My journey with Bhagavat Geeta - Chapter 1 - Arjunavishaadayogah (Praakruthakaarunyayoga)

I started my journey of self discovery and non duality over the last few months by going through the book - ಜೀವನಧರ್ಮಯೋಗ by DVG which is the ಭಾಗವಥಗೀತ ತಾತ್ಪರ್ಯ . I've tried to document my experience here. 

(Prerequisite to learn Geeta- One needs to know the Whos who of Mahabharatha - Not just whats available in the popular culture but also the hidden and lesser known relationships between characters, who strikes what kind of chord to whom, the events, the triggers for the events and the aftermath and the impact of the events performed by certain people. One needs to unlearn the sequence of Mahabharatha and take one page at a time and explore all the varieties of possibilities. One needs to be open minded and apply practicality and see the events in today's realistic terms. 

If we understand bits and pieces of The great Upanishads and Veda, the experience can be more fulfilling. Also there are several references to other great epics of Indian mythology like Ramayana, Garuda Purana, Vishnu Purana,  Shiva charita etc.. If we know general ideologies of these, the meaning of Bhagavath Geeta becomes profound) 

The first chapter is mostly about Arjuna being a cry baby on why should he wage war and kill his loved ones.

The verses start with Drutaraastra asking Sanjaya as to what is happening on the battlefield. 

Sanjaya explains the battlefield scene as 

1. Duryodhana is saying to Bheeshma that our army is not comparable to the army that's under Bheema's leadership and that everyone in Kaurava side should guard Bheeshma. 

2. Duryodhana thinks that Bheeshma is old and cannot perform the duties of leading the kaurava army as he also has favoritism towards the pandu putras. Hence he seeks the favor of Dronacharya. 

3. Both armies start the sounds of conchshells, drums, bugles, trumpets and horns. 

4. Arjuna seeks Krishna to take him to the center of the battlefield to examine who all he is up against

Arjuna asks questions like 

1. Why do I have to wage the war and kill my most loved uncles, grand fathers, great grand fathers, family and friends?

2. What joy or pride I get by killing them?

3. What is a life or power when they do not exist to witness it?

4. Why should there be so much of bloodshed of not just my family and friends but the innocent soldiers and people of kingdoms when they dont even understand whose side they are standing - dharma or adharma?

5. If I kill so many innocent people, will I be not sinned? 

Key takeaways - 

Breaking the status quo. 

The above questions are also the questions for us to understand why should we break the status quo, why should the moment of rest(or comfort zone) be broken down to bring in action? Why cannot we just live the way we are living right now? What does Dharma seek of us? 

What is empathy?

Like anger, Love and empathy are also kinds of manovikaara - the simple variations of mind(which oftentimes can be a good variation in certain situations). That being the case, embracing empathy towards the loved ones is simply trying to entertain the mind with variety. 

ವಿಚಾರವಿಲ್ಲದ ಕರುಣೆ ವ್ಯಾಮೋಹ ; ಅದೇ ಪಕ್ಷಪಾತ ; ಅದೇ ಬ್ರಾಂತಿದೃಷ್ಟಿ ; ಅದೇ ಕಂಟಕ 

About the impulsive responses. 

ಸುಮ್ಮನೆ moment of impulse ಇರಬಾರದು. ಅದು ನಂಬಿಕೆಗೆ ಸಾಲದು. ಅದರ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ವಿಷಯ ವಿಮರ್ಶನೆ ಸೇರಿ ಅದರಲ್ಲಿಯ ಅಶುದ್ಧತೆಗಳನ್ನು ಕಳೆಯಬೇಕು. ಹಾಗೆ ವಿವೇಕಸಿದ್ಧವಾದ ಮನಃಪ್ರಚಲನೆ ಕಾರ್ಯರ್ಹವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. 

 

Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

The last few weeks have been awkwardly slow, eventless and tiring. I picked up this book to get lost in my own self. It only made my grief bigger.

Its the book about Elinor and Marianne - Two Dashwood sisters - left to save their vanity after their father's death. Its set in 17th century in England. The book is a great deal of "conduct lessons" for young women and mankind if not less.

Elinor is full of sense - wisdom, good judgement and realistic thinking. Marianne is full of sensibility - emotional, sensible and living in goodwill dreamland. The book is a depiction of behavioural paradigm of these two characters. One has everything concealed and the other has nothing to conceal.

The story of the book is about how the Elinor and Marianne deal with situations when they become destitute by their father's death, finding a place to live when they are asked to leave the Norland farm, finding love in Edward Ferrars and John Willoughby respectively and dealing with Brandon, heart breaks, Edward Ferrars secret engagement to Lucy Steele, Lucy affinity to Robert Ferrars, Fanny's contentious treatment, avarice sense of John Dashwood, Willoughby's deception, London visit, Edward's apologies, being ill to the state of death, the recovery from death bed, Brandon's love for Marianne and finally making up the decision to marry.

The journey is drastic and dramatic with each twist having a twitch in the readers tummy. The sense and sensibilities of the characters is life inspiring and a clearly defines what to do and what not to do. Thats why I think it stayed as the "Conduct lessons" for so many years in the history. The journey is also the depiction of socio economic conditions in the evolution time period of mankind where "Family" hood was at epitome. All through what is professed is that its not about woman or man - one has to uphold the respect for self.

The language was a bit strange to me at first but you get accustomed to it after say 50 pages. It took more than 4 weeks to read. But after those four weeks I felt like a different person altogether. Some of the best quotes in the book are -

“She was stronger alone…”

“Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience- or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.”

“To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect…”

“Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge.”

“Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for a better preparation for death.”

“It is not what we think or feel that makes us who we are. It is what we do. Or fail to do.”

“A man who has nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion on that of others.”

“I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural awkwardness. [...] Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy.”

“She was without any power, because she was without any desire of command over herself.”

“Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favourite maxims.”

“I can feel no sentiment of approbation inferior to love.”

“Mine is a misery which nothing can do away.”

“Sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning.”

Hidden Files - Prof. Triveni Singh and Amit Dubey

On LinkedIn I am friends with India's first and super cyber cop Prof. Triveni Singh Sir. He is an IPS officer who is known for cracking cyber crimes. He along with Amit Dubey who is a cyber crime investigator and cyber security speaker have teamed up to author this book by name "Hidden files". It is inspired by the real crimes they solved.

The book is a collection of short(mini tales) stories each one more thrilling than the previous one. I bought it through Kindle unlimited which is free of cost. Took about 2 nights to read them all.

One mini tale titled "Cats Murder" gave me shrills in the spine literally. Its about a small boy who plays video games and does nasty things at home. The sensational stories of SMS scams, fake job offerers, video game that detects wifi signals and determines the position of the person speaking on phone, game that captures pics of surroundings, Lover boy capturing nudity of girlfriends, marriage proposal scams are all horrifying and blood curdling.

Reading this book, one can discern the vulnerabilities we are exposed to just by connecting to internet(and otherwise). The stories are short and I assure you there is no glorification of the crime. I get to read about real life cases the professor solves on daily basis on linkedin. A man on a mission to solve every bit the cyber crime is the definition of Prof. Triveni Singh, IPS, MBA, PhD, CEH. He is an inspiration to cyber cops and to many like me. 

Midnight in Chernobyl

A while ago, when I was touring around my parents in law's home, I went to a deserted village called Borkatte near karkala. It was nearly barren with fallen tress and broken houses. At the same time I was reading this book called Midnight in Chernobyl. I could relate to the state of village of Pripyat being deserted due to nuclear blast.

The book - Midnight in Chernobyl is a documentary of events that led to the largest nuclear outage on the face of earth on April 25th 1986. That was around the time I was born and my father kept telling me stories about what happened in Chernobyl nuclear blast. Since I knew only what my father had told me, I was intrigued to fill myself with details and so I read this book.

Soviet Union assumes answers to most of the energy problems in nuclear energy. They decide the place to be Pripyat which is a small village near the regional capital Chernobyl. Victor Brukhanov a nuclear scientist is assigned to the project to build first ever atomic power plant in Ukraine from scratch. The project would cost 400 million rubles. Victor painstakingly goes through every stage of facility building to dealing with authorities and labourers.

The shape of the plant is dependent on functionality in the most economical ways the stations designers can conceive. The plant commission makes several important recommendations to develop safety regulations to protect reactors in the event of coolant loss. Recommendations to devise a faster acting emergency protection system are also made. Despite the apparent urgency, the reactor designers fail to act on any of the recommendations. Instead the Soviet Govt orders more of the reactors to be built. In the years that follow, there would be even more serious accidents in the nuclear reactors else where in the Soviet union and all of them would be covered up for the fear that it would tarnish the ostensibly spotless record of the peaceful reactor.

The key safety system of the reactor # 4 is ascertained to protect it during a blackout. The designers develop a run down unit which is the crucial safety feature of the reactor #4 and must be tested before it was approved for use in 1983. In 1986, the tests were overdue for more than 3 years and the first scheduled maintenances for the reactor #4 gave the opportunity to conduct trial in the real world conditions. From here, the things start to fall. During the test, the reactor shuts down and destroys itself. There would be a loud noise of the explosion and a mushroom like cloud blossoming in to the sky. The highest levels of emergency alerts are summoned. It is a  terrifying and apocalyptic sight and the worst is yet to come. The damaged reactor is running low on water coolant. Extinguishing fire with water is counterproductive as it burned more savagely. The blast released explosive hydrogen and radio active steam. The levels of emitting radiation was such that a man would absorb a lethal dose in less than 4 minutes.

The need for secrecy lead to the false report that the accident was something that could've been controlled and contained. The people's lives were kept at risk. After elaborate investigations, the failure of the reactor was blamed on the incompetence of the operators. There was a thick long block of wall constructed to contain the radiations as an aftermath. Its called sarcophagus. The people and directors who were penalised for the disaster were released in 1990.

25 years after the incident, the Ukrainian government decided to build a tourist center around the exclusion zone in Chernobyl. It is considered safe for short visits.

The book is a horrifying documentation of the events. I was so moved by the events that I watched the Chernobyl documentary on Netflix. The stories of Dyatlov, Victor, Alexander Yuvchenko and Nikolai Formin are heart rendering. 

The moment of lift by Melinda Gates

Melinda Gates grew up as a child in Catholic home, raised by aerospace engineer father and stay at home mother. She witnessed a number of space launches which inspired her to find the moment of lift in the human beings. Its the story of a passionate public feminist advocate who shares her experiences of travel and working with underprivileged women.

In the story, she tells about how she met Bill Gates when she was working at Microsoft. After the birth of her first child, she along with Bill establish a foundation meant to fight social inequalities. It was not Melinda's plans to work on gender issues but after realising that empowering women is the key to reduce and increase access to health care, the foundation becomes more poised in solving gender issues.

She writes that "Poverty is the most disempowering force on earth" and hence works on resolving world poverty. She then talks on working on unplanned pregnancies which is the no.1 cause of death for girls aged 14 and 21. She works on child marriages, woman working on unpaid work, gender barriers, religion biases etc in the book.

I was in the impression this is a self help book. But it is more of a autobiography. There are good advices all over the place though. The last conclusive advice goes as below.

Speak up when and where you can. This will not only help you find a safe place in your voice, but it will also improve your sense of self. Always remember you have a responsibility to yourself to speak up against every form of unfairness. Also be nice to everyone you come across as love is the ultimate bridge of life. 

Kite Runner

A very long time ago I read this book. Later I watched the movie too. Both have been classics in their own terms. This is the book that lead me to Khaled Hosseini and I read all his works back to back and now I await for the next ones.

This one is about a boy named Amir who lives with his father "baba" in Kabul, Afghanistan. He has a servant by name Ali. Ali has a son called Hassan. There is a friend of baba - Rahim Khan.  Ali and Hassan belong to hazaara which is a ethnic minority. Baba loves Hassan more than Amir or thats what Amir thinks as. There is a kite fighting festival where the boys cover their kite strings in glass and battle to sever the string of opposing kites. When a kite loses, boys chase and retrieve it. This is called kite running. When Amir wins the kite challenge, Hassan sets off to run the losing kite. Hassan is trapped in an alley with his pants down and being raped by rowdy boys named Aseef, Wali and Kamal. Amir looks on as all this happen without letting out his effort to guard Hassan. Once Hassan is out Amir looks as if he doesn't know a thing. Amir is full of guilt and wants Hassan out of his house. He stuffs money and a watch under Hassan's bed and tells baba that Hassan stole them. When baba confronts Hasaan, he admits it though he has not done a thing. Ali and Hassan move away from Amir's house.

During the war times, Afghanistan is occupied by Soviets and Amir and baba escape to California. Amir goes to college and marries a girl by name Soraya. Baba dies due to lung cancer and one day Amir gets a call from Rahim Khan to see him in Pakistan. When Amir meets him he has a favor to ask. He tells about Hassan being the natural son of baba, about his house in Kabul which was demolished by Talibans, death of Hassan and his wife, about their orphaned child Sohrab. Rahim wants Amir to pick Sohrab from orphanage in Kabul. Amir sets off to Kabul to find that there is no orphanage and Sohrab is living with Aseef where he is sexually abused. Amir and Sohrab fight Aseef and escape. Amir and Soraya find trouble in legally adopting Sohrab but eventually they do. Sohrab is shaken and do not talk to anyone. He will have problems with getting along with the new family. Once there will be a kit festival in Fremont and Amir and Soraya take him there. They fly the kite together and Sohrab smiles for the first time. 

When Sohrab smiles for the first time is when the readers also let out a tear of happiness. Its a book of great love, guilt, loyalty and submission. There is war also in the backdrop to add to the sadness of the book but its the one with profound emotion and feeling.

I read this book around 10 years back and I still remember the characters and the story and more so the emotion associated with each scene. One has to read it to understand the depth and meaning of the fact that love and guilt combined together becomes such a powerful force. 

Fist of God - Frederick Forsyth

This book is a master thriller of Frederick Forsyth. Its set during the Persian Gulf war of 1991 in the similar lines as "The Afghan".

There was a scientist named Gerald Bull who envisioned launching a satellite with a super gun kind of artillery. He designs and develops the super gun through a project called Project Babylon in Iraq. The scientist is assassinated shortly after this development. This is a real story where the scientist lived and died. You can find his details here.

Iraq invades Kuwait. The officer Mike Martin who is dark in complexion and speaks Arabic can easily infiltrate to be Afghan. He is a SAS (A British special services unit of the Army) agent. US comes in to support Kuwait and free it from Saddam's rule. The world is unable to locate or identify the weaponry that Iraq is using. Mike Martin is called in and he passes in as an Afghan to detect the super gun that Saddam has employed.

In the mean time, CIA gets the word that there is a Mossad informer in Iraq called Jerico. Again now, Martin is called in and sent to Baghdad(Iraq). Mike works as a gardener in the house of a Soviet ambassador. Mike finally gets the information about the super gun from Jerico in exchange of a hefty money. But the information is useless as it takes someone on ground to point to the weapon so that it can be hit from the air as the gun as such is hidden and camouflaged. He travels to Vienna and deal with the Mossad.

There is a lot of treachery in the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. There are gory references to torture and violence. Its intense.

Its a book thats like any other book of FF. Intense and spine chilling. Once you are on it, you can't stop till you finish or at least till you know who Jerico is. Mike Martin is kind at the same time powerful. His presence of mind saves him on occasions where is just about to die or be captured. A high adventure, high drama read. 

Inheritance of loss - Kiran Desai

I read when I am joyous, I read when I am angry, I read when I am rejected by the world.

Today happens to be the last day when I hold up a wonderful book - Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai.

Since the time the book won the man booker prize, it was on my wish list. I borrowed the hard copy from Chandu uncle of Gurudutt library and could finish in a week's time.

Its about Sai - young girl living in Kalimpong with her grand father. Grand father is a retired judge. There is a cook in the house and a dog by name Mutt. The story is also abou Biju, son of cook and Gyan - romantic interest of Sai. The plot is set in Kalimpong around 1986 when there used to be internal conflicts between Gorkha national liberation front(GNLF) and govt.

Sai is an anglicised girl born in Russia to a supposed to be astronaut. The astronaut and his wife die in an accident rendering Sai orphan. She attends a boarding school and later transferred to her maternal grand father's house - Cho Oyu in Kalimpong.

She is arranged with a local teacher called Noni to teach maths and science. Noni and her sister Lola live together near by Cho Oyu. Sai has other neighbours like Uncle Potty, Uncle Booty and the princess of Afghanistan.

Cook;s son Biju is an illegal migrant in America hopping restaurants for job as a chef. Sometimes he is kicked out, sometimes he leaves. He meets people with diverse backgrounds. He gets in touch with Saead Saead from Pakistan and befriends him. He constantly writes letters to cook and for the cook, looking forward to those letters are the way of life. Cook boosts in the village about his son being in America and sends all the recommendations to Biju from local friends.

At the same time, Lola boosts about her daughter being in England as the reporter in BBC. The story is set up in the time when there was no telephone and radio. But Noni and Lola would have a radio and listen to BBC every night to listen to Lola's daughter.

Cook is irritated with the judge for the ill treatment he receives from judge. Cook spread lies about the judge in return saying judge was from an affluent family and a rich one where in real, judge would have married a rich man's daughter to fund his Cambridge studies. Cook says judge loved his wife where actually judge never loved his wife and he would beat her. When cook says these lies to Sai, Judge remembers his callous ways of treating his wife, when he pushed her face to toilet when she squat on it because he wanted her to be English like.

Gyan joins GNLF and Sai discovers it when she has gone to return library books. In sometime, the tension between GNLF and local groups increase and all the main roads are closed. Judge's dog, Mutt is missing and everyone at Cho Oyu are worried. The dog would have been kidnapped by a poor woman who wishes to sell it in return for money.

Biju gets to hear about the conflict in his home land and decides to return. He buys all the many souvenirs from America for his father. When he lands in Calcutta, he discovers there are no buses to Kalimpong and takes a ride with GNLF.  He is robbed on the way. He meets the cook at Cho Oyo.

Review: Its a book that talks of the loss of India's true identity due to the British influence for a long time. The story of Judge is the true impression of how the Indian's got the British way of living. I was in the context that all Booker award winners are hard core emotion based or event based books. This one is a thoroughly easy one to go. There is a light heart humour with a lot of irony in every page and line. 

Aleph By Paulo Coelho

Go and experiment. It’s time you got out of here. Go and re-conquer your kingdom, which has grown corrupted by routine. Stop repeating the same lesson, because you won’t learn anything new that way - master J

 It is a personal account of Paulo Coelho's journey across African, European and Asian continents specially in Trans Siberian railway inquiry Russia.  

Paula Coelho is unsatisfied with his spiritual progression and contacts his master for guidance. Master directs him to take a journey to conquer back his kingdom. 

On the journey Paulo meets a young woman by name Hilal. She is a gifted violinist. She demands Paulo to accompany him in the whole journey. Paulo realizes that she is his past love in a different life dating back to 500 years. He urges to seek Aleph - a point where time and space converge and become one. He tries it Hilal. He is confused at the same time whether to act on the current life's mannerisms or past live's unfinished work. 

Hilal is constricted. Paulo wants to set her soul free. She says 

"The girl forgives you, not because she has become a saint, but because she can no longer bear to carry this burden of hatred. Hating is very wearisome. I don’t know if something is changing in Heaven or on Earth, if my soul is being damned or saved, but I feel utterly exhausted and only now do I understand why. I forgive the man who tried to destroy me when I was ten years old.’ She continued: ‘I also forgive myself. May the misfortunes of the past no longer weigh on my heart. Instead of pain and resentment, I choose understanding and compassion. Instead of rebellion, I choose the music from my violin. Instead of grief, I choose forgetting. Instead of vengeance, I choose victory"

Review: It's been sometime now I read Paulo Coelho. I could not connect to this book and felt bull shit when I read about reincarnations. May be I missed on reading the past books and there is the link. It's not a book for anyone looking for spiritual elation. Often times, I simply read Paulo Coelho because of the lines that leave a lasting impression on me irrespective of the context. This book too had few of those magical lines that keep coming back as an after thought.

A hundred little flames

This is a book written by Preeti Shenoy. 

The narration is by a young man called Ayan who loses his job and joins his grand father in Kerala. Ayan sets off to Kerala to tend to his muttacha(grand father) who would have had a fall and broke his leg. 

Much of Ayans life incidents are controlled by his father Jairaj. Jairaj is a devious man planning to sell the house - thekke modem that muttacha lives in. 

To Ayans surprise, he starts liking the village his muttacha lives in. It's called poongavanam. He enjoys playing football with local team. He starts loving every aspect of thekke modem. There would be a care taker for muttacha as well as the thekke modem by name velu. Ayan loves being with velu. Ayan explores every nook and corner of the house to see if muttacha has kept those toys that he used to play with when he was kid along with his cousin Nitya. He speaks to Jairaj and aunt shaila on regular basis from thekke modem. 

Muttacha is angry as both his children don't come to visit him. But incidentally once when Ayan has gone for a job interview, Jairaj visits thekke modem. He convinces muttacha to go and see a doctor for regular checkup. But muttacha is actually shoved in to asylum by Jairaj and looks like only Jairaj is the legal visitor to visit muttacha. When Ayan returns home from interview, he learns from velu that Jairaj has put muttacha in a mental hospital. Velu and Ayan are spell bound about Ayans father behavior. All that Jairaj want is to put muttacha away and sell thekke modem. 

Ayan gets help from his friends and the local football club in finding out where muttacha is admitted. He succeeds in getting till muttacha posing as a journalist and documentary maker. He promises muttacha that he will release him out of the hospital soon. That is when muttacha asks Ayan to read his diaries to understand that Rohini is not any imaginary person. 

Ayan reads all the diaries that grandpa has kept and understands what truly to love someone means. He gets muttacha back home the next day. He suggests to muttacha he go find Rohini to which muttacha agrees. 

Ayan goes to Pondicherry where he find Rohini and calls muttacha. Rohini and muttacha are reunited. Ayan takes muttacha to Pondicherry from poongavanam and sees muttacha pass away when he and Rohini see each other. 

The book a nice fable about true friendship and love. The chronicles of muttacha has made me believe and realize that love does not need to have a relationship to express, experience and enjoy. Love is a form we all need to surrender to. 

The description of thekke modem is really appreciable as I started looking for thekke modem in every random village building that looked like a home. Muttachas character is simply good and one could feel the loss when he finally passes away. 

What I had thought as a time pass book really kept me going till the finish. It inspired me to experience true love at some point. After the initial reluctance, it captured me and made me see scenes from book every where I went. 

Far from the madding crowd - Thomas Hardy Book

To start with, I never thought I would be interested in a olden day English classic which is not fiction.

Far from the madding crowd is a lovely tale of love, betrayal and submission. The story is set up in rural England in the times of 1800. Its about Bathsheba, an intelligent woman exploring world all alone. She inherits her familial property when she is very young.

Gabriel Oak is a shepherd who falls in love with Bathsheba at first sight. He proposes her. She refuses.

Bathsheba gets in contact with her neighbour William Boldwood who admires her charm. William is an old man yet to find his lady love. He finds Bathsheba very lovable. Bathsheba sends him a valentine in a playful way sealed in red velvet box with words "marry me" embosses on it. Boldwood eventually proposes a marriage but she refuses again.

When story picks up pace, Bathsheba is again in love with a handsome looking sergeant Troy. Troy dumps a woman he loves to marry Bathsheba. Troy is a wrong man and Gabriel who is a shepherd at   Bathsheba's farm warns her on many occasions. Gabriel continues to love the same woman without conditions.

Troy is a gambler and has no interest in farming. He and Bathsheba are confronted with Fanny on the streets one day. Fanny is the old lover of Troy and she is pregnant. Troy tries to hide his excitement and desperation to meet her in front of Bathsheba. He later meets Fanny and gives her money. Fanny reaches a charity home and dies during the childbirth in a few hours after meeting Troy.

Mother and the baby are sent to Bathsheba's house in a coffin. Gabriel who knows Troy's involvement with Fanny tries to conceal child's identity. But Bathsheba finds out. Troy reaches home and kisses Fanny's corpse. He says Fanny was more to him than Bathsheba could ever be. He self loathes and leaves. He walks in to the sea in an attempt to end his life.

Troy is presumed to be dead. Boldwood renews his interest in Bathsheba and gifts her expensive things. On Christmas eve, Boldwood holds a party. Troy is not dead and visits Boldwoods house.

Bathsheba is taken by shock. She is snatched by Troy to go along with him. At this point Boldwood shoots Troy and he dies. Boldwood is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Bathsheba buries Troy in the same grave as Fanny and her child.

All through the course, Bathsheba relies on her old and real friend Gabriel. Gabriel is leaving Bathsheba's employment as people of the village start to gossip that he is going to ask Bathsheba for marriage. Bathsheba at this point says its too soon but its not impossible. Gabriel asks her hand and she agrees. They are married.

Review: You will definitely fall in love with gabriel for his simplicity and love he bestows on Bathsheba. Throughout, Bathsheba holds her honour high and never gives away her stature. The book brings the psychological insight about human nature and how we often make wrong choices based on superficiality. The book is good spirited and cheerful and ends in a satisfying way though one could predict the end.

The Origin - Dan Brown

This is the latest book by Dan Brown. The book is about how the technology is impacting the behaviour of homo sapiens.

The book begins with a business tycoon and a technologist Edmond kirsch intending to declare to the world his latest research on future of human race and the past. He creates an intrigue by asking questions like "Where we came from and where we are going?" in media. He invites the world's renowned people in every industry for this announcement at a museum in Guggenheim, Bilbao.
Each guest is handed over a head set that gives the instructions through robots. Langdon is given with Winston who is also the personal assistant of Edmond. The guests are ushered to an artificially made  meadow like space. Just when the declaration is about to be made, he shot dead. Robert Longdon who is Edmond's mentor and friend is handed to task to find the killer and reveal to everyone what the technologist intended to say.

Langdon is accompanied with the museum curator Ambra Vidal -who is the fiance of the prince of Spain. There are special police forces trying to protect the curator when she is escaping with Langdon on every capture attempt. 

The killer is found to be ex naval officer who mistakes his killing assignment to the revenge of killings of his family members. Langdon finds the laboratory where his Edmond has the server on which Edmond's presentation is stored. With the help of Winston, Langdon succeeds in making the presentation public. The message in it being that we should embrace technology for the good will of our future generation against all the odds created by the religious institutions. Technology is going to occupy us and we eventually become techno sapiens.

Winston self deletes himself, Ambra finds peace with her prince and Langdon is up for the next adventure.

The book is definitely a page turner as usual. The depictions of cities of Bilbao, Gaudi, Barcelona are so fantastic that we feel like visiting them for real. Thanks to Dan Brown for always coming up with promising thrillers. 

Malegalali Madhumagalu(book) - Kuvempu

Finished reading it the third time...!

I got lost the last two times, but this time, I am determined to write something about this book in the blog. 

The book is about the marvels of the nature in the western ghats of Karnataka. The story is set up in the beginning of 19th century where the electricity and analog clocks had not gotten as far as the remote villages of India. There was British rule, freedom struggle, Vivekananda and missionaries converting Indians to Christians. 

As it is said in the prologue, there is no one character or incident the novel talks about. Everyone and everything is important or not important at all. There is no beginning or end, There is no destination, there is no end. 

As such there is no ONE thing that you remember as summary to the story. Its an ocean of emotion, sky of language and the characters are stars. 

It starts with naayi gutti planning a kidnap of his maternal cousin Timmi and marry her. Then there is Timmappa Hegde, Rangamma, Jattama, Subbana Hegde, Bharamai Hegde, Mukunda, Chinnamma, Itha, Peenchlu etc etc. Naayi Kutthi succeeds in kidnapping Timmi and elopes in to the dense forest of Hulikal where the dangerous wild animals and tiger attack each other. Timmi is agreed by her parents to be married to another guy from her own village. The landlords of Timmi do not agree to send of Timmi with Gutti as Timmi and her family owe their lives to the landlord. 

Timmanna Hegde is a ugly looking rich man but no girl wants to marry him. He plans to exchange his sister to another man - Bharamai Heggde and get his sister marry Timmana. There is cold war between Sankranna Hedge and Subbanna Hegde, Kanna Pandita is a malayali ayurvedic doc who give tantra for all types of maladies. Aiytha and Peenchulu are newly wed couples. Mukunda is in love with his childhood sweetheart Chinnamma. His brother in law - Devay Gowda is deeply influenced by the pastor - Jeevarathnayya. Naayi Gutti is held by police, escapes and elopes again with Timmi. This time his beloved dog - gutti naayi dies. Itha and Peenchlu plans to get Chinnama run away with Mukunda on the eve of her wedding. When she runs away in her wedding attire to the nearest hill - one among the thousands in the ghats, she is pictured as "Malegallalli Madhumagalu". Her father dies after realizing Chinnamma has run off the wedding. Mukunda looks after Chinnamma's father left over property and business, Devayya Gowda is stopped from undergoing Christian conversion process at the last moment. 

There are stories to no end and one just needs to keep tab on whos who and enjoy the book. Kuvempu has finely sculpted this book with more than a 100 sub stories in it. Each one has its own beauty and grandeur in it. The characters are too many but one feels like, they are all so familiar. The description of the nature is too real to make it appear in front of the reader's eyes. One will be inspired to visit the forests on the ghats during rains when reading it.

Its one of the best books I have read. I recommend everybody to read it

The Mountain Shadow - David Gregory Roberts

Its the sequel to the legend of a book - Shantaram. Shantaram is a super duper book with a lot of spirituality, philosophy and referable quotes. It dealt with a criminal who ran from a prison in Australia and settled in the slums of Bombay to make a living by selling drugs and waging gang wars.

The sequel too deals with the same man - Lin and his girl friend Karla. Plot is also a continuation of the Shantaram story. There is Abdullah too who reappeared after being thought as dead for long. Lisa is married to a different man - someone famous in media industry. Lin has a bisexual girlfriend who is later murdered by Lin's enemies. Lin and karla are very much in love with each other - to the extent where they are married to different people but still think of each other's safety 24/7.

Tariq - only heir of Khader Khan dies after his house is set on fire. Gang wars become the main scene in the book. Lin leaves the gang this time as against taking significant role in Shantaram. Karla divorces her husband and goes to live in an ashram of Idriss along with Lin. There is a lot of unwanted philosophy here. Adbullah dies again due to an ambush between the police and the terrorists at Khaleed Ansari's Ashram.

Vikram, Didier, Jonny Cigar, Kavita Singh, Lettie all continue with their roles as in Shantaram even in this book. Leopold cafe holds the important stage to the plot from beginning to the end.

There are a lot of other threads like some huge family looking for a treasure in their house, a goonda police, zodiac georges, Lin's friend befriending and safeguarding a daughter of a rich Mumbaikar, a drugged young girl whose boyfriend committed suicide, Madam Zhou, a disguised waiter from Srilanka who joins Lin in Mumbai, a woman in blue hijab etc.. These stories take the intensity away from Karla-Lin main stage.

While reading, at times you feel like lost as the author seems to confuse as to what he wants to convey. There is ambiguity in many areas of philosophies and the lines are not very appealing. Idriss gyaan is not easily understandable. As such the story drifts with no conclusion or you feel there is no point the author wants to make. As a whole I was a bit disappointed as I started the book with Shantaram in mind.

Ajeya - Biography of Chandrashekar Azad

A piece of information on why I chose to read this book. When my mother was preganant with me, she read this book. When I became pregnant, I was in search of some good books to read. I came across THE MAN by Irving Wallace and Ajeya by Babu KrishnaMurthy.

Ajeya is the biography of Chandra Shekar Azad famously known as Azad in the Indian freedom movement. He was classified as a revolutionary with ideology following that of Hindustan Republican Association(HRA). He was born in a small village in Madya Pradesh. At a very young age, he was held by police for supporting Gandhi's non co operation movement. He managed to escape from them quite soon. He named himself as Azad from then on symbolically saying nobody can captivate him.

He ran away from home and came to know Ram Prasad Bismil - founder of Hindustan Republican Association. Azad accumulated funds to the association through robberies of rich Indian supporters of British. During this time he took part in Kakori train robbery that attempted to destroy viceroy's train. He was mostly moving around in disguise due to this.

During a peaceful protest against Simon commission, Lala Lajpat Rai - punkab kesari was hit brutally by James A Scott - a police. Rai subsequently died which led to the revolutionaries like Bhagat and Raj Guru avenge Scott. On a eventful day, they including Azad planned to kill Scott but mistakenly shot John P Saunders.

After this, Azad, Bhaghat and RajGuru were most wanted by the police and they made a wide spread look out for the trio. Azad based himself in Jhansi for a long time in the disguise of a sage and tought the local children. He became the favorite of the locals. He also managed HRA activities from the same place.

He now had alliances with a bigger group of people and he also extended the HRA membership. Though funding was a big challenge he could carry revolutionary activities against the British. He managed to make bombs and test them. Once during the test in a far off forest, he lost his best associate Bhagawati Charan Vohra.

He planned to escape Bhagat Singh and RajGuru from jail when they were arrested in explosion in assembly case. But it was a failed attempt.

He died by shooting himself in Alfred park when the police were to captivate him owing to the promise that he will not let anyone to capture him.

Azad was the heart and soul of HRA aka HSRA. He inspired the Indian youth to take part in revolutionary freedom fight. Now he is looked upon as a great leader amassing thousands of young Indians towards freedom struggle.

About the book - You feel like Azad is a friend of yours and you cry when he dies. You cry when his friends die too. The narration is a perfect tale that takes you through the journey of a onlooker at the freedom movement. You start living in those days and find people and everything else relating to freedom and revolution. The book inspired me to visit the places Azad has stepped on. It inspired me to read more of these heroes. It definitely enriched my life. 

The MAN - Irving Wallace

The MAN - is a book written by best selling author Irving Wallace. I was suggested to read this book by many of my acquaintances including my father and brother and a well wisher.

About a month ago, I started with the painstakingly long book(again on Kindle) and could finish only now. Its about a Negro man who gets to become the president of America accidentally.

It so happens that the old president and the vice president would be dead in a building collapse in Germany.  Back in America, there is a senator negro man selected as the new president as he is the pro tempore of the president.

The book is the journey of this new guy as the president in the White House. There are aspects as to how he deals with the racism against him and the racism that he is inflicting the people of America, how unbiased he is, how wise he is when he tackles issues related to his children etc.

He is challenged by the white racists and the black men seeking freedom from racism. He is impeached with false charges of dismissing one of his board members, harassment and others. His fights the impeachment trail with the help of his friend lawyer and wins over. At the same time, the Russians who are trying to capture a small piece of land backed by America - called Amboko also suspend their operations by which the Negro man wins popularity back and there is no re-election held due to these reasons.

As said by all else, I was expecting the book to give me some lines of definition of THE MAN, probably all MEN on earth. But it failed to keep up my expectation as I knew better MEN than this Negro Douglass Dilman - Men who are wiser, more intelligent and courageous.

Piece of advice: Do not set expectations before picking it up. A big book indeed with a lot of pages of repetitive text(like the charges of impeachment, I almost knew those lines by heart when it was over). Douglass Dilman was the MAN of 1960s and does not hold good for current society. He may prove to be inspirational in terms of beings unbiased. But everything else, I expect him to be updated. 

Nikola Tesla - Biography

My husband introduced me to the whole new series of biographies of which the story of Nikola Tesla was also one. I read this biography on Kindle which was a new experience.

The man Tesla is a creator of 20th century. His inventions have shaped our lives and continue to do so even after centuries.

He was born in Croatia in 1856 and later migrated to the United States of America. He dreamt of working with Edison and briefly did so before realizing that Edison is no friend.

Edison hired Tesla to fix problems he was having in DC generators and motors and promised Tesla a very huge amount. But when the job was done, Edison laughed away on the promise he made to Tesla on the monetary part. 

Tesla could not stand the argument with Edison that the direct current is the one world class solution for the electrical supply concept against his own alternating current. 

Thomas Edison - already established as an inventor and the business mogul in electrical science and technology could not stand the idea of alternating current and hence dismissed the idea and went on to speak negative about it in the scientific forums.  Tesla in one of the forums wore the alternating current carrying wires to prove that its not dangerous. He also organised the forum to run completely on the alternating current concept so that people find its merit. 

Tesla was met with numerous failures in his journey of innovation. He was rejected in various stages by the sponsors, fund providers and general public. He kept his attitude to invent no matter what came his way. One of his important inventions - Radio was stolen and a year later Marconi was awarded the Nobel prize for the same invention. It does not end here. Some other examples are - X-Rays, Radar, Hydro Electric Plant, Transistors. 

He died in his room on 7th Jan 1943. He was found by his maid. Tesla obtained around 300 patents worldwide for his inventions through out. Any gratitude to this man I harbor is simply not enough.

Street Lawyer - John Grisham

This fictional story is about Michael Brock is a lawyer at Drake and Sweeney - one of the acclaimed law organisations in America.

One fortunate day, a street dweller enters Michael's office and holds hostage of 8 lawyers in his firm. The firm does everything to save the lawyers and kills the street dweller. Michael is curious to find why the homeless man tried the drama of the hostage when he did not want to kill anyone neither wanted any money. He goes in search of this homeless man and discovers that he was one of the tenants who were evicted from an old building in the city. Michael quits his job at Drake and Sweeney and joins a law clinic for the homeless.

He comes in contact with a homeless family of Lontae Burton and her four children while serving food at a shelter for the homeless. Later he learns that they all died in an unfortunate incident in a car that they were sleeping in to keep themselves warm in the mid winter. He finds that the homeless man who tried to kill him at his office and Lontae Burton were all evicted from the same building where they were not squatting but living on rent.

The eviction was a result of a greedy lawyer from Drake and Sweeny who put the client RiverOaks also at risk to liberate the building to accommodate a postal office.

Michael succeeds in proving Drake and Sweeney guilty. He also influence the director of Drake and Sweeney - Arthur to spend time helping the homeless.

The book is a slow pace read and almost drags in the middle though it picks speed in the last 20 pages. Do not expect a bone chilling high drama experience.

A good choice of book if you have fixed a time of the day to read ANY book - just to keep the good habit - meaning to say it does not make you come back to it unless you are disciplined to read anything. 

Gold Mine - Wilbur Smith

Sonder Ditch - remember that because that is where the next full month's of action is going to happen to you if you decide to read Gold Mine by Wilbur Smith.

The story is of two men -Rod and Manfred. Rod is promoted to be General manager of the mine when there is huge collapse of one of the floors in the mine. Manfred has a personal motive to acquire political advancement in the mining industry by conspiring with a bunch of wealthy men on destroying a couple of gold mines to hike the gold rate overall.

Manfred is told by these wealthy men that there is a big treasure of gold beneath the "Big Dipper" in the mine for which Rod is the manager. By this time, Rod has fallen in love with Manfred's wife Teresa who happen to inherit the power and wealth of Hurry Hirchsfeld - a very wealthy man in Africa.

A man of mining passion that is Rod - reluctantly digs deeper behind the big shaft to find a catastrophe waiting. He finds out a river flowing meddling with which, it would destroy all of the gold mines in the entire vicinity. He also finds that Manfred is up for killing all of his drilling employees by posting them in this region.

In a story that has all the elements of greed. lust, power, adultery, violence and love - the reader is never left without excitement.

Sphinx - TS Learner

Here is a book on olden day Egyptology that revolves around Nectanebo || and other renowned Pharaohs whose fate has been decided by mysterious electromagnetic device astrarium.

An archaeologist Isabella comes in contact with an artifact that she believes decided her date of death and many others of her predecessors from an astrologist in Goa, India. She goes on to believe that the artifact has a power of its own and guides the possessor of it towards the good will of the world.

She dies discovering this artifact in an ocean expedition that meets an unfortunate land slide inside the ocean. Her husband Oliver comes in possession of the artifact and do not know what to do with it. He meets numerous people both trying to safeguard it and destroy it. He puts his life on risk on a trail of incidents wanting to rest the device in the place where it belonged.

He learns that the device has a mind of its own and influences incidents around him. He tries to overcome those influences surrendering to more danger. He finds out about the secrete practices that Isabella's family were following in connection with the mysterious incidents that took place in Nectanebo, Cleopatra and other kings lives. He ventures in to the pyramids and finds out about the soul leaving the human body when death occurs. He is taken by shock at these moments but wants to explore more to understand the truth about the astrarium's real abode.

Oliver comes across a wealthy business man who is ready to buy the oil field just discovered by his team. Oliver later realizes that he is the man identified long ago as Nectanebo and rests the astrarium in his grave.

Though the book is a little draggy in the beginning, the plot picks up pace later on to an ever enthralling experience. TS Learner makes an outstanding writer to keep his readers jelled to the book. Many a times, I googled to figure out what each of his concepts mean by which I was able to contemplate the fine line explanations.

Great read if you are able to be patient with the initial 100 pages.