The Red Carpet; by Lavanya Sankaran.

Very true to life portrayal of a town the writer probably knew well long before it became the "IT" place to be, and expanded at exponential rates. Lavanya Shankaran gives a little piece of the life of the town in old times changing to new with whiffs of arrivals of new people and of expat generation returning or sojourning from abroad for visits or more. It is a gentle change in the old establishments of old colonies, where people have lived in cetain traditional ways for long, through colonial times carrying out the older ways and adapting to new colonial ones, until now it is yet another change, like a whiff of something else carried on a breeze through the muslin curtains of an old bungalow.

Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson.

Bryson comes into his own when writing about the British Empire, it seems - his work on UK the most entertaining and the one about Australia the most informative. In US he gets ponderous, seems a bit afraid to joke, and in Europe he is a bit lost.

The wit is in place but he is not, in this work. He begins in Hammerfest, which is nice to know of, but he then goes on that way with much small and unimportant details about strange places and then nothing about the most attractive - it is one thing to avoid a tourist route, but then why the details of going unplanned into yet another strange town and troubles of hotels and beer and food? Makes no sense at all. And, he neither drives nor plans the trip, so there is much travail on that account that is easily avoidable.

One reads Bryson for the fun, and this book gives that - from time to time. But then it is a chore to finish it most of the time. Worth reading since there is always something of a little smile unexpectedly or even an outright laugh at what he says, but all too often he plays to the gallery and uses unnecessary indecorous language.

Surprisingly he is unhappy with Switzerland, and too with Scandinavia, while he is happy with Italy and Germany - one can only conclude he did not know what one generally goes to Europe to look at, and while it is nice to know Sofia is beautiful or Hamburg is nice that is more useful for those who are likely to live there for a while or more. The rest of us are more interested in the normal nice things about places one is either likely to go or would wish to if only one knew about it.

Perhaps this was the first of the whole series he wrote, and he came into his own only with the land where he spent his growing adulthood years - Britain.

Rumpole of the Bailey; by John Clifford Mortimer.

A most unlikely hero as far as tv or films go, but all too likely when you think of real life - for the action is in sharp intelligence and wisdom gathered through years of experience, applied to life, specifically to legal questions and cases, with effect of helping humans that might not be picture perfect either but do need help with defence, and cannot afford much.

If Rumpole applied all that mind to getting ahead as the style is today, he would be the leader of the firm, and the QC, and more - but he manages to stay on back burner in spite of being the son in law of the boss, due to his deep seated reluctance about certain attitudes or actions or ways that one must adopt in order to get ahead. Rumpole sticks to his work and his honesty, and the smooth one gets ahead, and the disappointed wife is not too happy, can't blame her after all. Still, one has to like Rumpole.

The African episode is unforgettable - is it in this part or another, of the series? - About the basic principle of justice he is supposed to apply, to create a martyr, with a declaration of Innocent Until Proven Guilty. That is supposed to help spark the revolution - and instead he manages to actually prove the man was innocent, with - need one say it? - his sharp intelligence, his experience and observation and wisdom. He disappoints those only who had called him to perform and did not expect him to actually get to the bottom of the case and win. With honesty, too.

One is far more likely to appreciate it with reading first rather than seeing the tc series which I saw only accidentally once. Not because the series has any defects but because in a visual medium one does rather focus on looks. And this work is not about surface attractions.

Gracie: A Love Story; by George Burns.

I remember living alone, far away from anyone I knew, and being relatively free after a few years of stress, buying a television - my first, and a very good one for that time, with facilites that the company normally offered only in larger models - and discovering the Burns and Allen show one late night when looking for something to relieve stress.

Thereafter it was a routine, being awake every night until late to watch the reruns of the show, and what a blessing it was watching it, laughing, forgetting all stress and worry and so forth for just that short while.

When I discovered the book, it was a sort of combination of a memory of the show relived and a whole new delight as well, with the book adding a few details to the life of the couple one had come to love.

"My uncle bent steel rods with his teeth until they bent"

"He must have been very strong"

"Yes, but he looked funny with bent teeth"

- And unless one sees the incomparable, unique Gracie one would think this is not very funny. At least not as much as when she says it.

Fatherhood; by Bill Cosby.

Truly delightful - some of this was familiar, since it had been incorporated in the first episode of the Bill Cosby show, but a good deal was either new or familiar through everyone's life.

Favourites, many.

Children love to share, especially sharing the siblings's arms ...

Bill Cosby's father told him how he walked to school in snow, "uphill both ways" ..

"I brought you in this world and I can take you out" ....

"Dad, can I -" ....

And many more.

Karma, Cola; by Gita Mehta.

In some sense this was written when the meeting of east and west, especially of India and west (Europe and US) was in its third stage, second being of the colonial era and first that before.

At this stage there was much renewed charm in each for other, much that was new, and some truly interesting encounters. The value of this work is in writing up the very well chosen ones where something new came through such an encounter every time.

There is the old percussionist from India used only to classical music of India who went to a club in New York and had them play to his rhythm - and he spoke no English at all.

There is the westerner who learned to his surprise that the old bike of the Indian in Goa taunting him was in fact far more powerful than his own brand new shiny one - because it had an engine he could not have imagined existed, a royal Enfield, and that the Indian did know what he was talking about.

There is much along these lines, and some interesting information as well. The French official informed the author at a casual encounter that there were as of that date some twenty thousand French nationals "lost" in India, and the only way the officials would know is when they wished to return and contacted the French authorities.

It was a standard practice for those of the west that were not only charmed with a touristic view of India as strangers but moreover completely comfortable with living a life in India, to throw away the passports or sell them, or even simply vanish in the huge country. If they were into meditation, often they even were fed by the poor of the rural areas of India who would feed any such meditating person traditionally.

Ravishankar and Ray, Beatles and Maharshi Mahesh Yogi were the stars of these east west encounters - distant and shiny - as were Nehru and Kennedys in some sense, but that was only a very tiny part of the whole picture, which consisted of thousands and thousands of such people. By the time this was written hippies were not news in the west, but they were just turning from a trickle to a stream in India. So were probably the NRI in US and elsewhere.

A very interesting book, evocative of much more than it mentions explicitly.

How He Lied To Her Husband; by George Bernard Shaw.

This play is one of the most delightful ones penned by the writer and it is completely unlike anything anyone (outside old British social life) might imagine. One of the most wonderful plays by Mr. Shaw, full of quite unexpected turns when one is in the world of literature but quite normal in real life, which is what makes it hilarious and sobering.

A very talented and romantic poet who is in love with a beautiful woman, who wishes nothing as much as seeing her every evening for a session of theatre and dinner or at least reading poetry to her that is written for her, in praise of her exquisite beauty, and is ever ready to do anything his love might demand of him.

Only, she is married, and to a very rich man who gives her everything she could wish for materially and socially but is no romantic poet, or at any rate not a man of words. On the other hand he is not stingy about providing her with an expensive social lifestyle with dinners, parties, artists invited and theatre and carriages, jewellery. And so on. Still, he is no poet. Is he literate, is hard to remember from the play. Does he appreciate her beauty more than in terms of his own pleasure, one doubts to begin with.

There is the whole setting - the very beautiful and wealthy Aurora who is married to a common businessman although able to have a social life of consorting with various artists and so forth.

And then the play begins to unfold. The husband, the very practical and very much bourgois man who has provided his wife with everything she could ever wish for in terms of wealth and social life, has now rumoured to have found out about the poet and the wife. Someone has told the husband about the poet's writing extensive poetry every day about the wife, and the love (still platonic in fact) that is the soil for the poetry to grow from, and so on. And the wife has come to know about the husband having been informed, and she is frantic in worry about what will happen.

The poet who is in love with her, writing poems to her, willing to do anything for her, whether taking her our to theatre every evening or stay in and amuse her or be shot by her husband or elope with her, whatever destiny might have in store for the love of his very exilarated heights of romance. The poet is willing to do anything she wishes, while his own noble instinct is to accept the blame and confront the husband with the truth and walk off into the sunset with his beloved beautiful Aurora.

What comes next is the typical Shaw sequence of twists and turns that leaves one helpless in hilarious laughter while totally in sympathy with the poor poet. I have no intention of spoiling the delight of reading further by saying another word about what comes next, for those that have not read this yet. Any attempt to describe it will spoil it for the reader, so I shall desist.

The Complete Yes Minister; by Jonathan Lynn, Antony Jay.

On one hand a political comparative novice with reasonably lofty ideals and some political necessities; on the other hand the master of art and craft of administration and his skills of rising and staying at the top - and being in charge which the political master would rather take over; and then the third, the rather nice and naive secretary who has to satisfy two masters just to keep his job and yet keep a semblance of self respect as well.

What a delight the series and what a consistent education the printed version - one might think one's own life or political situation of one's own country has little or nothing to do with this, but if one thought that one would be wrong. The difference would only be in nitty gritty details, really. The stereotypes exist, everywhere, but the larger picture is the principles, the situations, and they apply to far lesser situations than a minisiter of a previously huge, world wide and globe girdling empire.

Much illuminating material - one that comes immediately to mind for instance about Salami Tactics, unless that is in the sequel.

On the whole very educating.

Not to forget hilarious.

The Complete Yes Prime Minister; by Jonathan Lynn, Antony Jay.

Once a young nephew remarked about how stupid the one and how smart the other. I pointed out that the one who was naive was one with dreams for the country, naivete about the world in general, some innocence but also good intentions, necessary for the world - while the one that seemed master of all art of governance and manipulation is also the one who cares only about his own stability in power and rise - and controlling power to that effect above all.

Ideally one should get both, the ideals and the smartness, the good will and the expertise, in one. Or all, or many at least. Usually however there are too many of Humphreys controlling the world, the media, the affairs in general - and the Hackers of the world are left bewildered at best, targetted with much maligned poison tipped shafts at worst.

If only it could be otherwise, in that the well meaning ones were not so easily those to lose ....

This is probably the one with "allies", and perhaps the one about Salami Tactics, - very educating all in all. Not to forget hilarious.

Falling Over Backwards: An Essay on Reservations and on Judicial Populism, India; by Arun Shourie.

Most people, whether individually or as social groups, communities, have two very distinct, very separate needs, often but not always necessarily, conflicting.

One is for more of wealth, more of power, stability of well being, security, and so forth. This is of course well understood and often used for a hold over the person or group as a leverage to use them.

Another is of the sort that might begin to border on higher ideal - of a rise in terms of things other than those considered worldly needs.

However, when the two conflict, often people free to choose will go for the worldly needs rather than higher ideals. And then resent those that do not, or cannot, for whatever reason.

Hence the effort to portray one's community as higher if that gives a rise in status and all out efforts to prove it so, and on the other hand the opposite if that pays in terms of economic security.

Given a chance - that is, if the two do not conflict - most people would prefer the higher ideal and rise in terms of other than worldly criteria.

It is a pity that such chances are withdrawn and instead there is an incentive to downgrade one's roots in order to secure a better economic status.

Five Point Someone: What Not to Do at IIT; by Chetan Bhagat.

One reads it with some sympathy, a good deal of sheer disbelief and growing amazement - because this is a populist casual write up bordering on caricature or outright spoof, about an institution that is not only elite in terms of education, but the elite quality comes from the intellectual strength required to get in at all, in the first place. And in a nation like India, of a huge population with an intellectual tradition and history of knowledge, that is no small achievement to begin with.

One wonders if this is an alumni's attempt to clown for entertainment of his class of whatever year, or a revenge on the institution that had far brighter pass through its portals and distinguish themselves in ways other than seducing the professor's virgin daughter - if at all this did happen and was not a wishful dream.

One Night @t the Call Centre; by Chetan Bhagat.

This was a comparatively serious attempt by the author to write about a contemporary situation and its not so well known realities, but he mixed a few things up.

When this book came or at least when I saw it on bookshelves in popular bookstores, media was speaking out about the various stresses the workers in the much celebrated new phenomena of economic rise of India were going through, what with the work hours disrupting the biological rhythm - having to work hours when the clients in the various countries around the globe would be awake and receptive - and the racist abuse they had to take from those that they connected on phone to.

This work gives the strange and the weird, the silly and the abusive - in short. It mentions the other, the life the call centre workers live on the whole, whether at work or away from it.

There is some truth to every story of the lives he mentions, in all likelihood, but on the whole if you like to know about how those call centre workers live, what they think and feel, perhaps this is neither comprehensive nor typical of most.

On the other hand, these characters could very well be out there and their stories too - in a nation of over a billion with a few million in this line of work, anything might be possible.

All one can say is much does not ring true here and it seems more like an assembly of specific ingredients to titillate the reader.

Bhagat with a little effort, a lot of restraint and some aspiration could be a lot better, although one would never suspect it from his other works. Here, too, he cannot avoid the temptation to be glib instead and provide a mash of much from here and there.

The 3 Mistakes of My Life; by Chetan Bhagat.

It is not clear if the aim was a booker or a film or some such ultimate catch - since it seems to be constructed with much input of diverse ingredients that can exist in life and reality, but while it has a feel of reality in a few patches it lacks the flow or raw feel of reality as a whole, or even something one had to write because it was what came through, and instead has rather a feel of a varnished and scrambled assembled piece instead that nevertheless lacks a feel of a one piece - has rather a patchwork feel at the end of it all.

The book begins well enough, or at any rate not too badly, with an intriguing call from a depressed suicidal youth to the author across an ocean and a smart work of detection by his wife to discover who and where, saving the life of the caller.

It improves for a while with a very real portrayal of poor to middle class youth, on brink of life, with their backgrounds and capabilities and so forth, and the very absorbing description of the city not usually described in works of literature outside the state, given with some love that comes through in spite of the much affected urbane attitude sported by the author.

There is a fascinating description of the scrawny poor youth who is a fantastic talent at the favourite sport of the nation and the commonwealth, but has a difference that makes him a medical curiosity and an object of study.

The enterprising protagonist with his friends and their support of the boy begins to make it a very interesting tale.

Until it degenerates into a usual bundle of titillating assembly of flights and dives, specialty of this writer, only with more far flung stuff this time.

The usual seduction (on an open terrace, in daylight, no locks or latches!!! don't want to know if this is real) and this time a pregnancy scare (so young readers are not encouraged this time????) is by now familiar enough to get one merely raising an eyebrow and saying, mhm.

The free trip to Australia (!!) and the offer of the settling - refused by the boy on grounds of wishing to play only for India, while not impossible, one would like to know if it happened or is this an attempt to evoke national pride. If the latter it ought to have been done better, the crudeness of the storyteller's lack of quality takes away from any possibility of making this into an ideal and risks making this into a borderline ridiculous story.

Then it gets worse, with a portrayal of events in Gujarat that seems like one of those "now you can paint Van Gogh's sunflowers too" sort of fill-in-those-prescribed-colours-by-the-number picture of the events. Someone must have told him, it is ok to mention the burnt train but paint the other side so gory it would be forgotten this was a riot and it would seem a one way massacre. There is no mention of history of communal riots in the state that took place every now and then, at a time there were elections looming - and the fact that this time there was containment, with a comparable number dead in police action on either side. There is of course no mention whatsoever of the ever looming threat to the nation from weapons and so forth being brought in, supplied by no one needs to guess who and who.

I don't know if the idea was to get a pat on the back from some dominating political powers or straightaway aim for a booker or something. It is so much a patchwork of events and description that clash without creating a new harmony or any sort of an understanding of events, one wonders if there was a reason to write this particular story or bunch of stories tied up together in one thread, such as someone told him a story and he decided this was too good to miss an opportunity to tell. It certainly needed to be told better - this one is a bit like telling about history of last century on a tabloid format, to give one extreme example, or a musical of the good old British style, to give another.

Much in the way of horror stories has come through news media that cannot be denied and one cannot but recoil with disgust at those that did perpetrate any of it - that much goes without saying. But how it began on the whole has not been mentioned, except as retaliation or fury about a trainload of people burnt alive, locked in and unable to escape.

Riots in Mumbai, then still called Bombay in English officially (though it was always and equally officially Mumbai in the local language and Bambaee in the national language) began with police station (one or more, don't know at this point in time) being attacked by a mob (or mobs) as retaliation for the events clear across a thousand or so miles away in the ancient temple vs less ancient mosque arguement.

I know of no country, so far, that allows mobs to attack police stations with arms and instead of a police action merely deals with tolerance with a view of not inciting criticism from "others". Then again, one may compare US border patrol and their policies (anyone dare say it is communal? No?) with that in India dealing with illegal migrants with the very porous border that is every day poured through, by not only those in need of work and unable to do well in their homelands and might really be pathetic and harmless, but also those with other, far different and very specific intentions.

Migrants across political boundaries of nationhood go in more than one or two forms, of course. Humans as every other species has always traveled to find means of survival across and around the globe, with one difference - humans are the one species that can be insincere about this, and also are the one species that go about exterminaitng their own, either for the purpose of survival or often for sheer pleasure of it. Migration of humans is often masked as aggression - and other forms. It happens nevertheless for sake of finding means of survival, but some migrate without the sincerity of their purpose clear, and instead of coming to other lands as those in need of survival they arrive as traders - honest enough a purpose - or as marauders, aggressors, would be empire builders, with swords on horseback or cannons and ships, and sometimes even as spies or worse, stealthy hidden ones who would do much damage as and when they can, by being willing to be used for the purpose, often well trained and single minded in the purpose.

I have met people in India, those that belong to India in every way, not political sort of people at all, and in fact not too happy about having to live in India (ancestors having been forced to migrate over half a century ago at partition, and leave much wealth behind, for sake of saving their lives) but resigned to it as something they cannot help, often very nostalgic about the lands they left behind that grow rosier with years in memory, and inevitably they blame the leaders that did not accept the alternative demands of those who demanded partition, or at the very least disdain the land that they came as refugees to, although that epithet has been long forgotten and was always temporary, and the nations is theirs too. They retain familiarity with the lands they left, the culture and the speech, and consequently these are people who can detect the migrants - though it should be said it is clear to anyone from states along borders who is from which side, by various signs obvious and clear. It is only political opportunists that outright deny this phenomena completely, although by this time it is no longer a question of a few thousand here and there.

A book I picked up and skimmed through in a local book shop, comparatively recent publication, about a "foreigner" (the possibly journalist author) meeting various people and writing very verbatim of the encounters (that was the reason I did not buy - it contained much details of the sort one is put off by, dealing with nether areas); this book specifically mentions authentic information, very casually, about what sort of weapons are already in the country. Missiles included.

There is an unacknowledged proxy war, and winking or closing one's eyes wouldn't make it go away. Nor would killing any innocents, goes without saying.

And meanwhile there is another war, that of the sort carried out in media. There is a persistent denouncing of certain parties and factions, and in fact it is as if very faiths or beliefs or the whole wealth of culture and knowldedge of India is condenmned without trial, by the would-be-western (or at the very least approved by the masters on other shores) sort of remote control driven media.

One wonders why the denounciations lack mentions of a history, of not only riots of those places but of many, many others across the country, and in facts the whole scale and well planned one way massacres that took place in some places since '46 - for, those that would persistently demand an outcry against the two states where it was riots and not massacres never ever mention, or even admit when questioned, the horrors of "action day" in Calcutta in '46 when thousands were butchered with knives, Lahore in '47 when it was repeated with escalation, Delhi in '84 and so forth. The much self congratulatory tabloids that have successfully used hidden cameras to get small fry or really questionable "evidence" against people known for honesty and sincere self dedication in politics have not - ever - stepped across this unmarked boundary and found out about any of these happenings, got any admissions or even dared to question the known perpetrators, or even go after the missing millions in funds that were spoken of in whispers a few decades ago in coffers of known party and people. In fact when those in authority in Soviet Russia recently admitted to giving those bribes for non legitimate purposes the counterparts, those that received the funds on this end stoutly called them liars - and the media let them be, just like that. And as to the generous funds streaming in from elsewhere for whatever purposes (of ultimately wiping out the nation and culture, one way or another - or both) it is as if it is not to be mentioned on par with morning pre bathing rituals.

One wonders why the two said states and the indigenous parties are marked out for denouncing - is it because unlike the other events ('46 Calcutta, '47 Lahore, '84 Delhi) they were not one way massacres begun and finished by perpetrators but instead were riots where those that began them got whipped instead? Would these clamouring for the condemnation rather have seen the two prosperous states wiped out like the World Trade Centre of New York - as indeed the three were symbols of the respective people doing well, and this was intolerable to those that attacked in the first place? WTC was a one way massacre too, of innocents. Was that destiny preferred for the two states for riots, by those that do not mention other far worse happenings of one way massacres by those in power, forget investigative journalism of any sort?

It begins to sound like the few of the many Germans we met (not all) that went on about the allied bombing and destruction of beautiful German cities with old architecture and culture, not to mention the thousands of people that died. They admitted, when we did not respond, that of course their own side had done some bad things too. Then another, a young woman - not so young she would not understand what is what - complained about some Jewish people she met who stopped talking to her when they found out she was German, "even though she was young and was not guilty personally".

The culture of forgiving the guilty and condemning those that fight back or resist being wiped out and massacred - now it is at the level of not only mainstream media but even supposedly personal - whether between complete strangers or supposedly friends - conversations, and it always goes with an insistence on a hurry to condemn (or else one stands to be denounced as "right wing", the words having lost the real meaning) one particular set of people, parties, culture, with no context of similar or worse events or anything else taken into account at all. One wonders if those massacred in holocaust were denounced in the same way, with propaganda carried out for centuries against them relentlessly, for the crime of having produced one man that was worth worship. Certainly the fact that such propaganda was carried out in places of worship came as a shock to us when we heard it - but it was information casually given by another German - a pious one - who was apologetic about the people and the nation and as such mentioned the larger context of how it had gone on across much of central and eastern Europe at the very least, so that the people looked less gullible to criminal behaviour induced by a handful of goons. No, it had been far deeper, inculcated long, and in places of worship too, so the people had received the poison for long before they acted in such stupor and frenzy to commit genocide or condone it.

One wonders if the next target is this nation, this culture, this ancient wealth of a tradition. Any resistance to this wiping out is much cried out against, and any one way massacres are dismissed with talks of forgiveness or an accusatory "why recall that" or worse, a complete rewriting of those as either valid (it was for demand of another nation) or non happenings. So was information about concentration camps dismissed by those that could have saved a few million with a "these people are always wailing" casually while the trains to the the death camps continued. Perhaps the real crime of the present would be indicted is not being wiped out as intended by powers on other shores.

One nation lost wars two millenia ago, and wandered through the world finding refuge temporarily here and there, but with no rights even of buying land much less settling or citizenship - and there are others across the globe, nations and cultures and people, that are slaves in all but official word in their own land occupied by those that call it by other names.

Gandhi won without bloodshed (though the refugees silently angered at this much expressed sentiment, wondering if the blood of their kith and kin was not counted as blood, shed at the time) but even he recognised, openly, that if he were opposed to another sort of regime, the sort British had to fight no matter how much they tried to avoid it, he would certainly not have succeeded with his ways. And it was independence of India that was the goal.

British and French tried to avoid need of war, by making treaties the other had no intention of keeping, and even browbeating Czechoslovakia into submitting to a walkover without a fight. That was a worthy attempt but of course not any sort of rightness about the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia, and yet it did not avoid the horrendous war, since those they were placating had no intention of being placated.

French gave up too soon, and made it difficult for the British, then sole remaining hope for the world and civilisation. US would not have come in except for Japan making a mistake, and the same is true of the other side of the world. One admires the nation that did not give up in face of the huge threat, the possibility of extinction, and fought on with quiet resolve and much suffered in ways of deprivations. Light would be extinguished, perhaps forever, if they had not fought and made treaty at that point instead.

Wars have changed since then and some nations including India, as other nations too lately, know this.

Spare the innocent their lives and peace - and remember the "innocent until proven guilty", which does not mean proven with media propaganda or labeling.

It might be difficult, when it comes to it, to avoid the temptation of making easy sacrifices for one's own safety, which is like offering a lamb, then the dog and then the neighbour's child, to the wolf, hoping that your own would be safe and the wolf might love you by being fed. But the wolf will return for the food you get it used to and your own are only a step away from being eaten with the policy of feeding others' to the wolf.

Sophie's Choice was not easy - but she missed the one option she needed to take, that of not choosing which child she would give up for death in gas chambers, hoping the other would thereby - might, with no guarantees from the mass murderers - be safe. When she chose to give up her daughter in favour of her son, hoping he would live, she took the guilt of the murder forever on herself, in her own heart whether or not in fact.

There is riot, there is massacres - often by rulers - and there is wars conducted without declaration; and there is fighting fire by fire.

And then there is the option for the wise, not to judge when one does not really know all that is necessary to know. Any behaviour otherwise is mob hysteria or jungle rule. Meanwhile, hold on to principles and despise those that act ignobly - and don't make a principle of hatred, either, or targetting easy and soft targets.

Curiously another book I read recently gives a more journalistic background on Gujarat long before these events in one chapter - and since it is by Mark Tully, it should be no problem for anyone to credit it with authenticity. It is called NO Full Stops In India. He does discuss the riots preceding his interview (- they always existed, and the recent last ones that are being clamoured against were neither the worst nor the only ones but had another distinction, of being contained successfully by law enforcers -) with the poor women, and their lives as a whole.

You Never Can Tell; by George Bernard Shaw.

Often when one lets it go, rather than pursue the question, the answer quietly steals into awareness, and so it happened with this play. It took some time to try to remember what this title was related to - I was sure I had read and liked it, but no clue of any sort of a connection to a story from the title in memory. Until suddenly I remembered a play, and I think this is the one.

If I am right this is about the unexpected reconciliation of a family of an emancipated woman who took away her children when the husband - their father - whipping the eldest one, a little girl, was an immediate prospect.

The reconciliation happens when the eldest is a grown up young woman on verge of womanhood who is unsure of herself, and the other daughter a cheeky self confident youngster who has no qualms about putting any adult off balance with her astute observations, which the brother achieves in other ways.

Much hilarity, heartwarming and sometimes a little heartbreaking ensues while the unexpected encounter, subsequent meetings and very carefully arranged reconciliation happens.

For a special Shaw touch, there is the waiter, everyone's beloved confidante, who has a son at the bar.

Come to think of it the name is entirely apt - how could this play have any other name?!! Unless it was something as prosaic and yet uncommon as Sophronia's Family.

Remo - Unarmed and Dangerous; by Warren Murphy, Richard Sapir.

Superlatives are getting common in my reviews, but then often it is those books that deserve it that one is likely to remember, without having made a list or a catalogue for one's own reference, ofter decades of reading them.

This book is about a normal man in US going through abnormal circumstances and being given up for dead, and coming back to another life, quite different from what he is used to, and learning, gaining a whole new life in the process. One learns in terms of mind and attitude along with him, while he is learning with all his facilities.

In that it is far better to read it first and see the film it was written from later, since action in the film or the book is the fruit of the tree of consciousness (with its roots in a whole culture) that is shown here in all it growth with luxurious detail, though the details of the roots - the culture - are sparse and hidden. As roots mostly are.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat & Other Clinical Tales; by Oliver W. Sacks.

This book is written so simply often one forgets it is written by a professional about his clinical experience with his clients and cases.

In fact one might be excused for thinking it was either a hilarious comedy or a tale of torture of a wife, going by the title. I am glad I bought it, and it turned out to be one of the best ones I ever bought - it tells one so much about humanity one does not often get to know.

Apart from the title story, one that stands out in memory is that of the triplet (or twin? it is about two decades since I read it!) brothers who could not only count 111 matchsticks as soon as they fell on the floor accidentally but immediately factor them, and their delight in exchanging higher and higher primes, and the cleverness of Sacks in getting their attention by giving them much larger digit prime numbers to ponder - which he succeeded for a minute while they got the idea and smiled at him in pleasure and then promptly began exchanging far higher digit primes.

Then there was the patient who did not realise he was tilting, and how that was corrected by the doctor with a clever trick or preliminary engineering.

An amazing read for anyone.

No Full Stops in India; by Mark Tully.

It is amusing to see the other side of the dilemma of writers who are straddling two separate cultures and while they belong to one they cannot let go of the other, the more dominant one.

If one reads the writings of Mark Tully one would not suspect ninety nine out of a hundred times that he was not from India, or that he did not belong to India, in fact more than ninety nine times out of hundred - it is probably close to once in a few thousand times that one gets a little clue of the sort.

But often the clue is almost as if was necessary for a card carrying person to prove his membership for some reason other than his heart or mind or spirit, and that is the amusing part.

One reads the Kumbha Melaa chapter (spelling changed here for correct pronounciation for those that are not from India) and one is put off by the strictly "outsider" look he strives to maintain, and one wonders if he would be equally aloof or dispassionate writing about Lourdes or Vatican (that word is too close to Vatika, garden, to be a coincidence; it probably is not one) and so forth, or is it a difference of what attitude one employs towards faith of those that dominate the world and those that do not.

One reads the chapter on cultural exchange, and he is amazingly witty in giving you the precise impression he formed without a word against the fraud going on, the exploitation or the worry about general erosion or danger of loss of a precious tradition of art.

And then in a moment of mentioning a small thing of his feeling he gives away his heart open to the reader that can read between the lines. One knows where his heart, his spirit belongs, all the rest - history and colonial heritage and clubbing and society notwithstanding.

Least one can say about his writing, at least about this one, is that it is easy to read, informative, and brings home the atmosphere as if one is there with him in his stories, going through it all oneself Which is not always pleasant, what with western penchant for going into unpleasant details, often quite unnecessarily.

But then again this is what their style is - I remember German tourists going on and on photographing Harlem before it was cleaned up and our German neighbours doing their best to ridicule and disdain our visit to London ("it is so dirty, it took a week for my daughter to wash off the pollution out of her hair, did you see the Queen?" and so forth).

But, as I said, that is the least one can say. There is much more that one can say about his writing that would be generally favourable, and one could go on praising it to the sky without giving a clue of its worth. It is better to read it than read about it or write about it.

He mentions his early years being spent in India and his sense of belonging carefully, and then refrains from wearing his heart on his sleeve since that would be perhaps considered less than a reasonable attitude, and he is hiding much of it carefully behind an urbane and carefully maintained exterior, lest anyone see his heart, although those that can read have no reason to be fooled.