And Thereby Hangs A Tale; by Jeffrey Archer.

This would be a delightful book of short stories (- and they are not only delightful but also quite short, suitable for the person who began a whole discussion on the site asking for good literature that was "not wordy" -) but for the faux pas towards the end when in two separate stories Archer mixes up names heedless of the very separate places or people they belong to, something akin to say mention of a Champs Elysée in Washington D.C. or a Vladimir Carnegie running for senator in Texas; the only reason he does not think twice about this stupid set of mistakes is that it involves communities his set thinks quite mistakenly as their past owned people and nations they think they created - which in one instance they did, too, in one of the two cases; which by now they ought to repent with all theirs. Unless they are still in the bushy mindset or mode of pretending instead of thinking, seeing, realising.

A name like Vladimir Carnegie might survive in US albeit with a good many jeers in school and a suitable change effectively shielding the poor bloke in college; it won't win a senatorship from Texas, certainly; but the equivalent stupid mistake of a name could get the guy murdered or worse in the country in fact created by Archer's nation, and in the more ancient land he might survive if no fatwa is taken out against him. That name could only live without danger in Mongolia, in fact.

Why all this fuss is due to a clear indication that such carelessness of anyone of the ex ruler nation involves a deeply ingrained racism and an assumption, an attitude that takes it for granted that this is of no consequence, and not only the nations he respects more but also those that he made a mistake of names related to won't result in consequences for him, not even a loss of possible remuneration - and yet he has spoken out appreciating his over a million fans in the country (which amounts to a million books sold in a poor country which translates into a readership of several times that many).

In short when one is sure no one shall whack one where it hurts one is free to make stupid mistakes. And in fact he is in all probability quite certain no one will take it seriously, since an ex ruled population is likely to go overboard appreciating he is taking notice of them at all.

No one is as surprised as a despot thrown off the throne when finally asked to begin to pay up for the atrocities, at that.

There are other inexplicable mistakes - for instance one would think a fence would know not to deceive a Belmarsh inmate for a couple of years of relative freedom, and such others.

Still - something one may use very well to pass time in, say, waiting for a plane or a doctor's appointment or whatever.

2 States: The Story of My Marriage; by Chetan Bhagat.

The writer is certainly better with light and glib, but the glib is detrimental to the deep and profound he ends up trivialising with his incurable love of smart soundbytes - and yet he won't give up trivialising the things he ought to stay away from in his sort of writings. (Gita Mehta did far better in her Karma Kola by not not giving in to the temptation of making this mistake and retaining some integrity, and ending up with her work making her look mysterious and more knowldedgeable. Which she might very well have been or be.)



Still, if one manages to ignore the puzzlingly wrong details in the descriptions of real places and people in one or two spots he has done well with this one, far better than with other three. And this time it is a certainty to have this work translate to a dozen or so films in various languages in India not to mention some NRI filmmaker stepping in, buying rights and making a hash of it a la "Namesake" by mistakes about the society they are now away from and glib generalisations, but then they might pay better for the rights.

Then again the whole theme, the details, the story is so very general the rights don't mean much in this case and the dozen Indian films in various languages can still be made with no legal hassles by changing a detail here or there. The story of inter-community weddings and social differences today is nothing new or unique, with great fluidity of youth between metropolises of work far away from the root towns or cities, and a medium good scriptwriter can take a cue and make an excellent job of writing a good one.

Will the Iron Fence Save a Tree Hollowed by Termites? ; Defence Imperatives Beyond the Military; by Arun Shourie

Essential defense concerns, a priori, of a country that has looked at others, including violators of her security, for justification of her concerns, a legacy of colonial past that needs to be thrown over to begin a true independent existence and to protect the nation. But this book is about is far more.

Rare is the courage to go to the root cause of various ideologies that aim to take over the whole world by any means possible, and won't rest until the domination is total. For this totality is never achieved - even within nations and societies adhering to those ideologies and aims, again and again various independent minds or streams of thought must be wiped out by the dominant ones, as witnessed in various such societies and nations through history until now, as explained by Zbiegniew Brezinski in his Permanent Purge, whether inquisition and persecution of other sects and their adherents by Rome, or Soviet purges and murder of Trotsky, or SA massacre by SS, or today various zealots of different names of ideologies including but not limited to fanatic Islam, attempting to do the same in various parts of the world.

The point is their justification in their own eyes is deep rooted in the very "book" they adhere to, with no other options allowed as a possibility. Hence a tolerance or a democracy or a secular setup where "other" possibilities are allowed, is by the very tenets of their creed to be converted or wiped out, both actions being of equal merit in their creed. Taking over the world is part of the aim, death no deterrent.

And the three explicitly named enemies are US, Israel and India. Today UK is probably added to the list as well, or west Europe too. There have been more events orchestrated since the book was published.

As everyone is aware by now, the irony is that the democracies and the law abiding societies with freedom are being attacked by copious and precise use of the very freedom that success of these fanatics will finish from the world. The secular is twisted to feel guilty about identification of an ideology that leads to terror as a means and an end, the free media are manipulated into lines or bytes to suit them by propaganda that is eventually discovered as such but long after the damage is done (and no headlines about the discovery of falsehood then, unlike the baying packs shouting about the terror agenda) and the courts of law are all too easy to manipulate too one way or another.

The three nations so identified in the terror agenda deal with it very differently and the most in danger is India, by far. But as an Israeli woman put it succinctly, "Israel is the canary in the mine"; and offering someone else's children to the rottweiler won't stop it from one day taking yours, it merely whets the appetite and the moral certitude of the rottweiler to its rights to yours.