In an Antique Land; by Amitav Ghosh.

This work is partly autobiographical, describing as it does the writer's green years spent during his social sciences graduation in travels to and living in backwaters of Egypt, with a history of the region and the broader expanse of the region, that is to say, the whole area embracing Indian Ocean and its borders along with northern Africa, which once was the region that held world trade in its palm what with the proximity to two separate parts of the civilised world as it then was - India and Asia across the Indian Ocean and Europe across the Mediterraenean.

Silk Route now being researched was an overland route from China and Mongolia through Central Asia to West Asia to Europe, with a branch routed into India from Central Asia; the Spice Route on the other hand was mostly through shipping from Southeast Asia and India to Arab countries across Indian Ocean and then another shipping across the sea to north to Europe. And Arabic countries spread from Iraq to Algeria and Morrocco were the people that held this trade, migrated throughout the region temporarily or for life or generations in trading, and held the key to the trade of the world in their palms.

European colonisation of other continents with the rise of power of Europe put an end to this trade centred in Arab countries and smaller vessels and multiple trading houses, centralising the trade control in the few powers that used physical power to dominate most of the then known and too lesser known world, bringing a long era of exchange of culture and knowledge along with the trade of goods to an end and seeking to dominate, to impose, Europe's culture and values and world view everywhere.

That this was a success largely and most others if not outright extinguished were driven with attempts at embarrassment at their world, their culture and values is no secret. The fact is this book not only brings it out in description of others that the writer observed in his work for a degree at Oxford, it is brought out in his own reactions to various observations and encounters as well, in only a slightly subtler shade at that.

Few men would be less than outraged when faced with an accusation of sacrificing a wife, for sake of selfish interests of pleasing a boss or a bully, much less sacrificing the remotest possiblity of a life for a mother and that only for sake of gains even from a rich father, an abusive one at that who has been all too known to be responsible for not only abusing the mother of his son into being all but lifeless with consistent and heavy abuse of every possible sort but also blinding one dependent daughter with repeated physical abuse despite her taking care of his own home, and paying for public rape of yet another daughter who has had an escape and a semblance of an independence with consequent hopes of a better life for the rest of the family.

And while such an accusation might be either hotly denied, or even admitted but excused on basis of need of money for the son who consequently denies any help to the women thus abused by his father only so that his father's money is not willed to a cousin or an aunt who might be all to willing to take it away from the family, when the situation is related to not the nuclear family but an extended one, that of homeland, it is an even more easily excused and even usually publicly defended behaviour, since the ruler-subject relationship is now unencumbered by blood, and so is that of the majority of victims vis a vis those of the privileged few who benefit by siding with the rulers.

And while this goes on all the while everywhere - few have the strength to resist the pressure to give in to the demands of the powerful to protect their weak dependents or obligations of honour, and such a giving in is usually painted in convenient terms to be able to live with oneself, although it is obvious to anyone who would take blinkers off and look - it is nowhere more obvious than in the would be of a dominated colonised culture, even an ex-colonised one.

Partition of India into then two (- now three, what with the dissolution of the two piece nation into two separate parts now actively engaged in much terrorism against not only US, UK, other nations of Europe, but also, perhaps even majorly, the nation or part or centre of the once their own one nation, where the people of the two now separated parts nevertheless do migrate to, for economic reasons, by millions -), with one part unwilling to live with the mainstream breaking off, is now remembered by various people in terms other than the terrorism used to empty the two separated parts of the people who flocked as refugees to the central part. While Pakistan proudly proclaims "we took Pakistan with a smile and shall take India with a fight", although it was a bloodbath and not a smile, their eastern part (now Bangladesh) cloaks that same bloodbath as a struggle by the poor Muslims against the rich Hindu who were thrown out without a penny to go leave the then Pakistan, cloaking it in a revolutionary language and falsifying the millions of poor Hindus who were forced to leave as well in the same bloodbath.

And in a twist, the refugees who did leave - those that survived, that is - recall the land they left with great nostalgia and love, preferring to blank out the horrors of being forced to leave. But there is a difference in the longings of refugees that arrived from the two sides, a seemingly small but a rather key difference. Those that arrived from west and northwest prefer to merely go on thinking of their lost homeland with a rosy tint, and disdain the people of the land they now live in (where they have prospered) much as their ex-compatriots do, they do not fool themselves about the realities unveiled during the horrors; while quite often those from east, especially those that were well to do landowning class of yore, are sometimes a more deluded lot, with ascribing of far more blame to the centre for not accepting unilateral terms of a minority and insisting on a regime of democracy, of one-person-one-vote adult franchise.

And moreover they prefer even to overlook the post partition history of the three parts, the fact that much of the time the central part has been a democracy with hardly a two year blip that was defeated with resounding success, while the separated parts that broke away are ever since then not only ruled with a growing religious fanaticism but also with little democracy, and far more often with military dictatorship rule, with huge debts from abroad and far less indigenous enterprise. They merely long for their lost land of water as it was named - Jol Baanglaa - and blame the land where they found survival, with tears for the lost homeland blinding their minds. The delusion they carry is often that of a happy landowning rich life for themselves if only the whole nation were united as a military rule under a religious fanatic minority rule, which clearly is rather unlikely - such a possibility might have far more likely meant the same lack of freedoms and same dictatorship throughout the whole united nation as it has been in the parts separated away.

And in all this the ex colonial mindset of those that can afford to disdain their own and look up to others, ex rulers, helps, immensely, pretty much the way children in US often blame a divorced mother for letting go of or driving away the father - never doubting that the father really loved the kids, he does sometimes visit with a gift or two, never mind he is delinquent on child support and is in fact contesting it in every way possible. Such delusion of children are only possible due to the kind, compassionate mother who braces up to support them with hiding of the facts from them, for if they knew their father couldn't care less their little hearts would break.

And of course there is no penalty for blaming and railing against the mother who breaks herself to keep the child alive and in health and works to educate the children too, just as there is no penalty in blaming and disdaining the homeland that gives refuge and feeds and allows a survival and prosperity, while longing for the lost father or ex colonial ruler or ex homeland that revealed themselves as willing to allow one to perish, or even in massacring for that matter. A mindset of disdain for the mother or the homeland is the least of the possible casualties in the less than open eyed child of the mother or the nation.

Colonisers usually do not give up the attempts to dismember the culture, the values, the very life of an ex-colony when a power shortage forces the dominant to give up the "obligation" to rule and rob, any more than a feudal landlord forced to let go of extensive lands immediately accepts equality with the serfs. The serfs do not lack mind much less hearth or soul, it has merely been physical power that was in short supply which made them serfs.

Hence the theories of revolution, however futile and mistaken in their naivete of assuming it will solve human behaviour. Quest of being seen as not the low serf but in fact as bejewelled and perfumed as the erstwhile feudal lord leads the would be equal-on-their-terms serf to abandon his own, be ashamed of them and their life and history and culture and values, secretly perhaps aware that in this he is aiding and abetting the still continuing domination of colonisers, but unable to turn around and see his way to courage and a better perception.

Thus are the massacred victims forgotten while the guilty are forgiven for a grandiose perception of oneself as the forgiver of the guilty - the dead, the raped, the robbed cannot be helped, and if a man has to heap shame on the helpless or even let them die without lifting a finger to help them, in the process of helping his own upliftment towards a better status, even if it is only that of being acknowledged as being an ex serf that is almost albeit not quite nevertheless gentlefolk, so be it. Most men know this and hence would not name, far less expose, the whole process.

There are some graphic descriptions of human behaviour, with an irony in the lack of cosmopolitan understanding of other cultures in the very people that have a history of trading and migrating especially compared to the far more tolerant and cosmopolitan life in another land that has been far less of a migrating and far more of a self satisfied land and yet a culture that has been able to absorb and learn what is good from all that it came into contact with, through history - although rarely acknowledged much less appreciated for this.

With the description of a six year old surrounded by flames held by a mob intent on burning people taking refuge in one house, one begins to see how a frightened little boy grows up into being uncomfortable with any admission of intimacy with the tradition and culture that might put his life in jeopardy only because he was born in it, all this compounded due to the noble attitude sported by those that could have informed him that the mob and their mindset were plain wrong but instead were at pains to equalise the situations across a border created artificially only due to some people being unable to live with any "other"s.

The boy grew up to sojourn amongst others, in faraway lands, but only uncomfortable and squirming when questioned and pressed to change himself and his people in what they see as different and therefore wrong - never able to turn around and see that if he is unable to or unwilling to change it might just be because there is something of a better value there in more than one term, on more than one level. He instead is livid with those who are not embarrassed as he is with his - their - past, tradition, culture; and so they are the focused objects of his safely unleashed fury, for being not embarrassed about the very culture he is facing barrage of accusations and embarrassing queries about.

The writer performs a valuable service in describing the history - the lost and forgotten part - and the geography of the regions he is visiting in the quest of certain facts discovered during research through ancient papers for his graduation work. This wealth of ancient papers is yet another gift of a Judaic tradition that survived within the Arabic fold and kept knowledge alive for posterity while libraries were burned in Europe and knowledge persecuted with a distortion and subversion of values and the very meanings of words. And so the papers of Geniza of Cairo join the far more famous works made famous by Dan Brown, for example.

One small mistake, not really small but it is about one word and the difference of concepts that encompass the meanings in two different cultures, is that of translation really. The writer perhaps in tandem with convention translates as slave a word, perhaps two words in two separate languages and cultures, that in fact in one amount to merely worker and servant, not a bought-like-animal human. He does go on to clear the several interpretations of the word in the other language and culture which in fact did have slavery, while fails to clear up one that in its own history never did.

One fact the writer points at through much of the book and never explicitly draws the conclusion or mentions the connection in words, is about the loss of trade, a primary source of the wealth (- perhaps the only source until oil which kept the wealth in chosen few hands rather than the shipping trade which allowed many to rise according to talent and opportunity and courage -) and livelihood of many in the lands from west Asia to northwest Africa, on one hand; and the tremendous rise in animosity from the regions that lost this livelihood for many and poor to the rich powers of Europe (including the colonies settled from Europe that today do not count as colonies but have their natives wiped out or penned in corners or pushed into bonded labour or serf levels) resulting in what the dominating world view sees as a big surprise, the acts of inhuman sort against what the dominating powers construe as their own benevolence.

That this is akin to the French or Russian revolution on a world scale is too frightening to perceive, perhaps. But every time that there is more wealth for few due to better machines - whether with tractors in Punjab or Suez and better ships from Europe or even the mostly forgotten poor of Ireland, Scotland and even England that were forced to migrate to Australia or Canada in an effort to get rid of them so the land could be consolidated in a few hands - there are millions disfranchised, youth with no employment for present and no hope for the future, and on the whole a ripe situation fertile for fomenting such horrors as we see around the world.

Which is not to say progress should be halted in favour of poor although fact is progress IS often - very very often - halted in favour of rich profiting from status quo (green tech including solar power comes to mind, as does the lack of public transport across US, or the lack of a healthcare system in the rich nation with laws favouring profit over life in surprising ways including arrests of poor old people buying medicine from Canada where it is cheaper - whither free trade, whither individual rights and freedoms, whither indeed right to life?!!!!). It is rather to say, it is time to perhaps see really what progress is, what better values are, by an open eyed examination of perceived notions handed down from dominant.

It would be amusing, if it were not horrifying, as one begins to perceive that (with no mention of bathing) cliterodectomy, along with circumcision and shaving of all areas, is equated with cleanliness and in fact with purity, and anyone in the world is considered impure if not purified with the required surgical procedure (carried out in women's cases by female relatives, likely, not professionals, but those details are not given). Such dangerous and pointless practices stemming from baseless superstitions or a denial of pleasure of any sort to the gender considered slave have been exposed as regards to African culture, but not west Asian or north African.

It must be said, though, that women and girls don't seem to be living in fear as described by the writer, or tortured or even cowering or hapless - they are in fact living with a balance of power of sort, with merriment often even at expense of males, and some power too, including that of telling off as and when they see fit, and even leaving a husband and living apart. The incidents where the writer or the little boy are subjected to ridicule, or where it dawns on the writer that the flirtation with - or rather the torture of - the little boy was, in fact, open stealing of straw from his fields by the girls amusing themselves in the bargain.

The writer takes us through his discomfort, embarrassment, and finally an inarticulate rage as he is questioned on and on repeatedly by everyone almost on these and instructed to go back to his country and educate them into following practices that the locals consider "pure", and stop being impure; all this even as he time and again is invited to eat in intimate family settings with friendly and more welcome by the same people, while they eat from one plate (the writer keeps calling them trays, but that merely means they are large metal platters on which food is served directly unless it is fluid in which case presumably the container is one large bowl for everyone to dip into) however large as a family - or two, separating along gender lines - and including any guests and this is considered perfectly clean and hygienic.

The story is as often with this writer in two strands that alternate, one of his own research and living in or travelling to Egypt, India and US while the other is the subject of his research, a story of a merchant from northern Africa who traveled to Egypt, Aden, and India, spending several years there, being married, and arriving back in Aden with his children to then reconnect with his people.

Towards the end there is a sudden shock, even amongst the war one knows is looming around the region he revisits - more than one shock actually. One learns that Egyptian poor farmers and villagers have been travelling to Iraq for work for better money, are treated quite badly there and suffer it silently so they can send money home (same people, Arabic culture, same language, and religion too, one professing equality and brotherhood at that - so this comes as a surprise, that Iraq people were far from nice to Egyptians who were working there for several years); and this is from people, not officials either. Which is all the more shocking. Excellent exposé of economic world politic in the process too.

And then the final shock is of the writer being treated like a criminal for a wish to visit a famous and much worshipped saint's grave, grilled about why he would so wish, not allowed to visit it, questioned about if he is Jewish or Muslim or Christian (which he denies, puzzling them completely, but is unable to say what he is, perhaps puzzling them even more thereby) and then told to leave pronto. All the friendly life he had in Egypt is thereby sort of sullied, although he does not say so and goes on to try and keep in touch. One learns through his efforts that some of the characters have been able to return to safety of home before the gulf war of '90 began, and others are not known whereabouts of.

World indeed comprises of cultures and people that are poles apart although nobody in fact or hardly anyone even today lives at a pole, and certainly it is unlikely any culture arrived from the poles.

Indira Gandhi : an intimate biography; by Pupul Jayakar.

There could hardly be a more definitive and closer look at the life of this woman who lived life almost on world stage and yet was mostly a mystery to most people - this book is by one of the few people in her intimate circle, a friend from childhood years. As such she was a rare person who could ask Indira Gandhi why she took this decision or that, within the limits of decency and civil interaction between friends who care about one another, and get answers too. There are some answers surprisingly admission of sort one does not expect, and in circumstances changed hugely since they are all the more precious as they provide an insight into the lonely person that this strong leader of a democracy with almost a billion people as it then was (since then the billion mark has been crossed and well over), a nation she turned from a laughingstock to one to be reckoned with, or a beginning thereof, with some help from above.

Daughter of the most beloved leader of the nation, and yet so lonely in her childhood in the aristocratic setting of the wealthy family that doted on its only son her father who in turn wrote the famous letters to her from his jail sojourn what with the British throwing these guys in and out of jail like so much shifting of grain in a mill. Her ailing mother who approved of her choice of a life partner to take care of the only daughter after her as the father was busy with the nation, the daughter who valiantly turned herself into a helping hand for the father and a formidable leader after him, the admission of her weakness when her one widowed daughter in law was thrown out of the household as soon as the other was brought in when the now aging leader needed her one remaining son to be with her, and more, much more.

I read this well over a decade ago, and what with the history of the nation being that of certain parties quietly wiping off records from various places - a censored film that had its prints burnt during the infamous emergency comes to mind as too another where the dialogues were changed to suit the perception commonly held and the image considered desirable - perhaps the admission of weakness might now have been censored or will be so. Hope not, in the interest of the democracy and truth.

Gone with the Wind; by Margaret Mitchell.

Often people mistake characters for the actors that play them in a film, and just as often people judge them in light of their prejudices never apparent in spite of all progress of society and attempted enlightenment. It is amusing to notice the reactions of a hoard to a successful woman who was unfortunate in love, while they might claim to worship virtues that are held up nominally but practiced rarely. Hypocrisy and manipulation however do not come naturally to everyone, and one that is clear of those is seen with hatred by most who use the normal social tools.

Gone With The Wind is a part of US history, of the years around the civil war of US, and it gives a great deal of information about the era in an intimate way to those that are not from that part of the world.

Again, on an intimate level it is also about a woman who was very capable and independant in her mind before such ideas existed in that society - it does not mean not marrying or not loving, but knowing your own mind and will and being capable of supporting a family and a clan when necessary, in the direst of circumstances, through one's honest work.

For all the heroic qualities the heroine gets only brickbats, except from the other heroine - whose genre is quiet loving and a "thin blade of steel flashing" within, and supporting those people and those causes she believes in; - even the man who supported the strong, stubborn but a bit blind when it came to perception of people heroine, is not wise enough or strong enough to understand her or to be patient enough.

He is of course much supported and forgiven his flaws and misdeeds by all - while she receives almost universally bad sentiments from the people then and readers or viewers now. Little has changed in perception and gap of treatment in the century and half past.

It was only the writer who immortalised her heroine, who was based on someone real. The story was written as a way to relate to her husband the story of an era and a persona she had always heard spoken of as she grew up.

Strangely this is one of the convincing arguments against arranged or well thought out matchmaking for marriages when up against a love especially when both persons involved feel it. Thinking over the whole course of events it becomes somehow clear that if only Ashley had the wisdom, the courage to admit his love for Scarlett, if only they had married, Scarlett would be an adoring wife never stepping below the normally universally demanded standard of behaviour from "ladies" (which in fact she did not in action ever but was indicted just as universally for loving someone with a steadfast heart and going on with her life with marriages and children anyway, rather than living as an unwanted unmarried heartbroken woman pining for her lover who in fact loved her and desired her!), - much less looking elsewhere or a life that scandalised society in any way. A respectably married woman who does not care two hoots for company of another man is forgiven every other scandalous behaviour including the wet petticoats a la Grandma Robillard and Scarlett was not feminine enough to indulge in any of it, deep within she was more of man with a mind, a strong mind.

One wonders sometimes if then Rhett might have married Melanie, since he did always have respect and concern for her, and in this the two men are very alike, except that Rhett understood Scarlett - as a child who is willful and stubborn and crying for the moon - pretty much as her own father Gerald O'Hara did, and loved her for everything including her indomitable courage in face of every impossible adversity. Rhett was more Gerald's age or at any rate that of Ellen Robillard O'Hara, perhaps even older to her, anyway. And there have been some suspicions about Melanie's visit consoling him after the death of his daughter, which one suspects the writer had a toungue in cheek about, leaving the scenario the way she did.

All such speculations would hold water if the writer had not been so emphatic about her characrters, and explicit about every little detail. Thus one is told firmly that Melanie in fact was too timid and scared to death of anything male, especially virile robust males such as Gerald, and Rhett until he befriends her with respect and concern inspiring confidence in her, and that she sees him as a brother and says so. And if Melanie said so that is what she thought - neither of the two women are hypocritical when it comes to it, except in silence for sake of courtesy socially unless it is made desirable to break it or impossible to keep it.

Life would be very convenient if everyone loved those that make a good match, and understood that anything else was folly - but hearts don't do acccount books of life and have an instinct superior to mind often. Following heart takes more courage than some people have. Men ought to have courage in theory, but in this realm it is women who are wiser, with more courage to boot.

Why did Scarlett make marriages in cold blood is easily explained by the various discourses in the book if indeed it is a mystery in a system where a male might court anyone he wishes and a woman must hold her tongue and her whole self in check and respond only when asked, and accept one when suitable. Love as experienced by Scarlett's warm heart is a torture, and weary load to carry on her frail shoulders, and moreover an excuse for the hypocrites and the fortunate and the cold hearted to stone a loving hearted woman with impunity.

But there is more. Her mother, the aristocratic very proper Ellen O'Hara, loved just as impetuously and stormily and unfortunately at the same age, and married the first man she found suitable when she lost her love due to her family's interference. She was perhaps more fortunate in that her loved one died - which is when she married Gerald O'Hara, who had selected her after careful scrutiny of all possible eligible candidates. Gerald was in awe of his wife, and loved her, but while she was entirely proper and honourable in her life she also was a woman with her heart in the grave with her dead loved one, and cold.

With that perspective it is easy to see that what Scarlett knew about love was a little from her father and the rest from her own heart, with no example set for her. And in that perspective her entire conduct is more than noble, more than honourable. She is willing to give the promises her love asks - which is to take care of his wife, and the baby - and more. She is willing to labour and toil like a field hand when necessary to feed her own, never asking for help from others such as the O'Hara uncles or the Robillard aunts. In fact she sends them money knowing they have little to live on, money she earns with her own toil and risks she takes in the process in Atlanta.

As for her husbands, two out of three die before they know her heart was elsewhere and she married them for reasons other than falling in love. Which is fortunate for the first one, who never loved his fixed cousin and married Scarlett because he was in love with her and dazzlingly happy to think she loved him too. He died with this love, instead of a drab existence he had until then, and hence a fortunate man. As for the second husband, he was courting a younger woman and she was not in love with him either, except there seems to have been no one else from a neighbourhood full of young males courting Suellen O'Hara, who couldn't possibly have been so unattractive as all that - she was the younger sister of the same parents who gave birth to Scarlett and Carreen the fragile blossom beauty.

Frank married Scarlett the moment he thought she loved him, indeed he forgot about Suellen even in the first Twelve Oaks scene when Scarlett smiled at him and spent the barbecue vying with half a dozen other - much younger, strapping full blooded southern - males, bringing food for Scarlett. And he was happy enough - there are much worse mariages than his with Scarlett, with women who never have never experienced love and are far less attractive at that, and expect their husbands to provide for all their needs and luxuries too, unlike a Scarlett who worked hard to make her people secure so they never go hungry again.

As for Rhett, the never marrying man who fell in love and met his Waterloo in her and married her because he finally couldn't get her in any other way - he was about twice the age of the young woman (at her age most women of her class today are still dealing with various pleasures of life and not committed much less required to toil and fear starvation or being without a roof) and should have had the patience and understanding not to speak honesty. Having been the catalyst for her exclusion from society, the least he could have done is to reestablish her when he did so himself for his daughter. That he could not see her heart, concealed by her pride and her fear of his sarcasm, was his deficiency.

The film suffered not only from necessity of being shorter than required to show so huge a canvas of a story, dealing with generations and families from Ireland and France to beginning of Georgia and Atlanta and civil war, but also from biased direction and screenplay, and poor casting except for that of Scarlett O'Hara. Beautiful Olivia de Havilland was far from the timid and plain Melanie afraid of males (- Audrey Hepburn could have done far superior a job of portraying Melanie, if the film had not come at a time when she and Anne Frank alike were part of the victims of the war going on in Europe and the occupation of their country by the brutal), Rhett really ought to have been someone far more like Cary Grant - and as for Ashley the dreamy love, he is a blond noble beautiful dreamy thinker, and only Gregory Peck would do except for the blond bit which is a must. Mitchell's descriptions leave no room for a doubt or a different interpretation, and I don't know if there is any performer that would suit to play Ashley.

The Circle of Reason; by Amitav Ghosh.

An early work of the writer, this has a flavour of the literature of Bengal where the author originates from, with the first part reminiscent of the works of many great authors of the land in its style, language and even in the humour, the imagery and the motivation of the characters, the conflicts. Tarashankar Bandopadhyaya, Bimal Mitra, one is reminded of a whole sea of literature behind this that is the heritage of a rich culture, as one reads the first part. The second part is reminiscent of One Hundred Years Of Solitude in its silent ominous extinction of the people, and the nameless, faceless Oilmen and the power that employes them, with a little flavour also of Rushdie's Midnight's Children.

Named Circle of Reason, it is no circle of any kind at all, even in the broadest sense possible, but really a curve fitted to three hillocks of events across planes and valleys of thought and people and cultures across two huge continents, events that illustrate the philosophy and concepts for the writer. The journey depicted is hardly a circle, it is not even closed at any level be it conceptual or geographical - he travels from Reason to Passion to Death while moving from rural and capital scenario of Bengal to northern shores of Indian Ocean at Al Ghezhira to coasts of Africa, ending across from Gibraltar after the last episode at an Algiers small town.

The first part goes on about phrenology, and one is puzzled - isn't that the theory that was turned into a basis of a huge genocide less than a century ago? Then as it goes on one cannot help but begin to chuckle inward, and much of the first part stays at that level of beginning to perceive the characters and the philosophies and motives while the chuckling continues sporadically, never rising to a laughter but always bringing comfort. One begins to understand that it had to be phrenology, since Bose is a follower of Reason and fan of Pasteur and hence could hardly go with a normal human face reading that most people do subconsciously, much less the more evolved palmistry or astrology that the education he had made him deprecating or downright denouncing of, and phrenology provides a semblance of reason being pseudo scientific. It does not stop one chuckling, though.

As usual the author provides a great deal of information across time and borders of geography, with the not so widely known connection between today's computers and the evolution thereof, and the connection with ancient weavers of India and their craft, expertise, art of creation of finest weaves, cotton and silk both. It is a wonder, the connection of reason with creation of art, art that is not merely bought for ridiculously high price to hang or lie about the house just to score against someone or show off but is a direct use and pleasure and wonder for millions for millennia.

The connection has always been there, of course, or there would be no progress or evolution of human history in either field, physical need being supreme and reason merely a nuisance taking time away from needs for useless philosophising - but now the connection is often unperceived and an artificial division of the two is seen wherein often people feel justified in claiming their education was of no use whatsoever, that is, unless they are in medical or legal fields professionally in US, making money far more than minting would enable them. (In other countries and cultures of course no such disconnection or uselessness is claimed as far as education goes, and one wonders if it is merely a case of ingratitude for the free education with opportunity for all that brings such attitudes into fashion.)

But progress is never unopposed and nor is reason or higher faculties of humanity, and here too there is the landlord (literally that is the meaning of his name as well, in another bit of humour) who is more about political power and cares for progress or education only in so much as it serves his purpose. In a conflict reason literally explodes killing all but the young new expert of weaving forced to flee across the land and ocean to another country in search of a safe life.

This, the Lalpukur revolution that is basically benefic, yet ending up in tragedy, is perhaps an eternal tale where good motives do not succeed without power behind them - and when power comes in there has to be care about its taking over and burying reason and truth trampled underfoot, which can happen with power on reason's side just as well as opposite.

The second part, passion, takes one to Al Ghazeira, somewhere on the north shore of what is named Arabian Sea but really is one of the two northern ends of Indian Ocean - the other being just as named Bay of Bengal but the two really being similar in size and practically mirror images for all that.

Here one sees humanity from many parts of world arriving in search of a livelihood, living together and adjusting to the land and one another, in harmony until the nameless and ominous Oilmen finally are successful in taking over - not without a gunning down and wiping out of a whole populace wrongly - perhaps deliberately - labeled suitably for the purpose as troublemakers, revolutionaries, whatever.

In reality there was a small, peaceful revolution, tremendous in impact on thought and behaviour but with no violence, on the contrary, in the making before the ambush and the wipeout. The weaver had thought during being trapped under a huge collapsed building, and come out and begun to speak what he thought; and as strange as it seems to the reader if not understood those listening to him did understand perfectly, and begun to organise around his words, his now nonstop weaving. (There is a bit of allegory here, with Gandhi's spinning of a century ago made a crucial factor of his entirely too real revolution in defeating a wealthy and powerful empire into walking out albeit after much loot over the centuries they ruled, which stays unaccounted for including the jewels exhibited in the tower of London.) The people thus able to see his point organise their society with balanced and perfectly accounted books replacing money transactions within the neighbourhood, much like a bank and co-operative organising the social structure akin to a family's, with the effect that the people's energies are freed to achieve more and the money is saved for everyone to be able to do more.

And all this flowering of a neighbourhood to a better life is destroyed while still in the bud by a misguided attempt of an erstwhile information trader who is as overwhelmed by the happening as others, only unable to give up his older trade and ideas, and thus is not only caught and brought to death (with his own employee profiting by informing on him and inheriting his whole property after his death against his will, too) but jeopardises the whole movement, every innocent one out for an outing for shopping, and much killing in the process. The weaver is saved ironically by the mother figure who has not been enamoured of his talk, of the money-and-germs connection, into giving up her savings for accounting into a book - the accounts are entirely honestly and meticulously kept, this is not communism - and uses them to hire space on a boat to take them away to safety.

The third named death is in Algeria after a harrowing travel across the Indian Ocean's northern ports along Africa and then into Mediterraenean, with a glowing description of sand dunes of the border of Sahara where the story takes one. Here the confrontation is finally between dry theoretic reason attempting to destroy all heritage of millennia and unscroupulously clawing for power - since reason can always be employed to achieve justification of all if other bases of mind and heart and more are let go or destroyed - on one hand, and a humanitarian ideal tempering and finally rebelling against this dry movement of reason on the other. The humanitarian ideal wins, even in death, and frees the living to proceed to live with hope, looking north to another continent or west to another ocean, or back to home.

One could wish the writer would overcome his temptation for the slightly or more than slightly disgusting details of life's necessities and realities - what sharks are gathering around a small ship for, for instance, so an accidental unfortunate falling out of an unfortunate man results in others helplessly watching him eaten alive even as he pleads for help - but if one reads this writer one comes to expect some such details of one nature or another. In later works the scatological, prevalent here a la British taste in humour, gives way to equally shoddy details of what is supposed to be titillating, and it begins to seem as if it is a concession he makes on demand of the publisher and prodding by his editors just to shut them up, since everyone is afraid lack of such concessions might result in lesser profits.

It is interesting in the final part to have a merest whiff of history of Algeria, whetting one's curiosity and appetite for more, and to see one beleaguered ex-colonial now free culture make concessions to another, in humanitarian terms.