Provoked; by Kiranjit Ahluwalia, Rahila Gupta.

Rarely does one come across a true life story lived so courageously and the account told so simply - most people prefer to brush things under rug for sake of social pretensions and economic considerations. Few care about a life or a million wasted as long as it is lives of women, in the process forgetting that women are mothers and home carers who bring up choldren, and sacrificing them and their lives and their health and conerns is not exactly healthy for the children in any way whatsoever, whatever the gender of the children.

How could anyone forget Provoked - the book I read quite recently, this year that is, but the film came perhaps earlier and I am unsure if it was this year or last.

The film is a good make from the book and it is amazing how well a city born well educated Aishwarya Rai - she had a couple of years, perhaps three, of architecture before her Miss World crown - played a girl from a small village in way far Punjaab.

There are some factors kept out, though not quite hidden and changed, from the book to the film.

For one thing Kiranjit was not uneducated, she had been to college in Gujarat where her brothers were well to do, and then had visited her other siblings in UK and Canada to find a husband, while the guy who persued her through the usual channels did it against his parents' wishes in not worrying about their consent to begin with.

Subsequently she did work in UK and was appreciated in her workplace too.

All this was kept out perhaps because people have a simple - and false - equation in their minds, that any woman abused by a husband must be an illiterate simpleton. Disabusing this notion in this story, a difficult one already where one has to understand an abused woman murdering her husband, would have been a formidable task, and perhaps it was wisdom to leave that to another time.

But fact of the matter is simple solutions such as education and economic independence and financial security are just that - simple, but not quite solutions. None of those prevent women from being abused by a husband, a lover, or any other male willing to try. The change required is civilisation of males of human species.

What Women Want; by Patricia Ireland.

Dignity, Justice, Security, Humanity, and a civilised society. Being able to live without fear of the fellow men or afraid of being perceived as objects, and finding love without fear of being treated as those that are rightfully duped or fearlessly attacked - that would be roughly the agenda.

Equal pay for equal work and rewards for ability would be the goal every human aspires to and women are denied generally without men and frequently women seeing any injustice in this unequal view, since most peoples' perception is blinded by the overwhelming attention they pay to gender.

Think how famous a Bobbit or a Kiranjit Ahluwalia is, and then think of how many men you personally know to have brutalised their wives and children, and justified it.

Think of your own response to the sexual harrassment of an employee by an employer - when the former is a female you think, why does she not leave such a job, she deserves it or maybe she wants it, after all she is putting herself out there for money and risking her goodness as a woman by going amongst men. But when the latter is a woman, and the former is a male, he gets to throw the whole shebang at her of course, no one would say he ought to leave and find another job.

Or think Fatal Attraction - what if the tables were turned, what if the erring partner in the marriage was a woman and the lover came after her because they were expecting a baby together? Would he die, murdered by her, encouraged by her husband?

Most cases it is not that drastic, it is about seeing things for what they are, without prior prejudice along what institutions insist on gender roles. Fairness is what women want, and love - or the possibility of growing it; a life for all of humanity without fear of half the humanity.

Ganga Descends; by Ruskin Bond.

We had returned from a journey along the river to two of her sources and very pervaded with the essence of the river and the memory of the whole experience, and so when we saw the book, that too by RB, it was inevitable to buy it even in those days of counting pennies, and it was with a hope of recapturing some of our memories and experiences forever.

Beautiful pictures, of course, and writing as benefic as the river - and why not, he lives in the neighbourhood, has done for a long time now - but of course the book had both more and less than what we had lived for a short period. Every life, every journey after all is different.

I think we have both the copies, one reading and other coffee table small for the pictures. Those are after all the memory keys.

The Story of the Trapp Family Singers; by Maria Augusta Trapp.

I remember reading this long ago, and several years later when driving about in Vermont I managed to find the place where the Trapp family has managed to make a second home after leaving Austria. They told us Maria Von Trapp usually came down early to dinner, but we could not wait too long, driving in dark in rather unfamiliar hills would be risky. We waited as long as we could and then went away.

Another decade and more, and now we were in Salzburg, the hometown of Maria and her family where in fact they have special Sound Of Music tours. We took the comprehensive which included a couple of the important sights anyway. It was funny to discover that the house shown in the film, the Von Trapp home, is in fact two different houses, one with a lake front and another where there is the driveway. The chapel is very popular for weddings.

None of that compares with the delightful writing of Maria Von Trapp - the anecdotes, the simplicity, the spirited young woman who grew into a loving and still spirited mother of ten - she lost two of her own and had seven from her husband's previous marriage.

Some that stick in memory are the episode about the sandwiches, the camera, the baby that did not stop crying and embarrassed the mother (and runs the place now), the horse and the house and the singing camps, the woman who told the greengrocer indignantly "ten cents? I can become a cabbage myself around the corner for five cents" - perhaps my memory is incorrect about the cents number, but other than that it is as fresh as the film based on the story.

In Great Waters 1939-45: The Epic Story of the Battle of the Atlantic 1939-45; by Spencer Dunmore.

The subject is sort of a side facet of the whole history of the war, with main stage being the continent of Europe and the second, perhaps more important, being the resolute holding on by British, and the later tough fight by Russians.

But all along, the battle of Atlantic was a key factor, and Allies could not afford to lose it or give way any more than the world could afford to make treaty and stop fighting in name of wistful dreaming of Peace, which sometimes one has to win when endangered by forces against it.

Britain could then fight openly, but however convinced Roosevelt was that the forces of darkness had to be defeated, he was bound by the various facets of his nation that he had to herd along before he could join his nation in the battle on the side of right.

The battle of Atlantic is here told in some detail, with descriptions of U-boats attacking convoys ferrying hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and in turn the British giving a tough fight back. There is the Enigma and its having been broken and yet the necessity of keeping the fact secret - and hence sacrifice of unsuspecting sailors. There is the various instances of British treating the pow Germans well, to their surprise, since they had been doing the opposite and expected the worst treatment in return.

There is the background of U-boat, the so named wolf pack that was officially and otherwise much celebrated in Germany, since they were perceived as the front and the dangers of their lives very well understood. However, they succeeded for long enough to forget about the last part and then had surprises.

Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany; by Hans J. Massaquoi

There is generally little heard about how "other" people fared in pre-war Germany, in the darkness that enveloped the nation. Here is one window, with an astonishing tale of a boy who was born and raised German, with his father a member of the diplomatic core of an African nation with a distinct class structure of its own.

This boy grew up taking the difference of skin colour as casually as that of colours of clothes, and his mates as well as his teachers did nothing to break that either, until such time as the distiction was no longer invisible so to speak. He gives a moving description of how he was a sudden hero himself by association when an African American won the gold medal at an Olympic event in Munich, and he felt proud of his other race, and his classmates asked him questions about the Olympic hero as distant from him as from them.

Survived through the war he went in serach of his other roots in Africa, and tried to find a life - and eventually migrated to US. He compares the two nations, his first and his last, and no surprises there, the last does not come off much better than the first.

His mother staunchly tells him to not allow anyone to tell him he is less than anyone, ever - and not on the basis of his being half German, either. He is a child born in love, and that is a strength never lost. This keeps him from sinking in a morass that many cannot help drowning in.

Contact; by Carl Sagan.

From attempted discovery of aliens to space travel through worm holes across light years to questions of what is conveniently termed paranormal, fear of which makes mobs of normal rational people willing to discredit the respected and persecute the fellow humans, even colleagues and other well known professionals.

It is a bit like watching someone painstakingly constucting a pendulum clock in the atomic wristwatch and gps and blackberry age. Or a tall building without a steel skeleton structure in the landing on Mars age.

While he does mention wormholes, actually using them for travel seems to have been a slate of hand sort of trick, what with the observers never seeing the vehicle leave the spot much less earth. Leaving on a plane other than physical needs no vehicle much less one constructed with instructions arriving from space.

There is the laborious effort to keep everyone happy, with meticulously portioned out considerations.

And then the scary pendulum to stand under. It could crush you and standing under it requires a great deal of faith in science, the people who constructed it, and more.

Dahan (The Burning); by Suchitra Bhattacharya.

The original was published a few decades ago, and I remember reading it long back, it made a vivid impression. There is much horror, depicted through a young woman that went through much including being gang-raped in the middle of a street, and another one that attempted to help and th horror it brought to her own life.

The city where it all happened witnessed much in terms of a horror in public several times, majorly during what is known as the Naxal (extreme left terror groups) era of sixties and seventies, which was to overshadow even the horrendous massacres of '46 and dim the memory of the so called Bengal famine which reallly was - like the famine of Ireland before that - an appropriation of harvests of the lands by the ruling for the soldiers, resulting in several hundred thousand dead of starvation in Bengal.

This story belongs to the Naxal era if I am not mistaken, when the supposed ideals of left - equality, fraternity - often took a back seat to the goons that ruled the roost and neither women nor middle class were entirely safe as they normally are or at least perceived to be more so under better circumstances.

For that matter the "party" generally followed either of the two major communist nation's diktat, depending on the faction, and several "intellectuals" proudly declared themselves convinced of superiority of Mao over the way their own nation took, of consent and freedom rather than enforced ideology.

It was quite obvious even then that it was an attempt by a neighbour country to take over the nation if possible without sending anything more than pamphlets that would turn young heads. The about turn by the nation they then aspired to emulate has left the movement, the party, the young and the now not so young a bit confused, a bit embarrassed, and turned the naxals into mostly highway robbers with a few ideologues fighting feudal remnants in the few states where history has not washed away the feudal system so firmly established by the various colonial rulers.

The terror of the general times compounds with a goon-dominated street terror atmosphere and further adds to a general pervasive culture where normal middle class families, including men, are afraid for their lives and those of their own near and dear. And hence the whole street being unable to testify to the goons burning a young woman alive after rape, while the sole witness woman is turtured deeply within even as her own family attempts to dissuade her from making her witnessing the horror known.

While it is tempting to sum up this work as another example of a male dominated society, that would be belittling the work apart from a critique that is incorrect at the very least, showing a lack of perception and judgement; or possibly much worse, hypocrisy or dishonesty at a grave level.

Because a society that is old fashioned or conservative or male dominated - or as usually is all of the above - does not easily tolerate a violation of a woman by strangers. Such a toleration generally shows a lack of virility of males of the neighbourhood, the clan, the social setting the said woman belonged to. This is a direct result of the idea that a woman is a possession, not a person in her own right.

So a society that does tolerate this, or fails to protect or even avenge the woman, it in fact might be a modern society where people are in fact alienated and selfish in that they would rather not risk their own security; and when it is - as it is this story - worse, fails even to seek justice for fear, it amounts to a society paralysed by fear of the goons, the internal terrorist elements within the society. It could be fascist, or it could be terror by another self proclaimed label. Labels are less important when your lives are at stake, and goons are free to do as they please.

When terror reigns at street level, and acid along with other weapons are used freely, the prudent keep their own counsel until better times prevail. Then again, someone - or more than one - has to step forth and strike a determined blow at the terror or it would never go away.
..................................................

Aesop's Fables

I read the two - this one and the other very similar, but not at the plot level, old book from another old culture - Panchatantra, around the same time, give or take a few years, many decades ago. Both teach lessons of dealing with the world, how people play games, and so forth.

Every child should read them.

Especially those that need the skills to defend themselves socially, from those that would play various games to cheat or attack or worse. It might help, for some that can grow out of naivete to defend themselves.

Then again there might be those that never lose hope that the world is good and noble principles of justice are not to be given up, only to be taken a bite out of by someone who came pretending to be young and innocent and in need, and then bit the hand proffered to feed and help.

But of course, one should not lose hope, and perhaps other children might learn to be less naive and better able to defend themselves by learning to understand social games, by reading this book.

Srikanta; by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya.

Over the years when I read it, and reread it, baffled about the mystique surrounding it and the sparse nature of the book, it took some reflection about the time and space this came from and depicts and belongs to, to realise its height compared to the ground it rose from. Although that time was not short of people of great stature in the world and in the nation this came from, still, this was a shocking read for the age for the common reader, all the more so since here was a male writer depicting women of his own culture as all too human, deserving of the same consideration and respect as given men under similar circumstances. And he was perhaps saying they were greater in many ways, without saying it in so many words.

What sticks in memory when other details are forgotten is the small side story of the Burmese wife of the man from Bengal who not only leaves her with no intentions of returning to her, every intention of going back to his family and accepting the arranged marriage (with dowry, no doubt) and the society that would then embrace him - but cheats her, the Burmese wife he is leaving behind without informing her of this intention, of the money and jewellery, openly, declaring all this in his language so his compatriots comprehend and hers do not, and he has made of his wife of many years a public spectacle just so his own people might forgive him of his betrayal in taking a wife not of their own circle.

Such behaviour has been engaged in by others, of many other nations and of course few other continents, and certainly many of other faiths.

In fact one city has been known in decades past for selling its own little daughters with the traffic very very thinly veiled with a marriage contract which usually favours the rich - foreign - buyers.

It takes a writer of courage, however, to expose one of his own social circle, to subject the whole culture to a shame that they may not have wished to own or admit.

The Naked Ape ; by Desmond Morris

I remember reading this long ago and a few things stuck during the fast skimming while on a visit to a relative - unlike years before, one was no longer excused from conversation any more when in company - and one of the various things that did stick in memory was recently brought back to the surface of memory by some recent events - the terror attacks, the subsequent reactions, and the furious debates in media.

A member of glitterati was brought on camera to counter a minority leader of a party that normally gets all sorts of attacks without a second thought, except this leader was not offendable by the media due to his status and so the member of glitterati went obliquely to comment and counter the original comment by the leader.

The original comment by the leader was about people of the upper class aping western ways and to go on a candle lighting vigil at the historic site of recent terror attacks, and specifically he was dismissive of people who wear lipstick and have fashionable hair and show themselves at this site to be perceived as concerned about the nation while none of them have paid attention to the far worse attacks that have been going on during last decade and a half when it was not the rich and their lairs but the middle class on streets and in buses and in trains being killed by far greater numbers.

So the glitterati member went obliquely at the "people who do not like educated women", without thinking about what he was saying, let alone bothering to explain, or really stopping to consider implications of his words, about what - if anything - education had to do with lipstick.

It was not clear if he thought buying a lipstick or indeed a whole complete makeover had to be a matter of passing a tough examination on intellectual and generally knowledge plane, rather than handing over money; whether an education automatically implies a lipstick application and generally fashion consciousness, and whether the converse is true according to him.

Coming from someone from the country he belongs to, if he thought one thing implied the other in either direction, or if he thought that only those with some sort of western oriented schooling with much money forked over and aping of western fashions as the prime value taught was the only education he could perceive as education, it would certqainly imply he has had little contact with the earth he lives on, and his mind is in another world - I am not sure if that is a real one either.

Most well educated women - by which I do not mean those that have had an expensive high school level but little else other than consciousness of appearing like a Seventeen cover model - whether doctors, engineers, physicists or whatever other particular subject they chose to qualify for a higher degree, have little or no time to think of a personal grooming over and above a basic hygiene - bathing and wearing fresh clothes to start the day, and getting hair settled firmly out of the way - because they are far too busy with their responsibilities, in the world of their work and their own homes as well. They are far too busy to bother looking like a Seventeen cover.

At work their responsibilities are not reduced compared to male colleagues on par, and at home they do not have a wife to take over the need of attention and care they must pay the home and children, making them more than twice as busy as their male colleagues, and also their housewife neighbours. Not that the latter have it easy, for all that.

As a matter of fact all of that is all too true for a "working mother" in the west, and come to think of it for all mothers as well, since there are really no mothers that are non-working - and education whatever level, most women are far too busy taking care of the world to worry about a makeover every time they step out. That they manage to be well groomed and clean is one of the miracles they regularly perform without thinking.

No, the glitterati member was thinking of his own circle - those in professions where appearance is what chiefly matters, and other glitterati and "society" people who can delegate most responsibilities and in fact do, to hired "help".

It is not clear, when he equated education of women with a lipstick and a professional expensive hairdo, if he thinks no schools other than those imparting a western orientation - by virtue of their own origins or any other reason - are good enough, and if he thought that all middle class or poor are by definition stupid and ignorant, and if he thought he knew more of everything than every person taught in a non expensive school where lipsticks are not perceived as a hallmark of civilisation, or education.

Perhaps he could learn much by a journey to familiarise himself with his nation, but one does not know if he can benefit thereby.

Why is this relevant here is amusingly because amongst other things of similar sort Morris explains quite explicitly why humans have certain features, and if people read this on a wide scale - and comprehended it properly - lipstick and perhaps most cosmetics industry bubble would burst completely. That bursting of the bubble only needs a pin, and this is more like a stampede by a determined bull on intent on a duty to do farmwork.

For that matter a similar effect on many industries would be the result of people reading Subliminal Seduction and comprehending it.

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.