The wonder that was India

The thought of a visit to a book shop makes me happy. It is as if, I love being surrounded by books, browsing through different titles, different section, checking out new authors, all being more fun than reading a book. Sometimes, browsing the cover pages of many books, gives an immense satisfaction of really gaining some knowledge, rather than reading one whole book (novels excluded).
With the same intention, I was there at landmark at Spencer's. I directly went to the special and new books section. Most of them were Sujatha's books. Though Sujatha is not with us, his words will remain for a long time. அவரை பற்றி எழுதுவது என்றால் தமிழில் தான் எழுதியாக வேண்டும். தமிழில் புதிய எழுத்தாளர்கள் வருவதற்கு, அவர் ஒரு முக்கிய காரணம். தமிழ்நாட்டிற்கும், இந்திய வோட்டிற்க்கும், அவர் செய்த பணி என்றும் மறக்க முடியாத ஒன்று.
Then, I moved on to other sections. As i was browsing, a name caught my attention. The book's title read "The wonder that was India". Curious to read what it meant, i pulled the book from the shelf. This was a History book, written by A.L.Basham. The title struck to me as an odd one. Why is the author saying "The wonder that was India". India has been a wonder, and it still is a wonder, and it will be one always. So just to know how the author justifies the title, i bought the book. Its a big book with around 500 pages, almost resembleing an old time dictionary. As i started reading, the title was justified in the "foreward" section itself (I could have read that in the shop itself, and kept the book back).
It seems, the author was totally against this title, because he too felt that it was not relevant. But the publishers said that this book was a sequel to other books on ancient civilizations like "The grandeur that was Rome", "The splendeur that was Egypt", and even this book should have a similar title. And so, India is no more a wonder according to the title.
I am currently reading this book (Completed almost 200 pages). I think my history teacher would have been very proud and happy, if she came to know that i am reading this book. Just like a typical history book, its taking a lot of time for me to move ahead. I completed 3 other books in the meantime, but this one is still going on.
But it is not as boring as a history book. The author has tried to present many interesting facts about the lifestyles of ancient civilisations. Be it the public political, economical details or the private life of a man and woman, the author has tried to throw light on whatever is known about those days.
A good read for people with a lot of patience and time.

Does the human race think??

I do not know what you people think, but Edward de Bono says "How the Human Race has never really learned to think" in a book with the same big title. In a book of about 120 pages, he tries hard to put down many a example to say that, what humans do is work on a pattern or recognition. The brain is trained to handle all things, based on patterns that are stored, including the previous experiences a person has had.
The first 30 pages went very fast, and at a point I thought I will complete the book in two hours (That would have been a record, considering my poor reading speed which is about 12 pages/hour). Even with such a poor reading speed I was one among the person who read a lot of books. But this was before i started working. Things changed once i started working. "I was born intelligent, but my job ruined me", kind of works for me (Hope my manager does not see this).
Anyway coming back to the discussion of human race, thinking, pattern and de Bono, after 30 pages I found myself asleep for about tem minutes. Then the book did not raise any of my interests and after struggling for 3 hours i completed about 80 pages.
I do not know how long more I would spend on reading this. The only thing in the book is some of the practical examples the author had explained about some simplex (simple-complex) problems. One more thing was about the general tendancy of human beings, sticking holily to the proverb, "Necessity is the mother of invention". Even i am no exception. Currently I am into a maintanence project, and I do not bother about the system that is existing. It is really designed bad and pathetic, but since things are running, I do not give a damn to it. The author has pointed out this example only in the book. It was as if he was talking to me and telling me to do something extra (Just like my boss). This is generally called "Value Add". Frankly I do not know if I will follow this or not.
If the author by any chance reads this (Which is impossible), he would put a comment saying that, i had written this post wearing a "Black Hat".
Luckily, I did not spend money on getting this book :).

Odyssey

A journey that i took 2 years ago had stopped suddenly. Stopped for no apparent reason. The odyssey (thats how i refer to the journey), took a back track with me not able to balance my work personal life. But its the wish, desire and whatever one calls it, made me start this journey once again. And i badly want to continue this journey till where my legs and body take. Because, my mind can assimilate many places, but not my legs and body. And i am very happy to invite you all to join my ODYSSEY

New Year Resolution II....

New Year resolution…

New Year resolution? Again? People might think, it is already March, too late for a New Year resolution and early for a Tamil New Year resolution (Tamil New year generally falls on 14th April). This is a result of the “New Year resolution” (http://kuppathotti.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-year-resolution.html), I had already posted.
I am a person who strongly believes that a resolution can be taken at any time, but the important thing is to keep it going. Yes, keep it really going (I have flunked many of the resolutions that I had already took).
The “New Year” post I had put was just to motivate myself. Yesterday, in one book, I had read that “Tell your plans to your well wishers, then at least to show them, you will follow the plan”.
Unknowingly, I did the same thing.
But it turned out to be in another way. After reading that post, many of my friends were more inspired. I got a couple of mails saying that, the post was good and they too were going to blog regularly. Few of them had a blog and were not posting regularly, and others did not have one at all.
This made me realize the positive effects of something told positively. Once, Kalam had commented about the print media in India. He was presiding over a function hosted by a leading newspaper in the country (I am really not sure which one). He generally commented about the news that is printed in the front page. Mostly, they were about some bad incident that took place. When the reader starts his day with this news, it fails to boost the morale of the person. He starts cribbing about the world in general. If the good news, however small it may be, is put in big and bold letters, it will surely bring a visible change.
So, “Happy blogging” to all those who have started fresh and for those who are continuing their old ones. Spread the positive note and do your bit. It does bring a change.

Reel to Real

As i took the news paper in a hurry to have glance before i started for my office shuttle, the photo in the front page made me sit down. But time never stops for us. As seconds ticked away, i quickly decided grab a few minutes to read the article. It was the photo of Thanjavur Brihadisvara temple, and my recent visit to Gangaikondacholapuram had evinced an interest in the ancient temples. The story was about the tamil historian Kudavayil Balasubramaniam (http://www.hindu.com/fr/2008/02/29/stories/2008022951100100.htm) in the Friday Review published by The Hindu. As i read through the article, i felt as if the character in my previous blog "proposal" (http://kuppathotti.blogspot.com/2008/02/proposal.html) resembled this person in real life. When i had written the post "proposal", half was true or rather i can say that i could map the characters to real life persons. This part was not so. The archaeologist i had mentioned was truly and completely imaginary till i had read this article. Though i had a hint that there will be persons in the real world just as i had mentioned in the post. But i came to know about it pretty soon.

Result...

I didn figure in the list of first three prize winners for the proposal writing competition :(.
http://kuppathotti.blogspot.com/2008/02/proposal.html