagination. Click on each book to read my review...

Book 1: Prince of Ayodhya
Book 2: Siege of Mithila
Book 3: Demons of Chitrakut
Book 4: Armies of Hanuman
Book 5: Bridge of Rama
Book 6: King of Ayodhya

To conclude, I would rate this Ramayana as probably the best series I've ever read. I feel that Banker's books will achieve the same exalted status that Valmiki's Ramayana in Sanskrit, Kamban's Tamil version, Sant Tulsidas's Ramacharitamanas in Hindi, Ezhuthachan's Malayalam version, and lots of other Ramayanas retold by literary geniuses in their own vernaculars were able to attain... Truly a modern epic. Go read it, people!!!

10 on 10 says it all... :~)

Screwed!!!!

2006-08-06T15:14:00.000-07:00

Yup, thats what the batch has to say after the Interclass events... We were defeated by a combination of our own errors, manipulative executives and biased judges! As a result, we managed to get second place overall, which is the usual result for the 5th sem batch.

In Indian Music, we put up a good show that was marred by silly mistakes like lack of timing and coordination. Nevertheless, I got 2nd place for Best Solo [Ashayein from the film Iqbal] and 2nd place for Best Group Song [O Meri Soniye from the album Dhaani by Strings].

However, Western Music was entirely another matter. Our band was better than the rest by a huge margin, and we ought to have won all the categories; yet, the executives bagged all the major prizes!!! Talk about bias.. It seemed that everybody who witnessed the show knew who were the best, except the judges themselves!!!

But, as other seniors remarked, incidents like this happen every year. So all we can do is wait for next year when we become the executives..

Deep Throat- Band of 2k4

2006-08-04T15:12:00.000-07:00

Yeah, thats what we call ourselves, Deep Throat.. [no references to any other deep throats :~)]

The band members are:

Harin- A total cool dude, now an aspiring bass guitarist.
Harry- This guy is born to rock the stage with an awesome voice.
Kenei- This bloke is an absolutely fantastic keyboard player.
Tapas- Thats me. Studied Carnatic music for quite a long time, now trying my hand in contemporary rock.
Theja- He is probably the best lead guitarist ever in a medical college.
Vijay- This dude is a wonderful drummer.

We, the sensational six, have decided to turn semi-professional.i.e, we'll perform in as many places as possible, improve ourselves, create own compositions, etc... I know its a dream, but we'll certainly try our best to make it a reality.

Three cheers to Deep Throat!!! Hip, hip, hurray!!!

Interclass coming up...

2006-07-31T15:10:00.000-07:00

I've been really busy over the last three weeks, practising for the interclass cultural and literary events starting this week.. Will post on the events as soon as i get some time!!

For now, just read this article by Jayant Mahadevan, a guy one year senior to me in JIPMER.

Book Review: King of Ayodhya by Ashok K. Banker

2006-07-24T15:07:00.000-07:00

One thing I love about Ashok Banker's Ramayana series is the way each part is better than the preceding one. As a result, there is no disappointment for the reader. This pattern continues in King of Ayodhya, which is undoubtedly the best book of the series.

In King of Ayodhya, Ravana commands Varuna to destroy Rama's armies as a response to Hanuman's devastation of Lanka. Varuna's tsunami and the consequential death toll enrages Rama and he uses his brahman shakti against the god. Varuna placates Rama by offering his services to create a natural bridge of greybacks for the armies of vanars and bears to cross the ocean and reach Lanka.

But Ravana's awe-inspiring feats of sorcery- changing the very topography of Lanka as well as creating an entire race of rakshasas- exterminates vanars and bears by the thousands. Vibhisena is banished from Lanka, and joins Rama in the struggle against Ravana's adharma. Rama finally uses his brahman shakti and wreaks havoc on the rakshasa hordes with the Bow of Vishnu and the Arrow of Brahma. All this leads ultimately to the showdown between Rama and Ravana.

Banker is verily a gifted writer: we can feel the emotions of the characters, as if we were them. This is what makes this Ramayana series so much more fascinating than the traditional versions of the Ramayana.The war is not glorified- it is depicted in its entirety. It is the only means to get Sita back, and so Rama has to do it. The pain, the sadness, the rage, the jubiliation of victory, the horror of dying- everything seems so right, when we read them..

Banker has created the action packed war scenes brilliantly. There is a lot of blood and gore, in fact, the names of the Kaands [The Book of Skulls, The Forever War] might give you an idea how graphic it is. Hanuman impresses with his fighting skills, as usual. The battle sequences are described from several characters' points of view: Hanuman, Jambavan, Sugreeva, Nala, Angad, Mandaradevi, Kambunara are some of the prominent warriors. And Garuda's appearnce is sensational.

And the perspective from Lanka is equally impressive. Ravana's mindgames with Sita, Supanakha's feelings, Mandodhari's futile rants- all are dealt with so realistically that it is as if we are in the story itself!!! The ending may seem a bit of an anticlimax,and several questions are left unanswered. The agniparikshan scene was portrayed elegantly.

Valmiki's ancient poem is not a conflict between "absolute good" and "absolute evil", though it may seem so at a cursory glance. Rama, the champion of dharma, committed shameful deeds like the murder of Vaali and the banishment of Sita. While Ravana, who might seem to be utterly evil, is actually a great king; one who did a lot of good to the world, before he strayed away from the path of dharma. It is to Banker's credit that he has succeeded in portraying the subtle shades of this immortal epic in a series spanning 6 books.

To conclude, I must say that I had found Bridge of Rama brilliant, but compared to King of Ayodhya, its nothing... King of Ayodhya is that good! This is one of the most un-putdownable books I've ever read. Definitely 10 on 10!!!

An epic has ended. And another will begin. I'll wait with a lot of expectations for Banker's retelling of that other Indian epic, the Mahabharata.

Behind The Blog Ban

2006-07-24T15:04:00.000-07:00

For all those wondered why exactly those 17 sites were blocked by the Indian Government, here's some news. Check out this article by Barbarindian.

As one of them mentioned," First we were a vehicle by which the terrorists were transmitting communication between each other, then we were inciting violence with our "doctrine of hate", Now we are categorized as just "highly offensive" to the Indian Muslim community and hence must be silenced in the name of cultural harmony."

Is this the same India that is being praised for its secularism? This incident just points out the influence of the Muslim fundamentalists is quite strong in the Cabinet. Its time that we rubbish the claims of the Govt of India.

Medicozone.com: a Portal for medicos, by medicos

2006-07-11T15:02:00.000-07:00

Here is some important news for you all.

We [a couple of students from JIPMER, Pondicherry] have started an interactive medical portal. In this we have launched a medical forum in which members from all over the world can discuss doubts and topics of interest relating to various disciplines of medical curriculum, be it physiology or radiotherapy, microbiology or forensic medicine- the choice is yours!!!

Please note that this forum is meant for the entire medical community- medical undergraduate and post graduate students, doctors, professors, +2 students who want to join medicine, laymen with an interest in medical matters; all are welcome. This forum is created, hosted and maintained by medicos. All those who are interested may join.

We would like to thank the JIPMER Alumni Association, and especially Dr. Shyam, for providing us the domain and webspace for the site.

So what are you waiting for, guys??? Go check it out...

Online Mag- Expressions

2006-07-11T14:50:00.000-07:00

Well, i forgot to tell you guys that my batchmates in JIPMER [Batch of 2004] have started a monthly online magazine titled EXPRESSIONS.. And who did they choose for the Editor's post??? Yeah, man, you guessed that right... Celebrated blogger Tapas Sadasivan Nair! Well, maybe i'm blowing my trumpet too hard.. Just check it out here and give me your opinion! I've posted the Editorial of the first issue here.

And voila! Our first batch magazine is up and ready, almost an entire year after a couple of us had thought of starting it. And what a long journey has it been! We had ambitiously contemplated releasing a monthly eight page magazine, then thought on a smaller scale, after the lack of interest from the classmates. The idea of spending money to create a magazine did not appeal to many. And then we hit upon the perfect solution: to do it online! No hassles at all, and lots of add on benefits like colour pictures and so on and so forth.

And so, with the flurry of innovation and enthusiasm that people have come to associate with our batch, we, The Invincibles 2k4, are proud to present to you the first edition of our batch magazine EXPRESSIONS. We dedicate this to all the guys and gals who were supportive and enthusiastic and have provided insightful articles on various topics under the sun.

Thank you!

FIFA World Cup 2006: Germany vs France?

2006-07-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

For the last three weeks, our planet has become flat. There are no time zones. Wives, girlfriends, mothers and sisters have been left wondering if mankind and sanity can ever be mentioned in the same breath again, as grown middle aged men suddenly regressed to wobbly adolescence.

A sort of collective amnesia has struck mankind; this is the only time the masses achieve a state where the many becomes one, where everybody focuses on one thing. That one thing- the FIFA World Cup- is like no other sporting event in the world.

There are religions. And then there is football. This is the ultimate religion, one that cuts across every known border on earth, something that unites, divides, provides inspirational highs and sets off fits of depression, touches chords that never existed before, shoots up nerves and puts one on edge, and makes one scale the gamut of emotions in just 90 mins.

As usual, Brazil was the overwhelming favourite, not because they are the most successful side in World Cup history, but because style of performance has always counted for something in football. Its not all about winning and losing. Its about flair. Its about invention. And most of all, its about beauty and aesthetic appeal. And what a world cup this has been! Argentina knocked out by Germany, the Brazilians overcome by a virtuoso performance by Zidane, England eliminated by Scolari's boys...

Just imagine the scene when Italy walks out to face the fabulous Germans, while Portugal lines up against Les Bleus in the semi-finals. And just imagine a final between France and Germany! Ah! What a final would it be! This is a subjective scenario and such things rarely go so finely to plan, but it would be a final sure to find support among the world's neutral football lovers.

The games have begun. Let beauty reign!!!

Wimbledon 2006: Will Roger make it 4 times in a row?

2006-07-04T14:45:00.000-07:00

One man's quest for sporting immortality continues this year on the famed grass courts of Wimbledon. The Federer Express continues to roll ahead this time too, as he attempts to match "Pistol" Pete Sampras and Bjorn Borg's record of 4 consecutive Wimbledon titles.

Federer has already shrugged off his defeat in the French Open final and begun his defence of the Wimbledon in admirable fashion. It seems almost impossible that he'll be vanquished on grass. But the fact remains that his draw this year is considerably tougher than previous years, and he is aware of it.

The best candidates to upset the champ are the usual suspects- Andy Roddick, Marat Safin and Lleyton Hewitt. But the latter two are woefully out of form. It remains to be seen whether any of them can overcome the nightmares of their previous encounters with Federer.

My gut feeling is that Federer will continue his reign at Wimbledon- the main reason being that nobody has the sheer range of shots or the allround grasscourts required to topple Federer. For all the talk about the Nadal-Federer rivalry, its all been on clay. Nadal is at best an amateur on grass, but he is improving considerably. Its here that we feel the lack of a genuine challenger.

What made Sampras so supreme was his engaging rivalry with Agassi. Only a Safin or Roddick at his prime can induce Federer to raise his game a notch higher, to convert this game into high art, like Rembrandt working on a canvas. And that is what we want to see- the kind of superhuman tennis that Sampras played in the 1999 Wimbledon final against Agassi. Yes, that's what we all want to see- tennis at its glorious best. Lets hope Federer continues his show.

Series Review: The Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathan Stroud

2006-06-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

Book 1: The Amulet of Samarkand
Book 2: The Golem's Eye
Book 3: Ptolemy's Gate

The incredible success of J.K. Rowlings' Harry Potter series has resulted in a deluge of imitations, most of which range from the mundane to the abysmal. But Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy is defintely not one of those. The story is set in a parallel London ruled by magicians. Magicians in fact rule the whole world; a conniving and duplicitous lot, the world is in some strife thanks to them. The one dirty little secret that magicians don't want the hoi polloi to know is that, on their own, they have no power at all, obtaining what little they do have through the various demons they summon and bind to them.

Nathaniel is a boy sold by his parents into apprenticeship to a magician named Arthur Underwood, a petty bureaucrat. Underwood begins tutoring in the boy in magic, but Nathaniel, being lonely and inquisitive, takes the initiative to advance his education well beyond his years (and without his master's knowledge). When, at the age of ten, Nathaniel is humiliated by a charismatic political intriguer and magician named Simon Lovelace, in a fit of juvenile vengefulness he summons up a powerful 5,000-year-old djinn named Bartimaeus and charges him to steal an artifact called the Amulet of Samarkand from Lovelace. It turns out that Lovelace himself stole the Amulet — having its original owner murdered! — and will stop at nothing to get it back. He has big plans for all of England that involve the Amulet. And if Lovelace learns that the thief was nothing but a mere boy using incantations to bind a djinn even a veteran conjurer would think twice about, its curtains for Nathaniel.

Stroud sets the rules for how magic works in his world and sticks to them, and he develops two strong protagonists to anchor the narrative. At first it's hard to sympathize with Nathaniel, although his behaviour is believable as a consequence of having been sold by his family and having to grow up without friends or playmates. But as the story progresses, what begins as a petulant rebellion evolves into a truly sympathetic bid for estee. All of the mistakes Nathaniel makes to get himself into worse trouble are, of course, the price he pays for being in over his head.

Bartimaeus is extremely likable, mainly because Stroud writes his chapters from his own first-person perspective. And having been around for five millennia, Bartimaeus is extremely jaded and glib about the world of magicians and their petty power squabbles. The footnotes on nearly every page of the book consist of really humourous comments by Bartimaeus.

In The Golem's Eye, Nathaniel, now a rising star in the government, is faced with two vexing problems - first, he has to track down the Resistance- a small and persistant group of underground rebels threatening the stability of the government and, more importantly, find out who or what is behind a mysterious and destructive series of magical attacks now rocking London. The question is- are the two things related? Nathaniel must once again summon the wily, shape-shifting djinni Bartimaeus to unravel the mystery. The unlikely team of the ambitious student magician and the cynical, wise-cracking djinni makes for a solid and involving page-turner. In this outing, a new character is thrown into the mix - Kitty, a young leader of the Resistance - whom Nathaniel must find. Add a dangerous, secretive mission to Prague, a deadly menance that the Resistence accidently unleashes, and the cold, devious ambitions of an unseen enemy within London itself, and even a djinni like Bartimaeus could find himself in a screwed up situation.

The third part Ptolemy's Gate is set three years after the events of The Golem's Eye. Now Nathaniel is the Information Minister- the youngest ever!- and an established member of the British Government. But he faces unprecedented problems: foreign wars are going badly and Britain's enemies are mounting attacks close to London. Increasingly distracted, he is treating Bartimaeus worse than ever: the long-suffering djinni is growing weak from too much time in this world, and his patience is at an end, so much so that he even stops his wise cracks. Meanwhile, undercover in London, Kitty has been stealthily completing her research into magic and Bartimaeus' past. She hopes to break the endless cycle of conflict between djinn and humans -- but will she be able to get anyone to listen?

Before any of these problems can be resolved, disaster strikes London from an unexpected source and the destinies of Bartimaeus, Nathanial, and Kitty are thrown together once more. They have to face treacherous magicians, a long-fermented conspiracy, and an enemy from 'The Other Place' that threatens London and the world. Worst of all, they must somehow cope with each other!

What I love about this series is that it deals with a completely different type of magic: gone is Rowling's Hogwarts, muggles and quidditch; instead Stroud's world draws on a different source of magic— afrits, djinnis and sprits summoned and controlled through elaborate rituals and protections that force them into unwilling servitude to those with enough magical knowledge to harness their deadly power. To tell you the truth, I felt that this series makes Harry Potter look like stale bread.

This series is worth a 9.5 on 10!!!

My Dream

2006-06-24T14:38:00.000-07:00

Feb 12, 2006

One dawn I’ll never forget.

Why?

Cos that’s the day I first had a vision, or rather, a dream so vivid it seemed real.

Yeah, that the word- real. Brought to my mind Morpheus’ famous words, “Real? What is real?” But the obvious truth would be- its not. Because it was that impossible.

In the dream, I was transported through space and time, and appeared in the midst of a battlefield, on a moving chariot, decked in armour: a picture perfect image of a warrior going to battle…

I was numb with shock at first, but then I muttered under my breath, “What the hell?”

My charioteer turned back and then I became speechless… I gazed at him- his yellow silk pitambar, his dark- almost bluish- skin, his golden crown with a blue-green peacock feather flying jauntily on top, his body a vision of such physical perfection that would put John Abraham to shame, with a languid- almost feline-grace, there sat a man who would come to be revered by millions of Hindus worldwide… Krishna.

He spoke with a fine cultured voice, a language which I instantly realized to be pure Sanskrit, and I found out to my surprise that I was able to understand every word as if he was talking to me in English, “ What happened, Arjuna? Lost your courage again, friend? Today is a very crucial day for you, for us, for the whole Pandava army. If you don’t succeed, you’ll have to fulfill your oath and sacrifice your life at the pyre. Hence, it is imperative that you keep a cool head and focus on your mission.”

His words sent my mind into a never ending spiral of thoughts- that I was somehow brought into the canvas of the Mahabharata… that I was Arjuna! But how? I dint understand; nothing made sense anymore…

I looked at my arms, and was amazed to see that they were muscled. Then I realized- if I had become Arjuna, then I’d be having his physical form too.. I would’ve wagered that I was no less handsome than Krishna, though considerably fairer.

But then, his last few words struck home… was I about to face the entire Kaurava army single-handed? That was a ‘mission impossible’, meant for guys like Ethan Hunt, not a medical student like me!!!

I involuntarily said, “ Fuck! This cant be happening!” Krishna looked at me harshly and yelled, “Well, fuck you too! I’m fed up of babysitting you… its too much for me! Remember, you have to avenge Abhimanyu’s death today!!!” And he turned forward and waited silently, expecting me to say something. I was shocked and speechless, I dint know what to do, and more importantly, how to do. All I knew was that only Krishna could help me out, and so I beseeched him, “Krishna, please help me!! I swear I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”

Krishna looked at me, his face radiant, and replied, “ Alright, Arjuna. What would I not do for you? Come, take your Gandiva and show the Kauravas what you’re made of. Don’t forget- you are the finest archer in all Aryavarta. Make them realize it today! Its time you displayed your famed skills.”

I dint say anything, just took the Gandiva and prayed silently to Krishna. I was able to lift the Bow of Shiva quite easily. Touching it seemed to impart strength to my arms and confidence to my confused mind.

He started the chariot and I almost fell off it, just managing to hang onto the flagstaff. It was a magnificent sight, I knew- the sleek chariot, driven by four white stallions, the flag of Hanuman blowing gracefully; which has been drawn innumerable times by artists and craftsmen over the centuries that followed. Being a part of this immortalised scene left my mind in a tangle.. I couldnt comprehend the implications- was I in the past, or in some alternate universe that resembled the past, a la Ilium and Olympos??

By now, we were close enough to make out the faces of the warriors of the Kaurava army.. I began to feel butterflies in my stomach, but I knew one thing that gave me hope. If I did exactly what the original Arjuna had done, and followed Krishna’s advice, I had a fair chance of staying alive. And since Indian epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata were my favourite discussion topics, I knew more or less what was gonna happen, and this gave me a fighting chance.

I could recognize most of the warriors- it was like I had lived here all my life. All of them- handsome, proud, ambitious, fair- seemed a bit harried on seeing my chariot advance, which heartened me a lot.

As I approached the frontline, a chariot driven by four ebony skinned horses advanced from the Kaurava frontline towards me. It was Dronacharya, the General of the 11 akshohini divisions, the man who had taught Arjuna [i.e me.. I had a hard time trying to think as if I were Arjuna] the science of war.

He shot an astra effortlessly. I looked on, paralysed with fright, but then noticed that I had released an astra in retaliation. It was as if my arms had moved of their own volition. I was overjoyed, cos I dint know a single thing about using a bow. The battle went on for quite some time.. For every arrow he shot, I gave a fitting reply, even before I was aware I had done it!

Eventually, I managed to split his bow into two. And then I said, “Sir, you are my master. It is not suitable for us to fight each other. Kindly give me your ashirwad so that I can fulfill my oath.” And then, Krishna deftly turned the chariot away and plunged headlong into the Kaurava frontline. We entered a battalion of elephants and as we dodged them, I asked, “What happened? How did I say that?” And Krishna just smiled and replied, “I made you say those words. We were wasting time there.” I nodded and began to concentrate on shooting arrows at the bowmen on top of the elephants.

The rest of the battle was a blur.. I only felt the speed of the chariot and the relentless exodus of arrows from my Gandiva. I wondered- perhaps Krishna had a hand in all this? But I kept quiet… after all, who was I to question his will??

As the hours passed, my right arm became weary. I could not see any end to the battle, and was becoming despondent, when voila! My hands shifted the Gandiva and I was amazed to see that I could shoot as fluently with my left hand; and then it struck me: I was ambidextrous, Savyasachin!

Krishna’s deft handling of the chariot won frequent applause from the Kaurava ranks. Many of their champions came forward to thwart me, but by good luck or my awesome reflexes, I was able to drive them away. I began to detest the act of killing, as Arjuna had, and so detached my mind and did it mechanically like a chore.

As the afternoon turned into evening, I eventually reached the last formation- eight yoddhas protecting Jayadratha and their armies, all of them with one objective- to prevent me from killing the Saindhava by sundown.

As I engaged Aswatthama, I saw behind me Satyaki challenge Bhurisravas, while Bhima intercepted Karna. I was relieved to see history repeat itself, or was it just occurring? I dint know, dint care.. All I wanted now was Jayadratha’s head- nothing else mattered to me anymore.

The final battles were the toughest… They taxed me to the fullest. I could see flashes of the other battles, had to severe Bhurisravas’ right hand when he tried to kill a weakened Satyaki, then endured the horror of watching Satyaki behead Bhurisravas while the latter was in a state of yoganidra, had to intercept Karna while he was harrying Bhima.. All these visions swam through my mind. But throughout all these events, only one thing was constant in my mind- my faith in Krishna, that he would somehow find a solution.

And then, I was in front of him- Jayadratha. I tried my best to split his bow, to pierce the weak points of his armour, but Jayadratha fought like a man possessed- for his very life hung in the balance. The battle continued for a long time when suddenly all was dark on the battlefield. We stopped fighting. And the Kaurava army began to exult that I had failed to fulfill my oath. I hung my head down, knowing that my failure to kill Jayadratha might mark a turning point in the War. But I couldn’t help thinking that there was a similar incident in the Mahabharata, and that gave me hope.

Krishna’s next words confirmed my thoughts, “Arjuna, don’t worry- its just an eclipse! Here is your best chance.” And as soon as the sun began to reappear, I shot off an astra that severed Jayadratha’s head. Krishna yelled, “Keep the head in the air; send it to his father’s lap!” And then I remembered the curse, thanks to my knowledge about the Mahabharata: Jayadratha’s dad Vriddhakshatra had cursed that the person who caused his son’s head to roll onto the ground, would have his own head shattered at that very moment into fragments.

So I sent my shaft in swift relays, supporting the head in mid air while projecting it to Vriddhakshatra’s ashrama. Thanks to Krishna’s powers, I was able to see him in my mind’s eye, and landed his son’s head on his lap. So, on finishing his meditation, when he got up, his head burst into fragments.

And then I knew it was over. We all started celebrating wildly- Bhima yelled one of his trademark lionroars while I, Krishna and Satyaki danced with joy and relief and exultation. After some time, Krishna came close to me and whispered, “I’m glad that you learnt your lesson, my friend” and then he touched on my shoulder. And I felt something in me tug me away from that scene, and before I knew it, I was back on my bed, almost dripping with sweat.

I’ve pondered Krishna’s last words several times, but never actually managed to decode their inner meaning. I’m still searching for an answer; what was my lesson actually? I just have no idea!

The Ten Commandments

2006-06-21T14:36:00.000-07:00

[This is the Manifesto released by the students of JIPMER which enumerates the reasons that led them to protest against the hike in reservation quota.]

Firstly, no organization, government or otherwise has accurate facts as to the population size likely to benefit or get adversely affected because of such a law. The details of the census done in 2001 is still not public knowledge. So the majority of us would like to know how the government decided that a particular percentage of the populace receive benefits of the reservation?

Secondly, although some state governments have similar sized quotas on lines of the proposed bill, there has been no such recent demands for implementing recommendations of the mandal commission in central government institutes. The government, 2 years ago, had increased the pool of all India medical post-graduate seats to give most students a level playing field at the national level, by taking away seats from state medical colleges to the tune of 50%. Through the logistics have not been worked out yet, this would negate the efforts to give students a better chance to vie for seats in prestigious institutes.

Thirdly, reservations have been enshrined in the constitution, and now we will have more quotas that will have us more divided. Presuming that our literacy levels have improved over the decades, and a small chunk of the literate populace is expected to compete for seats in premier institutes, would it be too much to ask for a public referendum on the issue? This is still assuming that, education in professional streams have helped us forget out narrow-mindedness regarding divisions based on community or religion.

Fourthly, can the government deny or accept that reservations have helped bring a sea social change among reserved categories? It is common knowledge that urban India constituting one third of the populace has benefited most from the reservation policy. The government appraises the public that reservations are required for social empowerment. If the government declares that the reservations have indeed benefited the needy, would it dare decrease quotas already covered in the constitution, that is reviewed every 10 years without a murmur? Or does the government accept that social empowerment has never happened and more reservation is justified to achieve this goal? Does that mean with the diamond jubilee of Indian independence approaching, the government has failed to ensure that reservations reached the most deserving? So how will a new set of quotas serve its purpose? Does social reform occur only by reservation in institutes of professional learning?

Fifthly, with voices from the government still undecided on the creamy layer of likely beneficiaries, it must be reminded that every group has creamy layer that would float above the rest, come what may! Alternatives like economic status or rural dwelling (with poor access to education) are possible criteria, which may be more need based and an acceptable solution to most people. Wouldn’t that stop the government’s own constituents and affected students from the constant squabbling over the blanket cover provided and being about an amicable solution at the negotiation table, instead of declarations that merit is diluted or demos that menial jobs are fits only for certain castes. Whatever the selection process, every student has the same pass% criteria at time of completion of the course.

Sixthly, it is not a well kept secret that atleast in central government medical institutes that, the majority of faculty belong to elite communities , while they are nearly invisible among the staff of group D. one might argue that they have joined service 15-20 years ago, but it doesn't change the facts. The government's idea to change this kind of social inequalities by reservations are commendable, but should come with a caveat. Individuals from these underprivileged classes should benefit from schooling , financial support and reservations to compete with the general stream. But it should be stressed to these individuals especially in professional arenas because of reservation, that subsequent generations stop claiming further benefits, thereby enhancing chances of their community brethren who still haven't tasted the fruits of a quota. But would educated men and women come forward to forgo their quotas?

Seventhly, it has been claimed that that reservation in states like Tamilnadu has caused improvement in health services. Constituting just over 5 % of the Indian population, is it possible to extrapolate this to the rest of the nation, where complex socio-economic dynamics exist? It must be remembered among students in HSS in Tamilnadu, the issues of quotas and its benefits are virtually ingrained, that they are mentally prepared for the available opportunities that they are eligible for. This may explain the relatively mute protests in these parts of the country, compared to vociferous voices of protests elsewhere that have erupted due to sudden imposition of quotas. Also a high percentage of seats in PG and super specialty courses, for service candidates in Tamilnadu ensures that they have a working health care system going, while other states languish without doctors in the primary health services and forces them to impose laws seeking bonds from undergraduate students like in the case of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. These are reservations of a different kind but extracts maximum benefit for the public whom we ultimately serve.

Eighthly, to borrow an idea, there is no gene theory in of merit or intelligence., in our country with so much socio-economic disparities, ones birth, family environment, schooling and kind of peer pressure decide whether you could make it to the top; reservations are a must for the people who have some or all the above going against them. We are not striking work to protest against reservations, but the mode of deciding beneficiaries and its continuation without any evaluation or assessment regarding the targets achieved.

Ninthly, none of students protesting in the country are fighting for seats in private medical colleges that could come under the preview of the same law. We protest for seats that are highly subsidized and virtually free, especially in the central institutes. On completion many of us embark on the next plane bound westward after throwing tantrums on the lack of adequate learning opportunities but spending a tidy sum to reach our destination. The government should not subsidies education or reserve seats based on community but only for the economically challenged or otherwise. Claims about reservation on an economic basis apart, will people wanting uniformity in selection process in central government institutes pay the actual cost to the exchequer and let the government help the needy through subsidies in the reserved category?

Finally, we are sad to notice the apathy with which no member of the union government has actually visited striking students to seek their grievances for more than a week especially after the police brutality, in person. The oft repeated request for the prime minister to make a definitive statement is still pending. We must reiterate that we are not against reservations but against the manner and selection of beneficiaries without any means or criteria to evaluate its effectiveness. We do support reservations that are truly economic or other criteria based that doesn’t fracture our secularity and unity that is still preserved in some institutes like ours. We decided to strike in order to demand that the government reviews the entire proposed hike, not by a group of ministers but by an expert panel that would ensure social equality through the upliftment of the suppressed as the government hopes to and not remain steadfast in the theory that it can do no wrong.

Series Review: Ilium & Olympos by Dan Simmons

2006-06-08T14:34:00.000-07:00

Book 1: Ilium
Book 2: Olympos

Ilium is a work of such immense scale that it's almost impossible to figure out how to contain a discussion of all its different facets in a book review. Its that kind of book we see all too rarely in SF, an adventure-plus-ideas book that evokes that coveted sense of amazement while establishing itself as a true original in all respects.

Dan Simmons exercises literally no restraints on his imagination; there are enough crazy ideas here for several series of novels. What is impressive here is that all these ideas work. In Ilium, Simmons tackles quantum physics with the courage of one of his heroic warriors from the Classical Age. And he explores the possibilities of a posthuman future in a completely refreshing and different way, taking his story in directions not yet explored by SF writers.

The setting is about a couple of thousand years in the future. Humanity as we know it is gone. Some members of the human race have evolved into posthumans, taking up residence in artificial rings around the Earth. Some "old-style" humans remain on the surface, but in drastically reduced numbers, with lifespans strictly regulated to 100 years, after which they expect to ascend to the rings and become posthumans themselves. Meanwhile, Jupiter and its moons are home to several types of cyborgs, while Mars seems to be the focus of attention in the solar system. This is where the Olympian gods live, at the summit of Olympus Mons.

Thomas Hockenberry is a "scholic" from the early 21st century, one of several such men resurrected by the gods to observe the Trojan War, which they are watching live and interacting with, based on the scholics' observations as to how closely the actual war in Troy is playing out according to the Iliad by Homer. The problem we face here- Is this the real Trojan War, that we are watching via some amazing quantum wormhole through time itself? Or is it a totally different version of the Trojan War, occurring in a parallel universe? We can't tell, and whereas with a lesser author that would be frustrating, coming from Simmons it's an incredible storytelling hook.

The above would be enough of an astounding premise for a story, but the author weaves two additional threads into the plot. Out among Jupiter's moons live a number of highly advanced "robots" called moravecs. Concerned that the increasing quantum activity on Mars is so harmful that it could place the entire solar system in grave danger, four moravecs are sent to the formerly-red planet to see what's happening and stop it if possible. The third thread is on Earth, in which Harman, almost 100 years old, tries to discover all he can about the posthumans before joining them in the orbital rings. He and three friends unexpectedly find themselves on a roller coaster of an adventure that reveals more than any of them ever realised about the planet they've been living in.

In Ilium, Simmons milks the "unresolved questions" for all he's worth: Are the Olympian gods on Mars actually 'evolved' posthumans? But then what of the claim made by an aged woman that she's met the posthumans, that they're still on the rings, and that they're all female? And what are the voynix, the strange bipeds who dutifully serve the "old style" humans on Earth? The author throws all this stuff at such a mind numbing pace, until it seems the most perfectly normal thing in the world to be reading a novel with Achilles and Odysseus in one chapter, followed immediately by one in which robots are crash-landing in a Martian ocean and being rescued by little green men who can’t communicate unless you plunge your hand into their chests and squeeze their hearts. If it goes a little over the top at times, it’s hard to find fault with Dan Simmons. In a story like this, you can easily imagine how hard it would be to not have it go over the top and whip all the way back around to the other side. But for the most part, the nonstop barrage of ideas, alongwith brilliant action packed storytelling, will more than make up for any of the book’s shortcomings.

The real pleasure of Ilium is in its theme that art and literature is at the soul- in fact, the very identity- of every great civilization, and that, lacking those things, all the technology in the world amounts to nothing. All through this novel, we see examples of the most advanced beings obsessing over the creative works of yore. The gods on Mars center their very existences on a poem of Homer. Among the moravecs, Mahnmut of Europa is absorbed in Shakespeare’s sonnets, while his companion, Orphu of Io, prefers Proust. Their genial discussions are delightful to read (and actually made me think seriously about tackling In Search of Lost Time someday!!!). These characters are contrasted sharply with the humans on Earth. They have no awareness of their history, no perspective, no culture, no art, not even an idea of the size and geography of the Earth itself.

If Ilium left you wondering whether it were possible for Dan Simmons to make this humungous SF saga huger, stranger, and even better — then, with Olympos you have the answer. However, the sheer hugeness of the plot can be a disadvantage. But usually it's a problem for the wrong reasons; i.e., the classic case of an author's talent not being quite up to the task of pulling off what he or she is attempting. Olympos is just the opposite: a book that delivers so much so fast, you might find yourself out of breath.

Now that the two moravecs have met Hockenberry on Mars and understood the incidents on Olympos, an invasion of Earth is underway, where the moravecs feel the actual problem is. In Olympos, Simmons, having maxed out the revisionist mythic possibilities afforded him by The Iliad, reaches into his bag of tricks and pulls out Shakespeare's work The Tempest. And a pastiche of The Tempest is what Olympos' earthbound storyline morphs into. At the end of Ilium, some of the "old style" humans encountered the mage Prospero on his orbital "island," and battled the savage creature Caliban. In Olympos, Simmons has oodles of fun recreating The Tempest to his own ends. If the appearance of these characters in Ilium came as a bizarre surprise, in Olympos we finally realise that underneath everything lies an ongoing war between Prospero and the monstrous being Setebos. How will it all unfold?

How indeed? That's the beauty of what must definitely rank among one of SF's most un-putdownable adventures of all time. A book in which Achilles wanders the surface of Mars bent on killing gods[!!!] while Jovian robots invade Earth to put an end to quantum fluctuations that threaten everything, unaware that a mage and a god from Shakespeare are preparing for their final battle, is not a book that can be considered a formulaic bore. Yes, at nearly 700 densely packed pages in hardcover, it's long. But it flies. Simmons succeeds in preventing the whole thing from spiraling out of control, mainly due to his judiciously timed use of humor and his immense respect for the classical works that he's utilising.

On the surface, this series is a rousing bit of escapist adventure taken to the ultimate level, but i feel that the author offers this saga as his tribute to the uniquely human art of storytelling, and the way that our heroic myths and romances and tragedies have shaped and continue to shape civilization. Simmons drives home the moral that art, literature and awareness of our history is as important to who we are as anything else. Prospero himself tells one of Olympos' human heroes that his species simply will not survive if they continue in ignorance of their past, for in their ignorance they lack an identity to fight for.

One of the ways our past informs our present is through the mythic narratives that are passed down from generation to generation. Just as humanity evolves, so do our myths- just consider Ashok K. Banker's stunning retelling of the Ramayana in a 6 book series. In revising and retelling the epics of Homer and Shakespeare, the author seems keenly aware that in future generations, we may see such revisions of the epics of our own time. It is as a tribute to that storytelling process that this Homerian duology qualifies as a masterpiece.

Definitely worth a 10 on 10 on my scale!!!

Series Review: The Chronicles of Narnia by C S Lewis

2006-06-07T14:30:00.000-07:00

Although technically classified as "children's literature," any person who is gonna read The Chronicles of Narnia is in for a treat. Authored by one of the most brilliant writers of the Twentieth Century, Oxford University Professor C. S. Lewis, the Chronicles of Narnia are actually seven books.

Book 1: The Magician's Nephew
Book 2: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Book 3: The Horse and his Boy
Book 4: Prince Caspian
Book 5: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Book 6: The Silver Chair
Book 7: The Last Battle

When The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe appeared on the literary scene in 1950, it helped to define the genre of fantasy for children and adolescents and opened the door for authors like J. K. Rowling (the "Harry Potter" series) and Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials trilogy). The books that followed all took up either the adventures of the five main characters from the first book—Peter, Susan, Edward and Lucy, who became the Kings and Queens of Narnia and the mysterious lion, Aslan, everlasting ruler of all Narnia—or followed events occurring in the "otherworld" of Narnia itself.

In The Magician's Nephew (1955), we learn of the origins of Narnia. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950), The Horse and His Boy (1954), Prince Caspian (1951), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952), and The Silver Chair (1953) provide further adventures for the main characters and their friends. The final book, The Last Battle (1956), chronicles the end of Narnia.

This is fantasy at its very finest, combining great stories and compelling characters with rich, multi-level symbolism guaranteed to stimulate your mind and inspire your heart. As one who loves to read, and is typically reading several books at a time, I would rank The Chronicles of Narnia among one of the best reads of my life. Don't miss them!

Worth a 9 on 10, definitely!!!

Series Review: His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

2006-06-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

Book 1- The Golden Compass
Book 2- The Subtle Knife
Book 3- The Amber Spyglass

The plot of the His Dark Materials trilogy is rather complex . The books basically revolve around two pre-adolescents, Lyra and Will, children from different worlds (literally) who share two common bonds: the loss of parents and the possession of objects which give them unique access to knowledge. Lyra possesses the Golden Compass, an object which communicates the truth about any situation to any person wise enough to be able to read it, which Lyra is. Will’s gift is the Subtle Knife, an instrument which can cut open windows to other worlds.

Through their adventures in various worlds, we become aware that Lyra and Will are objects of interest to both sides in a heavenly war. Why? Because, it seems, that these two children will be essential actors in a re-enacting of the Fall and Temptation of humanity, a second chance to claim the true fruit of the Fall, which was never really sin, according to Pullman, but knowledge and wisdom, replacing the dictatorial “Kingdom of Heaven” with the new “Republic of Heaven.”

Philip Pullman is, indeed, a gifted writer. It’s clear that millions of readers have been captivated by these books because of the skillfully built suspense and the sheer variety of fantastic characters like warrior polar bears, tiny spur-bearing spies called Gallevespians, and, most brilliantly of all, what those in Lyra’s world call "daemons", which are actually material manifestations of one’s soul that are in the form of animals, creatures that accompany a person for the whole of one’s life, but don’t settle down into a permanent shape until adolescence. Pullman’s use of this last element is really a fascinating way to provoke thought about character and personality.

Pullman produces what may well be the most controversial fantasy series of recent years. The witch Serafina Pekkala sums up the central theme: "All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity. The rebel angels, the followers of wisdom, have always tried to open minds; the Authority and his churches have always tried to keep them closed." Early on, this "Authority" is explicitly identified as the Judeo-Christian God, and he is far from omnipotent: his Kingdom is ruled by a regent. The cosmic battle to overthrow the Kingdom is just one of the many impressive scenes in this series--so much happens, and the action is split among so many different imagined worlds, that readers will have to work hard to keep up with Pullman.

Along the way, Pullman riffs on the elemental chords of classical myth and fairy tale. While some sections seem rushed and the prose is not always as brightly polished as fans might expect, Pullman's exuberant work stays rigorously true to its own internal structure. Stirring and highly provocative; will definitely get a lot of praise. A hell of a roller coaster ride. Philip Pullman rocks!

Deserves a 9 on 10!

JIPMER ranked 4th best medical college in India

2006-06-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

The recent India Today issue has the annual college rankings, and JIPMER is placed at 4th in the list of top 10 medical colleges, up from last year's 5th position.

Those interested may check up the June 05, 2006 issue of India Today for further details. The above picture has been taken by a mobile phone. Apologies for the poor quality...

The Reservation Debate Summarised

2006-05-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

[This post is actually from the blog Zoo Station. After i read the arguments in the letter, i felt that i HAD to post it here!!! Read on....]

Before you begin reading this, I must warn you that it is a long post, but one that I believe is justified in its verbosity, given the seriousness of the issue at hand. Thus far, the reservation debate in India has had a range of voices fuelling it: protesting doctors facing water cannons, the Prime Minister in his usually tentative manner, backing the move to introduce reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in central govenment aided educational institutions, IITians going on hunger strikes, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat calling for consensus, (via Poornima Hatti) Union HRD minister Arjun Singh's increasingly idiotic press statements (his choice of the word 'anonymity' when he actually meant 'unanimity' is telling), and just about every broadcast news maven drooling over the issue during talk shows and from OB vans.

While I think the issue is too complex for stark, cut-and-dry solutions, I think this letter of resignation, from Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the member-convener of the National Knowledge Commission, is the clearest voice of them all. I have reproduced the entire letter here.

I write to resign as Member-Convener of the National Knowledge Commission. I believe the Commission’s mandate is extremely important, and I am deeply grateful that you gave me the opportunity to serve on it. But many of the recent announcements made by your government with respect to higher education lead me to the conclusion that my continuation on the commission will serve no useful purpose.

The Knowledge Commission was given an ambitious mandate to strengthen India’s knowledge potential at all levels. We had agreed that if all sections of Indian society were to participate in and make use of the knowledge economy, we would need a radical paradigm shift in the way we thought of the production, dissemination and use of knowledge. In some ways this paradigm shift would have to be at least as radical as the economic reforms you helped usher in more than a decade ago. The sense of intellectual excitement that the commission generated stemmed from the fact that it represented an opportunity to think boldly, honestly and with an eye to posterity. But the government’s recent decision (announced by Honorable Minister of Human Resource Development on the floor of Parliament) to extend quotas for OBCs in central institutions, the palliative measures the government is contemplating to defuse the resulting agitation, and the process employed to arrive at these measures are steps in the wrong direction. They violate four cardinal principles that institutions in a knowledge based society will have to follow: they are not based on assessment of effectiveness, they are incompatible with the freedom and diversity of institutions, they more thoroughly politicise the education process, and they inject an insidious poison that will harm the nation’s long-term interest.

These measures will not achieve social justice. I am as committed as anyone to two propositions. Every student must be enabled to realise his/her full potential regardless of financial or social circumstances. Achieving this aim requires radical forms of affirmative action. But the numerically mandated quotas your government is proposing are deeply disappointing, for the following reasons. First, these measures foreclose any possibility of more intelligent targeting that any sensible programme should require. For one thing, the historical claims of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and the nature of the deprivations they face are qualitatively of a different order than those faced by Other Backward Castes, at least in North India. It is plainly disingenuous to lump them together in the same narrative of social injustice and assume that the same instruments should apply to both. It is for this reason that I advocated status quo for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes until such time as better and more effective measures can be found to achieve affirmative action for them.

Some have proposed the inclusion of economic criterion: this is something of an improvement, but does not go far enough. What we needed, Honorable Prime Minister, was space to design more effective mechanisms of targeting groups that need to be targeted for affirmative action. For instance, there are a couple of well-designed deprivation indexes that do a much better job of targeting the relevant social deprivations and picking out merit. The government’s action is disappointing, because you have prematurely foreclosed these possibilities. In foreclosing these possibilities the government has revealed that it cares about tokenism more than social justice. It has sent the signal that there is no room for thinking about social justice in a new paradigm.

As a society we focus on reservations largely because it is a way of avoiding doing the things that really create access. Increasing the supply of good quality institutions at all levels (not to be confused with numerical increases), more robust scholarship and support programmes will go much further than numerically mandated quotas. When you assumed office, you had sketched out a vision of combining economic reform with social justice. Increased public investment is going to be central to creating access opportunities. It would be presumptuous for me to suggest where this increased public investment is going to come from, but there are ample possibilities: for instance, earmarking proceeds from genuine disinvestment for education will do far more for access than quotas. We are not doing enough to genuinely empower marginalised groups, but are offering condescending palliatives like quotas as substitute. All the measures currently under discussion are to defuse the agitation, not to lay the foundations for a vibrant education system. If I may borrow a phrase of Tom Paine’s, we pity the plumage, but forget the dying bird.

Second, the measures your government is contemplating violate the diversity principle. Why should all institutions in a country the size of India adopt the same admissions quotas? Is there no room at all for different institutions experimenting with different kinds of affirmative action policies that are most appropriate for their pedagogical mission? How will institutions feel empowered? How will creativity in social justice programmes be fostered, if we continue with a “one size fits all” approach? Could it not be that some state institutions follow numerically mandated quotas, while others are left free to devise their own programmes? The government’s announcement is deeply disappointing because it reinforces the cardinal weakness of the Indian system: all institutions have to be reduced to the same level.

Third, and related to diversity, is the question of freedom. As an academic I find it to be an appalling spectacle when a group of ministers is empowered to come up with admissions policies, seat formulas for institutions across the country. While institutions have responsibilities and are accountable to society, how will they ever achieve excellence and autonomy if basic decisions like who they should teach, what they should teach, how much they should charge are uniformly mandated by government diktat? As you know, more than anyone else, the bane of our education institutions is that politicians feel free to hoist any purpose they wish upon them: their favourite ideology, their preferred conception of social justice, their idea of representativeness, or their own men and women. Everything else germane to a healthy academic life and effective pedagogy becomes subordinate to these purposes. Concerned academics risked a good deal, battling the previous government’s instrumental use of educational institutions for ideological purposes.

Though your objectives are different, your government is sending a similar message about our institutions: in the final analysis, they are playthings for politicians to mess around with. Nations are not built by specific programmes, they are built by healthy institutions, and the process by which your government is arriving at its decisions suggests contempt for the autonomy and integrity of academic life. Your government has reinforced the very paradigm of the state’s relations with educational institutions that has weakened us.

In this process, the arguments that have been coming from your government are plainly disingenuous. It is true that a constitutional amendment was hastily passed to overturn the effects of the Inamdar decision. At the time I had written that the decision was property rights decision that was trying to unshackle private institutions from an overbearing state. But since the state had already displaced its responsibilities to the private sector it decided that the ramifications of Inamdar would be too onerous and passed a constitutional amendment. One can quibble over whether this amendment was justified or not. But even in its present form it is only an enabling legislation. It does not require that every public institution has numerically mandated quotas for OBCs. To hear your government consistently hiding behind the pretext of the constitutional amendment is yet another example of how we are foreclosing the fine distinctions that any rigorous approach to access and excellence requires.

Finally, I believe that the proposed measures will harm the nation’s vital interests. It is often said that caste is a reality in India. I could not agree more. But your government is in the process of making caste the only reality in India. Instead of finding imaginative solutions to allow us to transcend our own despicable history of inequity, your government is ensuring that we remain entrapped in the caste paradigm. Except that now by talking of OBCs and SC/STs in the same narrative we are licensing new forms of inequity and arbitrariness.

The Knowledge Economy of the twenty-first century will require participation of all sections of society. When we deprive any single child, of any caste, of relevant opportunities, we mutilate ourselves as a society and diminish our own possibilities. But, as you understand more than most, globalisation requires us to think of old objectives in new paradigms: the market and competition for talent is global, institutions need to be more agile and nimble, and there has to be creativity and diversity of institutional forms if a society is to position itself to take advantage the Knowledge Economy. I believe that the measures your government is proposing will inhibit achieving both social justice and economic well-being.

I write this letter with a great deal of regret. In my colleagues on the Knowledge Commission you will find a group that is unrivalled in its dedication, commitment and creativity, and I hope you will back them in full measure so that they can accomplish their mission in other areas. I assure you that the commission’s functioning will suffer no logistical harm on account of my departure.

I recognise that in a democracy one has to respectfully accede to the decisions of elected representatives. But I also believe that democracies are ill-served if individuals do not frankly and publicly point out the perils that certain decisions may pose for posterity. I owe it to public reason to make my reasons for resigning public. I may be wrong in my judgment about the consequences of your government’s decisions, but at this juncture I cannot help concluding that what your government is proposing poses grave dangers for India as a nation.

On this occasion I cannot help thinking about the anxieties of a man who knew a thing or two about constitutional values, who was more rooted in politics than any of us can hope to be, and who understood the distinction between statesmanship and mere politics: Jawaharlal Nehru. He wrote, “So these external props, as I may call them, the reservations of seats and the rest, may possibly be helpful occasionally, but they produce a false sense of political relation, a false sense of strength, and, ultimately therefore, they are not so nearly important as real educational, cultural and economic advance which gives them inner strength to face any difficulty or opponent.” Since your government continues to abet a politics of illusion, I cannot serve any useful purpose by continuing on the Knowledge Commission under such circumstances.

With warmest personal regards,

pratapbmehta@yahoo.co.in

Series Review ( till date): Harry Potter by J K Rowling

2006-05-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

Kanjisheik at your service. I feel restless nowadays, I dunno why. Fingers itching to type something, SOMETHING!!! All you budding doctors out there, please diagnose me and please treat me! I dont wanna spend the rest of my life with 'Itching Fingers Syndrome'...

So lets come back to one of my favourite topics: what else, you guessed it right! Its HARRY POTTER. Yeah, I'm gonna say something about the literary phenomenon that took the world by storm and revolutionised reading in a way that avid bibliophiles had never imagined.

Book 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Book 7: not released as yet...

The writer being a certain Joanne Kenneth Rowling, a single woman with a child, who dint have a job and took to writing the manuscript of book one on napkin paper in a nearby café- and now barely nine years later after the copies of book one hit the streets of London, she is perhaps one of the most successful novelists around, earning millions from merchandise and the films of the Harry Potter series. Seems quite the fairy tale success story, right? Makes me wonder if someone might be writing a story of her now..

But then, I'm digressing again- it seems to be my favourite strategy; to play the fiddle while everything burns around me, a la Nero, but I hear someone say 'Hem,Hem' in my ears and so I'll go on with my quest of Harry Potter.. Harry Potter, a eleven year old orphan, with "ordinary bloke" written all over him, is in for a surprise on his birthday when a giant informs him that he is actually a wizard and supposed to go to Hogwarts to learn magic- and thus starts one of the finest yarns ever spun in English literature.

Rowling has a really vivid imagination and an equally good knack for creating an iron clad background. This really helps her, cos she is able to blend both the Muggle and the wizarding worlds in the unlikeliest of places. Her writing is fluid, usually very fast paced and keeps the reader hooked on a never ending roller coaster ride. It seems to reach into the child in all of us and the details in the fantasy makes it much more easier for our rational selves to accept.

Throughout the series, Harry Potter has several adventures and miraculous escapes, but in reality, he is engaged on a quest: he has to find the reason why his parents were murdered by Lord Voldemort, and how he himself managed to escape the Avada Kedavra spell, while You Know Who's magical powers were obliterated..

When I read the series, I was struck by the degree of similarity in the first two books. The third book does introduce a host of new characters and tells a lot about Harry's parents, and the series starts to become more interesting.Rowling's language really shines through in part four. And in the books since then, Harry is different- a much more mature person, probably due to the shock of seeing Cedric die and Voldemort reborn, and later see Sirius meet the same tragic end.

He is no longer the eleven year old orphan unsure of his place in the wizarding world, he has now matured into a confident young man, capable of thwarting Voldemort time and again.. And kudos to Rowling for this. The most interesting aspect for me in this series other than the incredible fantasy and stunning use of language, is this gradual change in Harry Potter. So many stories and their sequels have bitten the dust cos the authors were too afraid to change the formula.

The series has proved to be an engrossing read, capturing the imagination of both young and old alike. As the series draws to its inevitable end, rumours are rife that Harry will meet his gory end.. Will Rowling be forced to bring back Harry to life some time later, a la Sherlock Holmes? Only time will tell..

But the truth is- even if Rowling doesn't write a single book after book seven, no matter what happens, she is assured a place in the history books, as the wonderful creator of the one and only Harry Potter.

The Anti Reservation Movement

2006-05-02T14:09:00.000-07:00

The “Honourable” Union Minister Arjun Singh’s proposal of 27% reservation quota for Other Backward Castes [OBC’s] in Central Government institutions of higher education has been one of the major issues over the last couple of weeks. As a result, the total quota for reservation has risen to a staggering 49.5%, i.e. nearly half of the seats in the IITs, IIMs and the 113 Central Government run medical colleges will be occupied on the basis of factors other than merit. This issue has grabbed the attention of all and sundry, giving rise to a plethora of views that range across the entire spectrum of opinion.

So, in order to understand something about this, lets go back to the core issue here- RESERVATION. Sixty odd years ago, when our founding fathers drafted the Constitution, they felt that some sort of measures were required in order to uplift those sections of society who had been oppressed for centuries, and denied their basic rights. And they hit upon the solution- reservation. Laudable sentiments, but the burning question is: has reservation actually served its purpose??? The answer is NO- it has benefited a considerably narrow strata of the SC/ST community, which has been termed as the “creamy layer”. Certainly, reservation has not lived up to the promise of emancipating the people. Hence, we conclude that it is definitely NOT the solution. So increasing the reservation quota simply is pointless.

Furthermore, reservation was meant to be a temporary measure. Dr Ambedkar had specifically said,"Reservation is not a crutch for the scheduled castes and tribes" and had suggested a ten year timeframe, after which it was to be progressively decreased and ultimately eliminated. However, it hasn’t been done so by the Machiavellian politicians, who sensed the prospect to create vote banks, at the cost of national unity. Therefore, a further raise in reservation simply exacerbates the issue, further fragmenting Indian society. In fact, I would go on to say that the polarized situation today bears an eerie resemblance to that of the British Raj, when the concept of “communal electorates” was introduced, and special constituencies were reserved for Muslims.

Consider the irony- reservation was meant to create a sense of equality, but now it’s become a cause of inequality among the people. There is a popular misconception that the reservation quota is the only mode of entry for the backward castes, but it is not so- a considerable number of these students enter on the basis of merit too, further decreasing the chances of the students who belong to the general category. Is it right to ‘punish’ the so-called forward castes for crimes committed by their forefathers??? In my humble opinion, this is just one more opportunity for the political parties to play “divide and rule”. That this proposal came just before the elections is clear testament to the fact that Mr Arjun Singh’s statement was a carefully orchestrated event to grab maximum mileage.

Reservation of such a substantial number of seats will only decrease the level of excellence of the educational institutions. Rather than raising quotas in higher education, strengthening the primary and secondary tiers of education to prevent dropouts among the backward castes would be the more appropriate mode of action.

This matter is of extraordinary relevance for medical students, as more than 10,000 seats are at stake. Hence, the resolution taken by the medical students of New Delhi to vehemently protest against this proposal under the forum “Youth for Equality” ought to be appreciated. The students have been boycotting classes for several days and organizing peaceful demonstrations. The anti-reservation movement has spread to almost all parts of India, with similar protests occurring in places like Amritsar, Jalandhar, Jaipur, Rajkot, Kolkatta, Patna, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Mysore, etc… and more and more colleges are joining by the day.

And the movement has been brought into cyberspace too, with numerous online petitions arising that oppose reservations. The “Youth for Equality” forum has launched a site, where colleges can declare their support for the forum, and explain their stand on reservation. Its gonna be an uphill task, but the battle has just begun. We hope you’ll support our efforts to eliminate the ever increasing malignancy of reservation from our educational system.

Just another day in the life of a screwed up medical student

2006-04-29T14:07:00.000-07:00

One dreary Monday morning, a particular 'cool dude' woke up at about six in the morning, took one long look at that day's timetable through his half asleep eyes and the first thing that came to his mind was "F***!!"

He then went through the usual hustle and bustle to go to class,messaged several of his 'cool friends', those of his own college and others nationwide, then received a long romantic call from his better half, managed to eat some of that horrible mess food and went to class with that outrageous string bag in hand. He was lucky to meet a kind day ski who dropped him to class.

First period was surgery, taught by a prof who clearly dint know what he was talking about. Our hero got to work, painstakingly preparing notes for God knows what! Then came an eager microbiology senior resident, who proceeded to give a boring lecture. As the cool dude's enthusiasm had decreased by then, he passed the entire class gazing at her face, all the time listening to an exciting conversation between a day ski "couple" behind him who were sitting in different rows.

Then came the ward posting in which yours truly spent two hours listening to gibberish, and the last hour day dreaming through a talk from a prof. After the lunch break,the cool dude came dutifully to path class and commenced a siesta for nearly an hour, then saw some similar looking slides and wrote some lines mechanically, dictated by a morose in-charge.

That evening,he and some of his friends decided to go eat at a popular hangout, and it was there that he finally asked himself a question that was nagging his mind, eating away his conscience for the last couple of months- had he made a Himalayan blunder by choosing to come to Pondy and study in that uninteresting hicktown for five and a half years? Somehow the reply came to his mind as vividly as smoke rings being blown onto his face..No.. and he realised that it was his friends who made him forget all the shit and made him look forward to each new day in JIPMER.

So three cheers to all you fellas for being my buddies. My message to you all would be- just stay cool and chill out, yaar...

About the "Goddess of Menstrual Cramps"

2006-04-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I'll start from the beginning- the Aryan invasion theory has been considered the cornerstone of Indian history for decades by scholars and archaeologists alike, perhaps even stubbornly, in the face of contradicting evidence- a relic of the colonial viewpoint. But over the last two decades, a group of Indologists led by David Frawley, a highly respected scholar who currently teaches at Harvard and has written several books on the Vedic civilization, have been propounding the view that there was no invasion at all, and that the Indian civilization is probably much more older than what we have thought.

The term "Aryan" itself means "noble", not a race. And if at all a migration had occured, it would have been the other way around, as there are numerous instances in the Vedas of the westward migration of the people.

Recent archaeological digs off the coast of Gujarat have revealed three underwater cities, two of them dating back to 6000 B.C!!!! And the third site is Dwaraka, which is probably the largest city ever excavated, dates back to 4000 B.C... Irrefutable evidence have been discovered that points out that the Ramayana and the Mahabharata were not merely literary epics; they were the narration of actual historical events!!!

All this tends to reinforce the idea that the Indus-Saraswati civilization was the oldest and largest civilisation in the world. Hence, there is a distinct probability that all the other ancient civilizations- Egypt & Mesopotamia- arose as a result of interaction with the Indus-Saraswati civilization, or due to migration of the Indians to these sites, or perhaps a combination of both these factors. The extensive trade links between these civilizations are testament to this.

But I digress... About 10 years back, some "goddess" figures were discovered in a Mayan pyramid. Since then, virtually every similar site in the Western Hemisphere has revealed the existence of female statues in some form or the other. But the historians were confused, as they did not know the function of these "idols".

David Frawley postulated that these statues represented the worship of the "mother goddess", similar to the Devi idols in the Indus-Saraswati civilization. In fact, his "grand theory" was that some of the Indians, who had acquired a flair for sailing long distances, had attempted an exploration of the world, discovered America and settled there, eventually building civilizations of their own- Mayan, Inca and Aztec- that resembled the ancient civilizations.

The majority of historians derided his views, and critcised Frawley for creating a "fertility cult". Some of them even commisioned a Spanish painter to draw her, and derisively titled it "The Goddess of Menstrual Cramps". And the name stuck!

By now, its been conclusively proven that those images represented the Earth Spirit Gaea. And lots of additional features have been discovered that show a remarkable similarity with the civilization in India.

So, perhaps, India is really the cradle of human civilization....

Dubai- the vision of 2010- a sinister paradise?

2006-03-22T14:01:00.000-08:00

As your jet starts its descent, you are glued to your window. The scene below is astonishing: a 24-square-mile archipelago of coral-colored islands in the shape of an almost finished puzzle of the world. In the shallow green waters between continents, the sunken shapes of the Pyramids of Giza and the Roman Coliseum are clearly visible.
In the distance are three other large island groups configured as palms within crescents and planted with high-rise resorts, amusement parks, and a thousand mansions built on stilts over the water. The "Palms" are connected by causeways to a Miami-like beachfront chock-a-block full of mega-hotels, apartment high-rises and yacht marinas.
As the plane slowly banks toward the desert mainland, you gasp at the even more improbable vision ahead. Out of a chrome forest of skyscrapers (nearly a dozen taller than 1000 feet) soars a new Tower of Babel. It is an impossible one-half-mile high: the equivalent of the Empire State Building stacked on top of itself.
You are still rubbing your eyes with wonderment and disbelief when the plane lands and you are welcomed into an airport emporium where hundreds of shops seduce you with Gucci bags, Cartier watches, and one-kilogram bars of solid gold. You make a mental note to pick up some duty-free gold on your way out.
The hotel driver is waiting for you in a Rolls Royce Silver Seraph. Friends have recommended the Armani Hotel in the 160-story tower or the seven-star hotel with an atrium so huge that the Statue of Liberty would fit inside, but instead you have opted to fulfill a childhood fantasy. You always have wanted to be Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Your jellyfish-shaped hotel is, in fact, exactly 66 feet below the sea surface. Each of its 220 luxury suites has clear Plexiglas walls that provide spectacular views of passing mermaids as well as the hotel's famed "underwater fireworks:" a hallucinatory exhibition of "water bubbles, swirled sand, and carefully deployed lighting." Any initial anxiety about the safety of your sea-bottom resort is dispelled by the smiling concierge. The structure has a multi-level failsafe security system, he reassures you, that includes protection against terrorist submarines as well as missiles and aircraft.
Although you have an important business meeting at the Internet City free-trade zone with clients from Hyderabad and Taipei, you have arrived a day early to treat yourself to one of the famed adventures at the Restless Planet dinosaur theme park. Indeed, after a soothing night's sleep under the sea, you are aboard a monorail headed for a Jurassic jungle. Your expedition encounters some peacefully grazing Apatosaurs, but you are soon attacked by a nasty gang of velociraptors. The animatronic beasts are so flawlessly lifelike -- in fact, they have been designed by experts from the British Museum of Natural History -- that you shriek in fear and delight.
With your adrenaline pumped-up by this close call, you polish off the afternoon with some thrilling snowboarding on the local black diamond run. Next door is the Mall of Arabia, the world's largest mall -- the altar of the city's famed Shopping Festival that attracts 5 million frenetic consumers each January -- but you postpone the temptation.
Instead, you indulge in some expensive Thai fusion cuisine at a restaurant near Elite Towers that was recommended by your hotel driver. The gorgeous Russian blond at the bar keeps staring at you with almost vampire-like hunger, and you wonder whether the local sin scene is as extravagant as the shopping?..

Welcome to paradise. But where are you? Is this a new science-fiction novel from Margaret Atwood, the sequel to Blade Runner, or Donald Trump tripping on acid?
No, it is the Persian Gulf city-state of Dubai in 2010.
After Shanghai (current population: 15 million), Dubai (current population: 1.5 million) is the world's biggest building site: an emerging dreamworld of conspicuous consumption and what locals dub "supreme lifestyles." Dozens of outlandish mega-projects -- including "The World" (an artificial archipelago), Burj Dubai (the Earth's tallest building), the Hydropolis (that underwater luxury hotel, the Restless Planet theme park, a domed ski resort perpetually maintained in 40C heat, and The Mall of Arabia, a hyper-mall -- are actually under construction or will soon leave the drawing boards.
Under the enlightened despotism of its Crown Prince and CEO, 56-year-old Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the Rhode-Island-sized Emirate of Dubai has become the new global icon of imagineered urbanism. Although often compared to Las Vegas, Orlando, Hong Kong or Singapore, the sheikhdom is more like their collective summation: a pastiche of the big, the bad, and the ugly. It is not just a hybrid but a chimera: the offspring of the lascivious coupling of the cyclopean fantasies of Eiffel, Disney, Spielberg, and Merrill.

Multibillionaire Sheik Mo -- as he's affectionately known to Dubai's expats -- not only collects thoroughbreds (the world's largest stable) and super-yachts (the 525-foot-long Project Platinum which has its own submarine and flight deck), but also seems to have imprinted Robert Venturi's cult Learning from Las Vegas in the same way that more pious Moslems have memorized The Quran. (One of the Sheik's proudest achievements, by the way, is to have introduced gated communities to Arabia.)
Under his leadership, the coastal desert has become a huge circuit board into which the elite of transnational engineering firms and retail developers are invited to plug in high-tech clusters, entertainment zones, artificial islands, "cities within cities" -- whatever is the latest fad in urban capitalism. The same phantasmagoric but generic Lego blocks, of course, can be found in dozens of aspiring cities these days, but Sheik Mo has a distinctive and inviolable criterion: Everything must be "world class," by which he means number one in The Guinness Book of Records. Thus Dubai is building the world's largest theme park, the biggest mall, the highest building, and the first sunken hotel among other firsts.
Sheikh Mo's architectural megalomania, although reminiscent of Albert Speer and his patron, is not irrational. Having "learned from Las Vegas," he understands that if Dubai wants to become the luxury-consumer paradise of the Middle East and South Asia (its officially defined "home market" of 1.6 billion), it must ceaselessly strive for excess.
From this standpoint, the city's monstrous caricature of futurism is simply shrewd marketing. Its owners love it when designers and urbanists anoint it as the cutting edge. Architect George Katodrytis wrote: "Dubai may be considered the emerging prototype for the 21st century: prosthetic and nomadic oases presented as isolated cities that extend out over the land and sea."
Moreover, Dubai can count on the peak-oil epoch to cover the costs of these hyperboles. Each time you spent $40 to fill your tank, you are helping to irrigate Sheik Mo's oasis.
Precisely because Dubai is rapidly pumping the last of its own modest endowment of oil, it has opted to become the postmodern "city of nets" -- as Bertolt Brecht called his fictional boomtown of Mahoganny -- where the super-profits of oil are to be reinvested in Arabia's one truly inexhaustible natural resource: sand. (Indeed mega-projects in Dubai are usually measured by volumes of sand moved: 1 billion cubic feet in the case of The World.)
Since a watershed 2003 decision to open unrestricted freehold ownership to foreigners, wealthy Europeans and Asians have rushed to become part of the Dubai bubble. A beachfront in one of the "Palms" or, better yet, a private island in "The World" now has the cachet of St. Tropez or Grand Cayman. The old colonial masters lead the pack as Brit expats and investors have become the biggest cheerleaders for Sheikh Mo's dreamworld: David Beckham owns a beach and Rod Stewart, an island (rumored, in fact, to be named Great Britain).

The utopian character of Dubai, it must be emphasized, is no mirage. Even more than Singapore or Texas, the city-state really is an apotheosis of neo-liberal values.
On the one hand, it provides investors with a comfortable, Western-style, property-rights regime, including freehold ownership, that is unique in the region. Included with the package is a broad tolerance of booze, recreational drugs, halter tops, and other foreign vices formally proscribed by Islamic law. (When expats extol Dubai's unique "openness," it is this freedom to carouse -- not to organize unions or publish critical opinions -- that they are usually praising.)
On the other hand, Dubai, together with its emirate neighbors, has achieved the state of the art in the disenfranchisement of labor. Trade unions, strikes, and agitators are illegal, and 99% of the private-sector workforce are easily deportable non-citizens. Indeed, the deep thinkers at the American Enterprise and Cato institutes must salivate when they contemplate the system of classes and entitlements in Dubai.

At the top of the social pyramid, of course, are the al-Maktoums and their cousins who own every lucrative grain of sand in the sheikhdom. Next, the native 15% percent of the population -- whose uniform of privilege is the traditional white dishdasha -- constitutes a leisure class whose obedience to the dynasty is subsidized by income transfers, free education, and government jobs. A step below, are the pampered mercenaries: 150,000-or-so British ex-pats, along with other European, Lebanese, and Indian managers and professionals, who take full advantage of their air-conditioned affluence and two-months of overseas leave every summer.
However, South Asian contract laborers, legally bound to a single employer and subject to totalitarian social controls, make up the great mass of the population. Dubai lifestyles are attended by vast numbers of Filipina, Sri Lankan, and Indian maids, while the building boom is carried on the shoulders of an army of poorly paid Pakistanis and Indians working twelve-hour shifts, six and half days a week, in the blast-furnace desert heat.
In addition to being super-exploited, Dubai's helots are also expected to be generally invisible. The bleak work camps on the city's outskirts, where laborers are crowded six, eight, even twelve to a room, are not part of the official tourist image of a city of luxury without slums or poverty
Sheikh Mo, who fancies himself a prophet of modernization, likes to impress visitors with clever proverbs and heavy aphorisms. A favorite: "Anyone who does not attempt to change the future will stay a captive of the past."
Yet the future that he is building in Dubai -- to the applause of billionaires and transnational corporations everywhere -- looks like nothing so much as a nightmare of the past: Walt Disney meets Albert Speer on the shores of Arabia.

Why Dubai Ports Should Succeed

2006-03-18T13:59:00.000-08:00

The events that unfolded in Washington DC over the past few weeks have left me stumped!!! By denying Dubai Ports the rights to maintain American ports despite the fact that it had passed all the specifications and had the best tender on the pretext of "national security", the USA has lost the last shreds of dignity that it had retained, after deposing the existing regimes and ensuring civil war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Blocking the deal is wrong, because Dubai Ports is one of the most repectable companies in the world in its field. Dubai is one of the few Arab states that support the USA in its struggle against terrorism. And, more important, Dubai is probably the only state to boast of a cosmopolitan appearance with a huge expatriate community, and a substantial no of Americans themselves. This act of denial goes against the very essence of "free trade" and "liberalisation", the very words that officials of the USA spout constantly whenever they are on a tour to the numerous Third World Nations.

The senators who have milked this "situation" for all its worth have to be blamed. In an attempt to induce Islamophobia among the people, they have alleged that allowing an Arab corporation to take "control" of their seaports could lead to a "problem of national security" [in other words, terrorism].

I hope the Ruler of Dubai is not offended by such irresponsible statements. And I will continue to hope against hope that Dubai Ports gets the deal eventually, because I dont want to even think of the consequences of this latest snub against the Arab world.

Swoosh... A short story

2006-03-05T13:53:00.000-08:00

You know what???

I've always been an admirer of Krishna, and used to feel that Rama was just a staid one-dimensional character, the good guy but nothing more. After reading the Ramayana series by Ashok K. Banker, I must confess my feelings have been entirely changed!! I began to admire Rama for his adherence to dharma, irrespective of the odds, for the way he was- cos he was a human, first and foremost...

And so here I am, putting up a short story I wrote some time back. The story is set in between Demons of Chitrakut and Armies of Hanuman, during the 13 years of war with the rakshasas. This piece is just my tribute to Rama...

SWOOSH

Rama.

He growled hoarsely, more out of hatred than out of fear. He gazed at the three prone figures sleeping peacefully in the clearing. He knew that this was his best chance to capture them all, and thereby get an ample reward from General Khara.

Rama.

He stayed still, as the hours passed, and the late evening turned into night. In the dense forests of Chitrakut, a human would be as blind as a bat, and helpless in a hostile environment; however, his rakshasa eyes, specially adapted for night vision, were so sensitive that he would be aware of anything that moved within a hundred yards of him. He felt the excitement of the hunt rise in his firm, muscled body and resisted the urge to scream out his presence to the inhabitants of the jungles- the presence of a predator.

But he maintained his composure and thought about how he should achieve his objective. His orders were clear: bring all three alive, regardless of the personal risk. He gritted his pincers in frustation, but these orders came from the witch Supanakha herself. And so, despite his fervent desire to devour Sita's tender flesh, he couldn't.

Rama.

He came out of his reverie, and looked around. The forest was silent. Like a grave. Not because the birds were asleep, but because they sensed his presence and were afraid of him. He was a rakshasa, well versed in the arts of battle, an extraordinary assassin, one of the finest in the fourteen thousand strong regiment under General Khara's leadership that had set out to avenge Supanakha's disfigurement.

His thoughts shifted to those humans in the clearing, and then he remembered his comrades who had perished in the fierce battles over the last couple of years... Oh Shiva! How naive they all were... They had all come, thinking it would be a mere stroll in the park to defeat Rama and Lakshamana, now devoid of their brahman shakti. But they were proved wrong- all because of that man Rama.

He looked at Rama, the tall handsome mortal, dark to the point of appearing bluish in complexion, sleeping with an enigmatic smile on his face. Rama seemed like a veritable deva descended to Prithviloka, with his beautiful wife Sita and devoted brother Lakshmana.
Humph! He looked away with disgust. Some of the faint hearted rakshasas back in the base camp fervently believed that Rama was no ordinary mortal prince; in fact, he was Lord Vishnu incarnate, born to defeat their king Ravana in battle and exterminate the rakshasa race. But no, he did not believe such rumours.

Over the last two years Rama, aided by a hundred odd gang of bandits, was able to kill nearly four thousand rakshasa warriors and maim countless others in numerous battles throughout the wretched jungles of Chitrakut. Now, barely seven thousand battle ready comrades remained, and even they were weary of the relentless strife.

As the rumours of Rama's divinity gained credence, General Khara knew he had to do something soon. He sent out spies, shape shifting yakshas, and rakshasa sorties to seek out the hiding place of the humans- but to no avail. Rama seemed invincible. And as the months passed, the rakshasa troops dwindled steadily. Certainly, Rama had proved that he was as brilliant in creating military strategies to counter the rakshasa hordes as he was adept in the use of arms. Hence, General Khara had entrusted him with his dangerous mission- to kidnap the trio alive.

Rama.

He felt the imminent rise of the sun, and realised that he had wasted valuable hours thinking of the past- but it dint matter. He would do the job now. He stepped forward stealthily, but accidentally brushed off some branches that crackled. "Alarm", he thought. On hearing the noise, all three humans woke up, their reflexes to the fore, and dispersed into the jungle.

Rama.

He screamed in anger, since he had lost the element of surprise that was essential in ensuring the success of his plan. He lunged after Lakshmana, who had run off in the direction nearest him, and they fought for some time with their swords. He eventually knocked the prince unconscious with a glancing blow on his forehead, and then tied him to a nearby tree. He then looked around, searching for Rama... Where was he?

.... Swoosh....

He heard an arrow fly out and turned back to see Sita fire arrow after arrow at him. A couple of arrows struck him on his armoured chest, and many more on his arms. He ignored the pain and rushed towards her. He could feel his life-blood falling down freely, but he was now in the heat of battle, and nothing else mattered- only the desire to end it as soon as possible. He lunged at Sita with his bare arms in order to throttle her, but then-

....Swoosh....

"Rama... ", he knew. He felt afraid suddenly; he did not know why; and in that very instant, he saw his right arm get severed off cleanly by a shining arrow. And then he saw Rama standing on a boulder in the traditional archer's pose, next arrow already in place, on his bow.
He was numb with shock and impotent rage. He drew out his sword with his left hand and threw it with all his force, at Rama's throat. And then he watched with utter amazement, as Rama fired three arrows, each one right after the other, and his four foot long sword of Lanka steel disintegrated into shards that rained down into the jungle floor.

Suddenly, his mind was clear.... He realised the fate that awaited him now,and that the rumours were right. Rama, being a warrior of dharma, was indeed invincible. As the events of his life unfolded in his mind like a drama, he realised that he had to end his life at the hands of Rama if he wanted moksha. He didn't know how he realised that, but he knew that it was the right thing to do...

"Rama.... ", he screamed. And so he charged forward, like a crazed bull, full of fury outside, his mind filled with desire of salvation and a sudden devotion to this mortal Rama. He did not question the why of it, he simply had no time to consider. He watched the final moments of his life in slow motion, as Rama placed another arrow on his bow and fired it calmly, observed the arrow fly gracefully in a swoosh as it penetrated his throat and exited behind.

He felt his head fall down onto the ground, and before his eyes closed on him and he went away on the final journey, he wanted to express his gratitude to Rama.

He looked up as Rama walked up towards him, but all he could say was-

"Rama..."
And then the whole world dissolved into nothingness.

JIPMER ranked 2nd best medical college in India

2006-02-22T13:51:00.000-08:00

Finally.... JIPMER is being accepted as one of the premier medical institutions in the country!!! Its party time for us Jipmerites... But the gap between JIPMER and AIIMS remains huge- and thats mainly due to the perception of doctors and medical students... Frankly speaking, i feel that the undergraduate education of JIPMER is excellent, and second to none. I'll come back to this topic in the near future..

Those interested may check out http://www.the-week.com/26feb05/currentevents_article10.htm

Book Review: Bridge of Rama by Ashok K. Banker

2006-02-19T13:47:00.000-08:00

Ashok K. Banker's fifth book of the Ramayana series, Bridge of Rama, elevates the series to a whole new level. Yet again, Banker has managed to astound readers with this magnificent book eclipsing all the previous ones in greatness.

Rama and his huge armies of Vanaras and bears have reached the southern coast of the mainland, and are busy building a bridge to Lanka, where Sita is held captive by Ravana, the lord of the asuras. Meanwhile, Jambavan, the king of the bears, tells Hanuman the truth of his heritage- that he is, in fact, the son of the wind god Vayu. But then disaster strikes- Rama is told by Dasaratha's spirit from the beyond that Sita's life is in peril.

Hanuman, after attaining self realisation of his divine shakti, agrees to leap across the ocean to Lanka and bring Sita back. On seeing that Lanka is not the hellish place that he imagined, instead its the very image of civilization and beauty, Hanuman is surprised and redoubles his efforts to find Sita.

Meanwhile, Ravana has not been sitting idly. After brainwashing his people into believing that he is the person who adheres to dharma while Rama is the villain who committed genocide at Mithila and has come to exterminate them now, he proceeds to play with Sita's mind by acting as the perfect host, and treating her with respect. However, she sees through his plans and wants Rama to be aware of Ravana's nefarious motives.

So when Hanuman finally finds her, she refuses to escape. Sita wants Rama to come to Lanka and expose Ravana for what he truly is, so that people all over the world shall know the truth. Hanuman accepts the infallible logic of her statements, and then decides to send a message to Ravana. Using his enormous reserves of shakti, Hanuman goes on a rampage through Lanka, reducing it to shambles.

After singlehandedly destroying an entire regiment of the rakshasa army and defeating several great armies, he submits to Indrajit when the latter threatens to unleash the Brahma astra. Once he meets Ravana, he expresses his view of the events that occurred so beautifully that, for once, even Ravana is left speechless. After his tail is set on fire, he manages to escape and sets Lanka ablaze.

Hanuman assumes centrestage in this book- he is truly one of the best characters in the Ramayana series. The readers can identify with him, because of his immense faith in his lord Rama. Hanuman's total devotion to Rama and his adherence to dharma enable him to overcome obstacles and eliminate his weaknesses, as the scene in the Tower of Lanka demonstrates so vividly.

Banker has evolved with each book of the series. Bridge of Rama ensures his position as one of the finest story tellers in the world today. Whats truly incredible is that you don't even feel the effort of reading the pages; its almost like there is this guy sitting next to you and telling you the story. You will lose yourself in the majesty of the plot, and the people in it. His characters are extremely well crafted; every word they utter is natural and believable. No matter how unimportant the character may be, each one of them has his or her own uniqueness, thus adding to the melange that forms the story.

In a sense, Bridge of Rama is the lull before the storm. Rama and his armies are poised to invade Lanka and rescue Sita, no matter how many tricks Ravana might have under his sleeve. So then, onwards to Lanka! Let the battle begin.

At this rate, i'll run out of superlatives trying to describe Bridge of Rama :~)... I think that 10 on 10 says it all!!!!

Book Review: Armies of Hanuman by Ashok K. Banker

2006-02-19T13:42:00.000-08:00

Ashok K. Banker continues Rama's tale with typical flair in Armies of Hanuman, the fourth part of his Ramayana series, after Prince of Ayodhya, Siege of Mithila and Demons of Chitrakut. Banker fulfills all the expectations by churning out a novel that is even better than the previous parts. For those who dint know, this book was selected as one of Blogcritics' Top Reads of 2005.

The war against the 14,000 strong rakshasa regiment finally ends after 13 years of incessant battles, with Rama securing a decisive victory in Janasthana after a momentous last stand. Hanuman, who has been observing the way Rama and his people fight the rakshasas against tremendous odds for several years, meets Rama and expresses his admiration for the way Rama behaves- as a champion of dharma. Later, Rama decides to return to his home on the banks of the Godavari with Sita and Lakshmana and they spend the rest of their exile in idyllic bliss.

Meanwhile, under Mandodhari's rule, Lanka undergoes a transformation from a prison in hell to a city as beautiful as Indraloka, the capital of the gods. After 13 years of inactivity, Ravana is miraculously revitalised by Supanakha's return to Lanka, and he immediately begins his plans to destroy Rama. Banker concentrates on the narrative in Lanka, giving it far more prominence than the previous books and thus making the characters there more rounded, especially Vibhisena, Mandodhari, and of course Ravana himself!

Ravana decides to abduct Sita and enlists Mareecha's help. The abduction of Sita forms the most riveting sequence of the book. Rama and Lakshmana have no other choice but to approach the Vanaras for help. They meet the vanaras engaged in a war council and Rama agrees to slay Vali in single combat and make Sugreeva king of the Vanaras, in exchange for Sugreeva's support and the Vanara armies to get Sita from Ravana's clutches.

Armies of Hanuman is an extremely entertaining read and confirms Ashok K. Banker's abilities as a story teller par excellence. All the characters continue to mature with time, thus making the story interesting; hell, even the rakshasas are multifaceted and enigmatic. The story flows seamlessly, and one can just sit back and admire Banker's handiwork. His style of writing works out well- his metaphors and descriptions give the book an amazing vitality.

The book ends at an interesting stage, with Sugreeva keeping his part of the bargain and assembling the enormous armies of the Vanaras. Now, the stage is set for Rama and Lakshmana to head towards southwards to Lanka. Truly, Armies of Hanuman is worthy of the tag "epic". So people, if you've finished the first three parts, then you are in for a sumptuous treat. Go check it out!

Armies of Hanuman scores 9.5 on 10!!!!!

Book Review: Demons of Chitrakut by Ashok K. Banker

2006-02-18T13:39:00.000-08:00

Demons of Chitrakut is the third part of Indian author Ashok K Banker's Ramayana series, and continues Rama's epic tale beautifully.

Rama weds Sita and returns to Ayodhya, after an encounter with Parashurama on the way. Meanwhile, under the spell of Manthara's intrigues, Kaikeyi "persuades" Dasaratha to banish Rama and make Bharata the yuvaraja instead. The scene where Rama tells Sita that he has been exiled is probably the most touching moment of the book. And eventually, they walk out with Lakshmana by their side towards the forests of Dandaka, where they must stay in exile for 14 years. Rama' evolution into a great persona, who follows his dharma steadfastly, no matter what the obstacles may be, is almost palpable.

Eventually, the Supanakha episode is played out. The mutilated rakshasi calls on her brother Khara and Dooshana to avenge her, and a fourteen thousand strong regiment of bloodthirsty demons march from Janasthana to settle scores.

After the heady action of the first two parts, Banker slows down and concentrates on the diverse threads in the storyline. Demons of Chitrakut is so interesting because he retells the incidents- that we all know so well- in such a refreshingly new manner. Truly, this Ramayana is his very own.

Each character is unique and hence stands out- devious Manthara, serving the dark lord Ravana, and manipulating Kaikeyi; helpless Dasaratha, who is forced to send Rama to the forest; wise Vibhishana, who wishes to create a righteous Lanka; Ravana trapped inside a rock, powerless; the girlish yet forthright queen Sumitra;the vulture king Jatayu, who comes to Rama's aid...

Banker has the enviable ability to slip into the "skin" of the character, and it shows. The end result is truly a masterpiece. I feel that this Ramayana series will achieve the same exalted status that Valmiki's Ramayana, Kamban's Tamil epic, Sant Tulsidas's Ramacharitamanas, Ezhuthachan's Malayalam version, and lots of other Ramayanas retold by literary geniuses in their own vernaculars were able to attain. Truly an epic!!!! This book gets a 9.5 on 10....

Book Review: Siege of Mithila by Ashok K. Banker

2006-02-18T13:34:00.000-08:00

Siege of Mithila, the second part of Ashok K Banker's marvellous Ramayana series is as interesting, if not more than the first part, Prince of Ayodhya. And it begins just as eerily as the first part; this time however, it is Sita who has the nightmare!

The guru-shishya relationship between Rishi Vishwamitra and the princes Rama and Lakshmana has been conceived brilliantly. The chapter in which they discuss how Ravana could be vanquished is extremely enlightening. Ravana's plans to invade Aryavarta form the crux of the book. The ten headed rakshasa's character is enigmatic, and he promises to be one of the most interesting characters of the series. Meanwhile, in Ayodhya, Manthara continues her nefarious schemes to eliminate Rama. Banker weaves in another thread in his web, by visualising her as a stooge of the Dark Lord.

Sita is a revelation - this Sita is no damsel in distress, instead, she is a warrior princess. Fiercely independent and courageous, she is probably the best thing in the book. Definitely someone Rama [or I, for that matter :~)] would fall for! Sita believes that the rakshasas are preparing for an invasion, and so on an impulse she sets forth incognito with her trusted bodyguard Nakhudi towards the dreaded Southwoods to search for evidence. And who do they meet? None other than Rama and Lakshmana!

The two princes alongwith Rishi Vishwamitra are heading towards Mithila to attend Sita's swayamvar. Since "Janaki Kumar" and "Nakhu Dev" are also travelling to the same destination, the all knowing sage decides that they should go together. On the way, Rama rescues Ahalya from her condemned existence as a stone- one of the most magical chapters of the book, in my opinion. Vishwamitra reveals that Mithila will bear the brunt of Ravana's onslaught, and the book moves on rapidly to a momentous climax.

Banker's writing is magical - before you know it, you are sucked into the world of his Ramayana where anything is possible. From Ayodhya to Mithila to even Lanka, Banker sets you off on beautiful flights of imagination. Truly, one roller coaster of a ride. Ashok K. Banker rocks!!! And yes, Rama rocks, too.

Truly, one roller coaster of a ride... Another 9 on 10.

Book Review: Prince of Ayodhya by Ashok K. Banker

2006-02-18T13:26:00.000-08:00

Ashok K. Banker's six-book Ramayana series belongs to that rarefied category of books whose contents are as good as, if not better than, the blurbs. Let me tell you that this series is not a straightforward translation of the epic, on the other hand, it is a retelling attempted by Banker according to his own imagination.

Prince of Ayodhya, the first book in the series, initally deals with the characters in the ruling circle of Ayodhya. Young prince Rama's ordinary life is altered when the Brahmarishi Vishwamitra comes to Ayodhya to ask Rama to come with him to his ashram and destroy the rakshasas who hamper the daily activities of the sages and brahmins there. And he and his brother Lakshmana are given the incredible gift of brahman shakti, and taught how to use dev astras.

What I love about Prince of Ayodhya is the way the characters have been described - each person has been fleshed out beautifully. Banker has obviously given a lot of thought to all the major characters, and has introduced several new ones too, thereby making the story even better. Each individual is complex and multifaceted, unlike the staid characters of the Ramayana TV series. Banker succeeds in portraying Rama as a normal human, just like you and me. This helps the reader "connect" and empathise with him, in a way that is never possible while reading the Valmiki or Kamba Ramayana. And Ravana is present from the first chapter itself, which adds to the excitement.

Banker has dealt with the emotional aspects really well - the relationships between Dasaratha and his three wives, and especially the conflict between Kausalya and Kaikeyi, and the relationships between the four princes, especially Rama and Lakshmana, have been portrayed exquisitely. The battle sequences are incredible. The battle between Rama and Lakshmana, powered by the shakti of brahman, against the hybrids of Tataka is the climax of the book.

Prince of Ayodhya entertains a lot. The plot never falters, the dialogues are perfect, everything gels together. I bought the book in June 2004, and must have read it a hundred times. Trust me, this is one story you'll never get bored of. No matter how many Ramayanas you have read. If you have not read it as yet, then go ahead. Read it, and fall in love with it, as millions have all over the world.

On a scale of 10, Prince of Ayodhya deserves 9!!!!

A Tale Of Two Citites

2006-02-17T12:56:00.000-08:00

Since i've lived in the UAE for most of my life, i thought i would begin with a post on Abu Dhabi and Dubai...

The United Arab Emirates[UAE] is a federation of seven emirates- Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah, each having a capital with the same name. Since Abu Dhabi is the largest emirate of them all[greater than the rest of them combined, if my memory serves me right!], it was decided that Abu Dhabi would function as the capital city of the federation, and that the Ruler of Abu Dhabi would be elected as the President of the UAE.

The UAE gained independence from the British on December 2nd, 1971, and over the three decades that have passed since then, they have undergone a stunning transformation from being a homeland for wandering Bedouin tribes to now reaching "developed nation" status- all due to the magic of the oil deposits that it possesses in abundance.

Thanks to the vision of the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who guided the country on the path to development and prosperity, the UAE is now one of those few nations, where people are satisfied with the quality of life...

Well, coming back to my point, the capital Abu Dhabi is situated on an island. It is a well planned city, with huge shopping malls, six laned roads in each direction, well laid out gardens, a beautiful coastline, magnificent high rises, the whole works. In fact, the presence of numerous towering buildings has earned Abu Dhabi the sobriquet of "Manhattan of the Middle East".

Dubai, on the other hand, is the ultimate antithesis to everything that Abu Dhabi stands for. its built in a rather haphazard fashion. the city is divided into several zones that function as separate 'cities', for instance, you have the Internet City, the Gold City, the Entertainment City, the Business City, and so on. Its a city that never sleeps, with a truly cosmopolitan outlook, and numerous discos, pubs, and what not. As the saying goes," If its happening, its happening in Dubai, dude!!!".

Its the classic comparison- Washington D.C versus New York, New Delhi versus Mumbai...But both cities tend to compliment each other. Dubai is nice to visit once in a while, but Abu Dhabi is the better city to live in. Both cities have several ongoing projects- Disneyland is reportedly considering Abu Dhabi for the Gulf Disneyland, while Dubai is busy constructing the world's tallest building, largest mall, the Palm Islands Project, the underwater hotel....whew!!! its a never ending list...

And you know what?? i consider myself lucky that I was brought up in the UAE... I've grown to appreciate urban life, and i think i'm hooked onto it for good!