What book are you reading?

It is a long established custom of mine to browse through the Best Sellers listing in the Weekend newspaper or any journal for that matter.Seldom do I find Indian books(or authors)in the list...which is rather sad!

Ofcourse I do agree to the fact that Indian English Literature has relatively recent history.It is just a little over two centuries old,the first ever Indian book in English being published in 1793 by Sake Dean Mahomet,titled 'Travels of Dean Mahomet'.

The Earliest Indian Literature was available only in Sanskrit and Tamil.Either due to the predominance of these languages or the pietistic movements which sought to reach the people in their spoken languages,the advent of English literature was rather late.

But Indians do have wonderful literature in English but have we given the due recognition?Do we identify the Gems among us?

Swami Vivekananda,Jawaharlal Nehru,Rabindranath Tagore,Mahatma Gandhi,Sarojini Naidu....remained as names in history...how many of us have read their works?Dhan Gopal Mukerji,Mulk Raj Anand,Nissim Ezekiel, A.K.Ramanujan,Kamala Das,Satyajit ray,R.Parthasarathy,R.K.Narayan....do we even recognise these names?


Most of us remember reading Fairy Tales..Snow white,Little Red Riding Hood,Sleeping Beauty,Cindrella,The ugly Duckling...the list goes on..do we stop here? NO.Our choice was Tintin over Tinkle,Archies over Amar Chitra Katha,Enid Blyton over Panchatantra....

When asked for a favorite author in English ...it is always, Sidney Sheldon or John Grisham or Stephen King or Nora Roberts or Danielle Steel( to name a few..)How many of us say Anita Desai or Salman Rushdie or Amitav Ghosh or Vikram Seth or Rohinton Mistry or Jhumpa Lahiri?(again to name a few...)It really makes me wonder or rather ponder as to why this state?

Furthermore the recent literature works in English are more from the people of Indian Diaspora(N.R.I)rather than people of the subcontinent.

Here, I think the situation is more like a vicious circle....since the majority of us fail to appreciate the available Indian English literature,the writers are not encouraged or there aren't many Indian English writers so we opt for Foreign English writers.....either way we are losing...I am NOT against reading Foreign literature but as Indians what do we have for our future generation that is exclusively from the current generation's English literary work?

As of now and near future,English is no doubt the most powerful medium of communication in the world.We have to break free from the thought that english emphasizes the legacy of British imperialism.Indian writers of the subcontinent should be willing to work in English(write or translate)which in turn will definitely make Indian literature more powerful than when being written only in vernacular languages.Not only is English more accessible to various other language people within India but it also establishes a relationship between East and West.One important dimension of literature is that it is a means of holding a conversation within the world.These writers will ensuring that India or rather,Indian voices will henceforth be indispensable participants in that literary conversation.

So,while we are Thinking of literary Global conversation,lets make Local contributions.....Appreciate the Good work of Local Authors.

Friendship Across Borders

The cold war between India and Pakistan,dates back to August-1947,the Partition of India.The POLITICAL conflict over Jammu and Kashmir was the origin of major wars and numerous armed skirmishes between the two countries.Indo-Pakistan relation is defined by numerous military conflicts and territorial disputes.

It is nothing but an Irony of Fate!We(India and Pakistan) struggled for our freedom together,our cultures are similar,our resemblances are striking, and we speak the same language. But somewhere... something went terribly wrong...and we went berserk!

Most Indians cannot conceal their hostility towards Pakistan.But this thought was revoked in my Life.

Working in an MNC,my husband needs to collaborate with a lot of other nationals across the Border.His relation with his counterpart from other countries start and end in the Office.Surprisingly,over the years,he shared a wonderful rapport with a colleague from Pakistan.This colleague who even after he quit his job, is my husband's friend ,confidant and guide@work.In any genuine relationship,nationality becomes void and so should it be.

The political mask of enemity should be discarded.Our spirit of Unity should be revived.The two countries should be seen openly joining hands for terminating terrorism. The more the two countries grow apart, the more viability they give to fundamentalists who have built a make-believe world of hatred and extremism.

Our war should not be Man Vs Man for territory,but THE WORLD Vs TERRORISM for Peace.

LET’S START BEING PART OF THE SOLUTION.....

Bad habits...Good too

Time after time,my husband has been a Eleventh hour person....and this established custom of my husband saved his Life today! Let me elaborate...my husband was on a Business trip to Jakarta,Indonesia.Being a Boutique hotel patriot,it was no surprise he stayed at J.W.Marriot which was struck by suicide bombers on July 17th,2009 @ 7:45 a.m.

On the D-Day and H-Hour,my husband was to be at the lobby at the exact location where the blast took place.Thanks to his tardiness,he narrowly missed being a victim of the Blast.It was his real brush with Death,I should say....gives me shivers to even think of it!Whether it was the work of the celestials or my husband's procrastination,I thank his(or my)lucky stars..he is here with me today...making my life complete!

"A delay is better than disaster"

Second day...my husband is all smiles....

Lately I have been reading a lot about the Total Solar Eclipse that is to occur on 22nd July 2009....I believe it is going to be the longest eclipse in the 21st century and the totality will last 6 min 39 sec.Although eclipses occur somewhere on Earth every 18 months on average,there are typically fewer than 10 total solar eclipses in a millennium that exceed 7 minutes . The last time this happened was June 30, 1973 (7 min 3 sec).The next eclipse exceeding seven minutes in duration will not occur until June 25, 2150. The longest total solar eclipse during the 8,000-year period from 3000 BC to 5000 AD will occur on July 16, 2186, when totality will last 7 min 29 s.So I should say this event(the longest total eclipse) is to occur for the first and last time in this century and my lifetime! (Phew! that was a lot of statistics)

The word "Eclipse" is a Greek word which means"fail to appear"Greek astronomers are believed to have great knowledge of eclipses. The Egyptian Pharaohs may have put some of their memorial temples on the paths of Solar Eclipses occurences.

There are many other myths, superstitions and religious interpretations in different cultures around the world. A Chinese myth says the Dragon devours the sun and an African myth says a snake emerged from the ocean and grew so large that it moved to the sky and swallowed the sun.Both cultures believe it needs to be frightened away by beating of drums.

There is infact an interesting myth in Hinduism regarding the occurence of the Eclipses.The story appears in the Mahabharata and the Vishnu Purana.Devas formed an alliance with asuras(Demons) to jointly churn the ocean for the nectar of immortality(Amrit).The nectar that was obtained from churning the ocean was cunningly stolen by asuras (Demons).In order to rescue the gods, Vishnu takes the form of a beautiful woman, Mohini, and approached the demons. When the demons saw the enchanting beauty of Mohini, they lost all composure. While the demons were enchanted by Her beauty, Mohini seized the nectar.And while distributing it to the Devas,Rahu,a demon,who suspected foul play follows the devas and being seated between Surya(Sun) and Chandra(moon) receives the nectar,but even before he swallows it, Mohini, alerted by the Sun and the moon decapitates the asura.But however the severed head becomes immortal due to the consumption of the nectar.To gain revenge on the sun and moon for exposing this, the immortal head occasionally swallows the sun or the moon, causing eclipses. Then, the sun or moon passes through the opening at the neck, ending the eclipse.

Coming to history,the element Helium was discovered on 18 August 1868 by the French astronomer Jules Janssen when he observed the spectrum of the Sun during a total eclipse in India while the total solar eclipse of 29 May 1919 is famous for confirming Einstein's work on general relativity by British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington

So will 22nd July 2009 go down in history?lets wait and watch!

My First Blog

My husband has always been insistent that I post writeups....call it my laziness or my lack of confidence in myself....I never did, until today!My husband is my wall of strength and encouragement in all my endeavours. And Thanks to his relentless effort.......here I am..Blogging!