Here are my 2020 recommendations with short descriptions, covering economic history, science, society, literary fiction, and poetry, mostly done in the first half of the year after which reading dropped off precipitously.
Leave a CommentTag: Books on India
Billionaire Raj by James Crabtree compares growth of the economy in South India to South East Asia, which is an apt comparison. Crabtree’s book is an overview of the billionaire oligarchs who rose to power post the liberalization of Indian economy in 1991. The name “Billionaire raj” (“raj” ~ empire/rule) is a homage to the phrase “license raj”. License Raj was the term to describe the rule of the erstwhile socialist Indian government that used to pick winners with license to operate. […]
Leave a CommentA famous meme due to Senator Ted Stevens analogizes internet as “a series of tubes”. Like bustling cities, it is a fuel that converts the potential energy constrained in orderliness, to a kinetic energy of human endeavor. Internet releases the atoms of our thoughts to escape parochialism. Internet is messy, disorderly and increasingly ruled by social media monopolies, but it can be where “the mind is free”. […]
Leave a CommentThe Anarchy covers the rise of East India Company (EIC) from the arrival of Thomas Roe in 1608 at Surat, all the way up to the Battle of Delhi in 1803. It is a fascinating and an expansive topic. For Indian readers, it is also a somber read as we know and reflect how the next hundred odd years unfolded. EIC with its crown-blessed untrammeled monopoly rights subjugated ancient empires, appropriated massive wealth, and dovetailed the direction of a subcontinent forever.
There has never been a multinational corporation that was as powerful, as nimble, as unregulated and as successful as the East India Company. In fact, East India Company may have been the first corporation that was “too big to fail”, when it was rescued by a massive bailout in 1773, by the members of British Parliament, many of whom owned stake in EIC.
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How should one rethink travel and culture? How do we really learn about places we visit? I review a “lost” treasure-set of books. Notes on Borges and death, La Jetée that influenced the birth of Science Fiction cyber punk, and rediscovering Ancient classics.
Leave a CommentGrowing up in India, one saw the image of Gandhi everywhere. Gandhi was Mahatma (“great soul”), whose aura soared above the martyrs of struggle for Independence. Gandhi’s bespectacled visage is still a universal presence on rural committees, on non-profit logos, in drawing competitions, and in children’s “fancy dress” parades on his birthday celebrations. He is etched on the Indian currency bills and sketched in collective memories, but always with the same imagery: the charkha (the wheel), the round spectacled bald head, the walking stick on which his spindly weight rested, the white khaddar fabric and time-piece, and the ever-present smile. Even as Gandhian lifestyle fades into the distant past, with memories being re-layered in celluloid hues of Kingsley’s face, Gandhi’s round spectacles…
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