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.

Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy; by Peter Schweizer.

Seems to consist mostly of pointing fingers at various public figures that are not republican, and saying "look who has stock (or money or property)".

The said figures are the targets because they dare to speak in a different voice on behalf of what might be good for the people who are not major stockholders or property owners, and the danger is it might come to pass if more people heard this.

It might not be possible to have another affairgate, and some way of throwing sand about to create a storm and make people shield their eyes had to be found.
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It might be informative to read of some of the details, and even disheartening, to find out about various public figures who tried to do good for people and spoke out on behalf of them, to find out that White water consisted of middle class and poor getting a raw deal bordering on cheating and Pelosi owns expensive resorts with no one allowed to join unions, to find out how Soros played with economies of various nations and how Streisand does not pay happy wages. To find how few of them employ any minorities, any other races or cultures, or even women.

But only if one thinks that this book gives all the information there is to give on any of those, with no context spared, and no mitigating circumstance left out.

Let us give benefit of doubt and say the writer is sincere, and not merely throwing mud at people who are likely to be good for the people of US who are not the top rich people.

But then one looks at his conclusions towards the end and sees the agenda clearly. Their practices are completely right and justified while it is their thinking and speaking and general public stance that is wrong, he states emphatically. They employ only "white" males because they want the best, and he does not blame them, he concludes.

To begin with humans are not, ever, "white" - except as an exaggeration or a euphemism. Cows, dogs, cats, horses, various birds and flowers are or can be white, but no human ever looked naked while wearing white clothes, of any shape or size. If there were such a risk no white clothing would be allowed in public much less formal occasions.

That aside, to conclude that employment of males of a certain origin implies that they are the best, is to go with a logic much like rich making money because they are rich - by being given positions and higher pay packets and market tips and club memberships where real deals are struck and expensive gifts worth millions that they don't need.

Or one could conclude that any conqueror was always right, which is why the attack succeded - whether Attila the Hun or any of those that managed to attack various western nations, including their own parts.

Shocking? Yes, it is - and so it is to conclude that "white" males get all the well paid jobs only because they and no one else is good enough.

The real agenda of the writer is not even for the men and women who can do it, as it was of Ayn Rand, but it is of rich white men ruling because they according to the writer are the only competent ones.
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If such conclusions along his logic were warranted, let us see where it can take us.

Schweitzer says that people who speak for the poor and against malpractices of stocks and business should not indulge in stock. If they do, it is because their practices are good and their speeches are fraud.

Would he say Roman church consisting of bishops indulging in paedophilia and other unsavoury activities amounts to their theory being no good and paedophilia being good?

He says Streisand and others lobbying for fair pay and hours are fraud because they do not practice it. And he further says this proves their theory is wrong, since they cannot live it.

Would he admit that any male MD or otherwise medical professional practicing in ob-gyn is deficient in knowledge by definition, since they their professional activities have nothing to do with their own personal experiences? Would he condemn them for fraud?

Would a lawyer be fraudulent in practicing defense or prosecution of murder accused without having experienced murder? Should an actor die in process of portrayal of death?

According to his logic, no male, much less a celebate institution, should have any right to say a word about pregnancy or anything related to it.

In fact no celebate person should have anything to do with a marriage, much less proclaim rights and wrongs of one, or performing the ceremony.
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That was a few of the natural conclusions arising from stretching the logic of his concluding chapter and applying it to other fields of life where it might make more sense, such as male ob-gyn or celebate males dictating rules of marriage and reproduction.

He could just as easily have left it at a more natural conclusion, which is that while these people preach much lofty sounding stuff they practice another. But that had the danger of people merely holding them on par with the fallen bishops who have after all not all been automatically ex-communicated.

In fact one parallel with his logic and conclusion about practice of left wing being better than their theory applied to the paedophile bishops would be to say that it is priesthood that is wrong while porn and paedophilia is the only right thing to do. Shocking, right? But it is his logic and his conclusion, only shifted from those who speak for people and do not practice their theory in their life in perfection, to those who uphold celebacy of their own as superior to others while practicing otherwise in private and preaching compulsory childbearing to all married people and almost all women.
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He goes into another plane of vitriol when dealing with Steinem, and wishes to know what she expected to find at playboy if not sexism.

Fact is the said sexism was not only about women prancing about in impossible, silly, unhealthy gear for fancy of well fed males - that much is visible from outside the building for any decent person to be disgusted with.

Her working there for investigative jounalism was on one level about exposing how little the pay and how tough the work, unlike the advertisements about fun and glamour and good pay, and how discriminatory the employers towards the women employed compared to male employees, in various terms.

On another level it is about making those women seem less objects and more human to the casually dismissive Schweitzers of this world if possible, by telling their story, even if through one person.

One might as well question Memoirs of a Geisha or indeed all literature with the same Schweitzer question of "what did they expect" of anyone in trouble. One might question what a woman "expected" if her husband murdered her or if her brand new date raped and butchered her. One does not, because one expects more humanity from humanity.
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He mentions about women who did not marry due to listening to Steinem and are now left alone and forgotten. He blames it on her.

But isn't the idea in west that one marries for love, that love is all, that one should not marry except for love no matter what?

If those women had found love they would have never been alone, married or not; and if they did marry what guarantee did Schweitzer have that they were not divorced, left alone and forgotten after a few or even many years of a marriage? Has it not been happening in his culture, his nation? All too frequently, at that?

His words blaming Steinem indeed belie the notion that west marries for and only for love. While they do not have a system that takes care of a woman finding a home, a husband, security, and is not "left alone and forgotten", they also do not have any social system that would guarantee an equal opportunity to them of a life otherwise, whether socially or professionally. So they are left at the mercy of men who might or might not offer marriage and there are the Schweitzers of the world to blame them for letting go of "opportunities of marriage", in a twisted logic that forgets conveniently about love in blaming the women in every way.

Is love merely a convenient word for the husband of a few or several years divorcing the older wife for a younger toy trophy?

Or is it all just blame the women, blame even more the women who speak - and denounce marriages of any other cultures because they work, with no control by Schweitzer's capitalist system?
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Schweitzer would be doing fine if only he refrained from commenting or drawing conclusions, if he merely documented the gaps between practice and speech by various public figures, and it might help if he were not discriminatory in picking on the Streisands and Clintons and Steinems and so forth while leaving alone the paedophile bishops of Roman faith and other goons on the side he claims is honest if thugs.

The Longest Day; by Cornelius Ryan.

It needs to be kept as a book on shelf to read more than once - one might read it, and see the film, and yet the the overwhelming character of the subject along with the exhuasting detailed research and writing leaves one submerged. One is glad to raise one's eyes and see one is not actually there, fighting for life and death for oneself as well as the human civilisation, and silently thanks those that did it before we came.

Where did you go? Out What did you do? Nothing; by Smith Robert Paul,

A very endearing reminder of yesteryear that we remember, of days before cheap or expensive toys of recent times that fill houses and leave little for the child's imagination - the role taken up at a later date today by other commercially provided occupations, such as malls, unlike those years when people had time and more basic, natural, imaginative ways.

Feynman played with radios then and had his scientific questioning mind kept sharp and fresh, Asimov read, others wrote poetry, and so on.

Perhaps today the internet has replaced the neighbourhoods as meeting places and it is once again a space of mind for people to explore. Still, the years of when one could do infinitely many things with spools (who has now heard of them, in more consumeristic nations?)are past. Not all that good.

The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography; by Simon Singh.

It is rare one comes across a book of this calibre written for lay readers, so very informative and so good in its level of intelligence that borders on testing.

In discussing codes he goes into history and discusses various codes used historically until one reaches Enigma and realises why it was so prized as to have British intelligence and government risk loss of many lives rather than allow the enemy to suspect that they had in fact cracked it or obtained a key, a variation of each having happened during the war.

Then there is the part about Elizabeth I obtaining incontrovertible proof of Mary, Queen of Scots involving herself in plots to murder her and subsequently the ordering of execution of the latter of necessity, unlike the popular misconceptions about the reasons.

A must read for anyone even remotely interested in any topic touching - whether practical application today or historical significance or simply an intellectual challenge. ”

The Guide: A Novel; by R. K. Narayan.

He was a tourist guide who happened to be a resident of a town close to a cave complex in mountains nearby, with amazing paintings and sculptures, and his street smartness in acquiring a smattering of all languages possible that he might need so he can conduct tours with commentary in the language his clients require (and this is no joke, often people in India who look poor and illiterate do have this amazing achievement as one of their many, the ability with well over a dozen languages or even more acquired with enough vocabulary to take care of whatever few conversations they might need to have with clients) has made a comfortable living for him. Until she arrives in town.

She was a danceuse by not only training since childhood but also from ancestral profession over generations of women who were artists and performers. Her mother, however, did not wish that life for the daughter and got her married to the best candidate she could find so she could have a respectable life, unlike her ancestors.

But art was in her very blood, and the life that required her to wait for the staid husband - an archeologist busy with his research - had her desperate with boredom.

This is the story of the two, who met and it changed their lives. He helped her leave the husband and go back to her art while he promoted her in a profession to its pinnacles. Only, she couldn't care less for the fame and money she commanded - and his double role as her manager and her lover was demeaning in both by being both. She is just as bored with his "connections" that are after all due to her, and she would rather spend time with poor artists he cannot comprehend her wanting to be with.

A fateful moment, a mistake of a decision to hide from her the book and the jewellery sent by her husband - in fear she might melt and go back to him - lands him in jail for fraud, for the signature that is not hers and is easily so recognised by the husband.

When out finally he does not know where he could go to show his face with dignity, the mother who left him due to the bad woman ow the woman who did not testify on his behalf so he could escape going to jail. He walks away and keeps on walking, and is mistaken for a spiritual man since one such had covered him in his own covering while he was asleep, to protect him against cold wind.

The simple villagers and their simple problems that he solves and their sincere faith, and the tremendous calamity facing the region in the draught that he casually mentions "used to be solved once upon a time by spiritually achieved men by their fasting and prayers" - it all lands him in a position he never had thought of going to, that of fasting till either his death or rains that might solve the famine problem. And with the faithful villagers and increasingly more visitors of the region and beyond that always surround him, to take care of him, there is no possibility of cheating.

For the first time it is a struggle he never thought he would come to - that of his higher self and his lower, of bodily hunger and the inability to break hearts of the simple villagers with their faith.

Devdas; By Saratchandra Chattopaadhyaay.

A decent young man and a caring, but self respecting, young woman - and a feudal society where he has no means of supporting her if his family would not have it, and so lacks courage to elope with the woman he loves, so he does the decent thing and instead tells her he never saw her as a lover, a mistake he repents forever while throwing away his life.

Wealth comes but is too late, and is of little use when love is lost.

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Paro, the love of his life, sees her loss when she sees him throwing himself away in drink and dissipation, sheer depression and inability to get past loss of her, pretty much a boat that has lost its sails and sailor and is at mercy of all winds and waves, and hears him telling her that if only she had been there she could have taken care of him and his household, his home, his mother who is at mercy of the other - the only now that he is alone - daughter in law, and he would have been free to not worry.

She reflects on the irony of caring for the widower she married, along with his grown up children who have come to respect and admire her for her virtues of patience and caring and selflessness, and all the while letting the people she cared for be left to mercy of fate.

She makes him promise he will come to visit her marital home - it is large enough to accomodate any number of relatives, servants and guests, as old well to do homes did - so she could care for him. One has to admire the sheer certaintly of her virtue she has, that there is no concern about anyone holding her in suspicion if this ever came to pass, and indeed she had established her own persona, her virtue and her clear conscience in her home by her life there being one of faultless exalted kind that even her much older husband respects her for.

But life takes its own course and she is immersed more and more in the day to day affaires of the household, and with no news of her older concerns they are sort of veiled and remain behind her everyday awareness. When he does arrive at her doorstep, finally, to fullfill his promise to her - he could have come earlier but has his self respect too, about being ill in her home and recovering, so he would rather throw away his life until it is too late to recover and the promise is fulfilled only in name - he is then too ill, dying on her doorstep outside the gates.

It has a haunting quality, the last few hours of his life when he is lying there, dying, and she keeps on waking up, hearing in her sleep her name he keeps of whispering and and going to the terrace wondering who is calling her. She keeps on being disturbed through the morning until she accidentally hears about the details of the guy who died outside the gate - it is too late then, to see him, even though she tries, running in desperation and throwing the household in turmoil to see her sedate usual self behaving in sounusual a manner. The villgers outside the gate have already taken him away for cremation.

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It is almost as if the writer was unconscious of what came through while he merely wrote the tale of an unfortunate man. For it is not just about loss of love that might mean loss of a future, a life that could have been, loss of the persons that were separated. Which is tragedy enough.

The last few hours of Devdas's life while he whispers her name again and again and she wakes up from her sleep hearing someone calling her, but is unaware of what might be going on right outside her own gate, has the quality of a truth of a higher plane. Thus might one lose one's own soul while one got busy with worldly care and lost track of that which one had brought with one's birth from above.

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I have heard many quote the facile summing up of Devdas, about comparison that men easily might make between the two women in his life. And I find it short sighted. This is not a story about ego vs love, one woman losing the latter for the former and the other the reverse.

Paro took much from her love of childhood as her parents did from his wealthy parents, the neighbours in village they lived in, but being told by him that his parents were right about not wishing to step down in matters of forming relations with a lower class family - not a serious caste difference but one of class, that is, of money, which came to replace the older and more benevolent system in that it was more snobbish and had no values to go with it - could finally not overcome the slight to her parents, her family by her love.

By the time he arrived to repent and offered to make it work, it was too late, and he assumed all he had to do was to express his wish to her parents - which was the last straw and she boiled over with indignation. She told him off, in no uncertain words, that her parents knew better than to leave her at mercy of so weak a character, and they mattered, and their submission to his will was by no means a guarantee as he assumed. And moreover they had prestige of their own too, she informed him, indignant at his remark in his letter about their lowering their status by this marriage. As a matter of fact they had easily found her a match far wealthier than his family, which was only a proof in her eyes that her family had no reason to feel low in comparison.

Self respect, not ego, was what this was about, when she told him off. That he could have in spite of that tried to make her parents and his agree to their marriage escaped his notice, and he satisfied his injured ego with hurting her, and giving up rather than carrying out his promise of a sincere attempt to make the two families see reason in the matter and make it happen. His love was sacrificed at the alter of his class and the ensuing ego of the family that he shared - and his temper.

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The other woman did not, could not have had an ego, in the profession that she was in, due to whatever circumstance - she and others in her profession have it hard enough to have self respect, or indeed even a sense of self, if they are not of a low consciousness, and this woman was awakened from her stupor of everyday life into her self by the disdain this man of clear conscience made clear to her. She longed for his respect and love and in the process her life is cleansed of the muck her profession throws at her. She transformed herself, but was not above setting up shop again when needed to find him when he was lost, and that did not bind her again to the profession either - she gave up all to live in a small village in a very simple lifestyle earning much respect from the villagers that knew her for her true self.

In the final hours Devdas confused her face with his mother's in his unconscious state, and becoming aware of that fact, did not think it was incongrous to confuse the two supposed extremes, a revered mother and a common courtesan. This, for the culture this story belongs to, where mother is an extremely revered persona and the Divine is seen as The Mother, is testimony indeed to the clear souls and the relationships.

Adventures of Tom Sawyer; by Mark Twain II.

It is very unlikely anyone over ten needs an introduction to Tom Sawyer and his adventures - and especially the way he got his friends to paint the fence for him, clamouring for the privilege, while he took it easy.

Mark Twain was no simpleton, at that, and managed to teach a lesson in that story about fence painting, about how capitalism and enterprise works - it is about getting others enthusiastic about manual hard work, by some spiel or other, while one then has time to manage, invent, profit, and so forth.

The introduction to his autobiography was unforgettable.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Other Pieces; by James Thurber.

Thurber writes about a norman average guy in this one, one who is not a hero but secretly wishes he were one, and it is touching more than hilarious - while it does bring a smile that stays for the duration of reading.

Other pieces are his usual good quality too; very worth keeping.

Golden Straw; by Catherine Cookson.

A young woman victimised by a well to do man and the consequences that she has to pay all her life, but more, the next generation too, his as well, and not only hers.

The Outsider; by Albert Camus.

About a person who is emotionally untouched by much that is expected to touch one deeply, such as funerals in the family.

One wonders if the shock and novelty of this then new admission gave way to a whole cult whereby men were supposed to be untouched by emotions and uninvolved in anything in their lives of the nature that was relegated to women, unless it was about their sons, and less often, fathers.

Certainly the images that have come to prevail in west, especially west from Europe in US, and have come to be prescribed as the appropriate behaviour for the human male have been sort of unnatural, as has been the division of emotional responses deemed appropriate.

Women falling in love with the first or every man who looks at them or the babies they give birth to is as likely to not happen at all as is the emotional blankness of men about women they are involved with or married to, or their own children and parents. Often men can be caring and loving, and just as often women are likely to not have experienced emotion or have been overwhelmed by expectations as the protagonist of this work.

Subliminal Seduction; by Wilson Bryan Dey.

This book is not only worth reading but should be made compulsory, so people get some idea of the manipulation they are subjected to in and by various forms of media and advertisements. In fact news media is not exactly immune either - only perhaps more subtle.

There might be books later and even more extensive on the subject, but this one is really a good one. In a slightly off context, Naomi Wolf's Beaty Myth connects to it - and quite thouroughly well, too.

Endless Night; by Agatha Christie.

A man has more than one chance, of doing well and taking the higher path, and is free to do so at every opportunity presented. Some, however, do not do so - hence the title.

Title taken from a well known poem - while there is murder and mystery all right, this time it is more about human faults and depravations than about a detective solving a murder, though solved it is - by a fortuitous accident rather than anyone intelligent applying mind to the clues. The solution is presented finally by the killer, with readers left wondering about their own prowess as riddle solvers.

Sons and Lovers; by DH Lawrence.

This belongs to an era when women still had little choices and had rarely any control over their persona or their lives, and frequently little in way of any connection with the men in their lives - husbands, that is - except being used in carnal way, and receiving what sustenance was provided to maintain the home and children.

Many - many more than otherwise - women still have such lives, fairy tales of love or not.

When such women are well to do due to the wealth of the husband or otherwise inheritance, it is another story, with perhaps other women in similar circumstances for company. But a woman who is also poor - she has only one hope for a secure connection and an ultimate security or emotional and otherwise sort, and any chance of an ascendence to power at all, and that is with her sons. If she is fortunate enough that not only she is emotionally connected to them but they are connected to her as well, then she is secure, free of worry, they will fulfill the needs their fathers left unsatisfied - which is, every other but carnal.

And yet, there is the one person (per son) who can threaten this bond - the woman who awakens love in the heart, not merely the nether region, of the son. The latter can be managed, will be manageable. The former is a formidable competition, and too an opponent. There is no tolerating her when the mother needs her son dependent on her emotionally, seeing her as the epitome of womanhood as he always has done while he grew up. That love cannot be allowed.

Some sons escape, and some are caught, their lives thrown in directions they did not necessarily aspire to.

My World-and Welcome to It; by James Thurber.

It is hard not to relax, smile and then start laughing some time later, even completely uncontrollably, when one reads Thurber. His writings are all of a piece, generally giving you a window into his life - or so you come to feel, at home and in a rocker, feet up - and laughing uncontrollably. And it is difficult to remember which story is in which book.

I have a fair certainty that some of my early favourites are in this one, but am not sure which ones. It is worth discovering again though - no matter how many times one has read it.

For instance I think the Great Run, due to a mistaken rumour about a dam broken and the natural consequent flood scare, is part of this book. Only Thurber could make it that funny. And then there is the aunt that went about screwing light bulbs into empty sockets and very certain she was plugging up the leaking electricity. Perhaps this one also has the story of Roy informing his father that the engine had fallen out, using kitchen pots and pans and so on to create a frightening scare.

But even if they are all in another book by Thurber, what I am sure of is having read it and loved it.

The Black Candle; by Catherine Cookson.

Human psychology takes you on a roller coaster ride as the fates of two sisters involved with another family and the children thereafter unfold before you like a forest tangled and growing towards light.

The Rag Nymph; by Catherine Cookson.

Story of trials and tribulations of an orphan with unusual looks as she is prey to men around, and has to grow up from a little girl to a young woman with fragile dreams and a grown up with romantic illusions gone before she finds love and security.

As usual Cookson excells in the atmosphere of times and place and people coming alive.

The Third Eye; by Lobsang Rampa.

Even after so many years after reading it, a little over three decades, a few details remain etched in memory from this book.

The little boy who grew up to be the Lama that wrote this story of his life and times and experiences and all he saw, liked to play within the remote plains of Tibet - and what could he have played with, it was not only not a rich place (still very poor, Tibetans, and since occupation the light of free smile is gone too) in terms of money, it is also the large expanse that is often named roof of the world for good reason. It is at a great height, the highest in the world. very remote from most other human settlements since it is very large too, and devoid of most greenery of nature.

Little grows there, and so the games and play that is available to most little children in rural India for example - playing in trees, swinging, and games devised around ability to climb up a root of the Banyan tree (the roots off a grown up tree come down from branches to root themselves and spring up new trees around, so that often there is a mile around a tree and its descendent trees around it, all thriving and growing more around in turn) - a variation on the old chasing game.

But little grows in Tibet, no trees certainly, and to devise play for little children would take some ingenuity - which fortunately all children do have until their culture deprives them by filling their space with toys and limiting their imagination.

This little boy - the picture is as vivid as if I saw it - liked to walk on stilts and so once while he did that crossing a river, a grown up man looked at the little boy walking and decided the river had to be very shallow and so walked in - and fell in way over his expectation, to his surprise, and got angry.

He was destined for a life as a Lama and so joined the lamasery quite early as they do, and grew up with the other Lamas to for his family for rest of his life, to guide and care and console him those early days when he missed his earthly family. There was education too, which involved more than learning from texts and other normally understood parts of learning. There was meditation and opening of the inner parts, and therein comes the title.

In India the third eye is very well known and understood but it is something of an inner vision, developed or opened with yogic discipline. I had never heard of a physical operation performed to open the third eye, and this is described on the book.

Subsequently he saw people's auras and was educated by his teachers in deciphering them. He could see that the Indian mission to Tibet was trustworthy but the Chinese could not be trusted, and more.

The book is much more than all this that I remember after well over three decades after reading it.

The Tide of Life; by Catherine Cookson.

A young woman, barely out of girlhood yet, poor, in need of care and support herself - takes life and responsibility for her fragile younger sister, and works hard to support the two of them, and face life as best as she can. And the world is no fairy land - she has to face much, and overcome it too, irrespective of her ability - since it is a question of survival.

Catherine Cookson at her best, with northern rural England brought alive from a century ago, the poor and the not so poor, the noble and the ignoble, the honest and the cheats.

The Bridges of Madison County; by Robert James Waller.

According to an inside tip, by a colleague of the creator of the film that was subsequently written up as the book, the two went and saw Parama, a bilingual film by Aparna Sen.

The points copied are clear but this one goes far more into sex and misses out on the rich texture of the other that was partly contextual and partly in the artists that created it.

Also, since the story was taken to the other side of the world in more than one way, it had to be changed enough to make sense and romance from another perspective since it was being planted in another culture, where an extra marital affair might not be such a thrill or a sin in social terms of today either. And while the original was about an identity that was lost in the everyday life of the woman and she found it - accidentally as it were - when someone out of her circle loved her for herself, that again was not going to be a new thing either, since that has pretty much been a theme of women's movement since the sixties in west.

So it was then pared down to an intense love story that began with sex and very soon changed into a love that remained faithful but unrequited, with the two neither meeting nor every forgetting one another. The self discovery of the woman and the guilt imposed by society were both thrown out, reducing the complexity and making it less her story and more of the tryst that became a romance. In the original the man is a catalyst, the copy made him a partner and a lover till his death.

Some features were retained - the photographer who travels around the world who meets a seemingly ordinary housewife and falls in love with her, the talk of traveling around the world, the dreaming, and so on, with her rediscovering beauty and romance that she did not have in her own life much.

A haunting love story, worth reading, almost of another era if you don't know where it came from - and it is, of another ethos.