Category: Books

Women, Work and Identity

I have always wondered how the gen-next is going to handle the issues of family , work and gender-equality. About 25 years back, women still had an honorable, socially acceptable designation as ‘housewife’ or home maker’.  Today, even if they call it ‘CEO , Home Inc”, there would be no takers for the title.    … Continue reading “Women, Work and Identity”

I have always wondered how the gen-next is going to handle the issues of family , work and gender-equality. About 25 years back, women still had an honorable, socially acceptable designation as ‘housewife’ or home maker’.  Today, even if they call it ‘CEO , Home Inc”, there would be no takers for the title. 

    
       Women do need an identity, outside their home, just as men have always needed. Even in my 32nd year of service, I can’t say enough is enough. I keep hearing  “What do you plan to do for a second career. ?”
        Read a book, ‘When Work Doesn’t Work Anymore’ by Elizabeth Perle Mckenna. This book was written in 1997, but is just right for the social scenario in India today. It is about a successful career woman, who after 20 years of relentless pursuit of success on ‘man’s terms’ realizes there was  something missing in her life despite achieving everyone of  the goals she set for herself in personal and professional sphere. She still liked her work alright, had what she calls ‘rock solid marriage’; yet this was not what she had thought her life would be like.
 

Just as the title is, there are a number of interesting one-liners  to describe the situation of women today.  

 
Some examples:

 

“ women soon realized, going to work involved having to work” 
 
“without the privileges or good financial rewards, work was just that – work.”
 
“ and worse, women are faulting themselves for not being enough of what they don’t even want to be”
 
“she has arrived at what she calls her ‘something gotta give period’ which means either her career or her personal life is going to get smaller for the good of the other”
 
     The author narrates the stories of women with similar predicaments, to illustrate each point she makes. Then there is a liberal dose of Gloria Steinem (GS) Quotes to add weight to her case.
 
        Today, women have entered every field, well, almost every field, and have tasted success in every field they have ventured into. But after, working for 20-30 years, in a man’s world , playing by the rules set by men, there is a kind of emptiness. There is a  perceived sense of failure, which is best expressed in the words of  GS, ” If you meet a woman who’s doing wonderfully well professionally, doing great creative things and is completely happy with her work, but does not have the personal life she thinks she should have, she may think she is a failure. Men are the reverse. They can have great personal lives, and think they are failures if they don’t have the job success they think they are supposed to have.”
 
      Another GS Quote from the book ‘ The working world remains a place built for men with full time wives to take care of the rest of the life’. In the present times men are also equally handicapped to succeed in such a working world. Talking of full time wives, the Indian scene is indeed quite confusing. There are housewives/home makers, ladies and  working women who may be categorized as full time wives, part-time wives or of any shade in a broad spectrum.
 
      Years ago, I saw a hand bill  inviting ‘housewives, working women, and ladies ‘ to join a computer training course. After some deliberation, I translated ‘housewives, working women and ladies’ to mean ‘women who work only at home, women who could work also at home and women who wouldn’t work even at home’
 

         The last category is possible in India , thanks to affordable domestic help. That is where the ‘CEO, Home Inc.’ steps in.


Recently I read an Indian version of similar ideas in HT http://www.hindustantimes.com/Kamla-comes-home/Article1-719214.aspx

        The book is a good read for any woman looking to balance work life and personal life. Another quote from GS ” I still get young women in audiences, asking,’How can I combine career and family?’ I always tell them, ‘you can’t until men are asking that question too ‘.” Well, men  will start asking such questions , if only they are allowed to go easy on their work life, by the society, family and themselves.
 
     For whatever reason, men haven’t made much progress in work-family balance. At best you have the cooperative husband who is prepared to put up with cold dinners or even no dinner, cheerfully. Don’t expect him to cook or wash for the whole family. On the other side is the prickly type (no pun intended) who simply cannot accept any situation where the woman is not at home.
         Let’s say, one has decided on how much to give to one’s career, still there is a need to decide the time line. There are two schools of thought; one is to first establish yourself in your work place and then raise a family. The other is to take a break, complete your family and then get back to the rat race .

           Unfortunately, a woman’s most productive years coincide with her reproductive years as well. Oh God ! isn’t there any easy decisions at all in life?

Denial of the Soul

  A disclosure to begin with; Dr Peck has been one of my favourite authors, (a psychologist /philosopher /motivator ), I tend to agree with most of his ideas (not a good thing for independent thinking). Moreover, having been through “Road less traveled”, “Further along Road less traveled” and Road less traveled and beyond”, most … Continue reading “Denial of the Soul”

 

A disclosure to begin with; Dr Peck has been one of my favourite authors, (a psychologist /philosopher /motivator ), I tend to agree with most of his ideas (not a good thing for independent thinking). Moreover, having been through “Road less traveled”, “Further along Road less traveled” and Road less traveled and beyond”, most of the anecdotes and case histories are so familiar.

           The title reminds you of of CG Jung’s “Modern man in search of a soul” It is always exciting when Physics, Metaphysic, Psychology and Parapsychology meet, like in “Tao of Physics”

            The book covers the medical and spiritual aspects of Euthanasia and mortality. During our lifetime, we inevitably have to endure physical suffering such as pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death; and we have to endure psychological suffering like sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression.
           It starts with an analysis of physical pain. There is good pain and bad pain , short term pain and chronic pain and there are gradations in severity of pain. After all the first step to relieve pain is to study pain. Here, we are introduced to the concept of palliative care and hospice, which focus on pain management rather than cure.  While physical pain is more talked about, it is the emotional pain that Dr Peck considers more relevant to the issue of Euthanasia.

There are many ideas which wouldn’t go well with the scientific fraternity; I quote,

           “The question is not merely “what is the name of the disease ? but whether the disorder is purely biological or purely psychological or a mixture of the two. If it is a mixture, which is the case as often as not, what are its proportions ? 50-50, 90-10 , or 10-90 ?Social and spiritual factors must be considered. I could argue that almost all diseases are bio-psycho-socio-spiritual disorders”

(Doctors are obsessed with disease and disorders… A corollary to the above statement implies that well being means ‘physical, mental, social and spiritual well being)

      After Physical and Emotional pain , the author goes on to Social and Spiritual aspects of Euthanasia. There is a chapter on Secularism. While Indian secularism implies going to every place of worship, the American secularism, stays away from all religions.
        Some of the terms discussed are ‘pulling the plug’, ‘double effect’, (relieving pain by increasing the dosage of painkiller, while risking speedy progression of the disease) , ‘Physician assisted suicide’, ‘passive euthanasia’, and ‘right to death on demand’.
      The author is not against Euthanasia,but against playing ‘God’. He is just apprehensive about two things in particular; firstly, the inconsistent nature of medical cover in US and secondly, the rampant secularism. Specifically he is concerned about a number of things like not debating enough about euthanasia, leaving out the spiritual aspects in the discussions, and finally letting the economic aspects decide framing of laws, since it is the Insurance companies which are most affected by any law on Euthanasia.
       He concludes that, in the absence of widespread debate on the issue, the nation might be mislead. It is likely that legal experts, medical experts and insurance companies who are averse to take into consideration any spiritual and emotional aspects, decide the fate of patients who, by and large believe in some kind of God.

Everything discussed in the book is morbid and it definitely jolts you, and yet it leaves you with a clearer and lighter frame of mind, in the end.

Gates of Fire

Read a book Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield, a historical novel based on the battle of Thermopylae. It is a nice mix of fact and fiction , the drama just enough to smoothen the rough edges and to add a little spice to a simple battle report. Of course the victors write the history … Continue reading “Gates of Fire”

Read a book Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield, a historical novel based on the battle of Thermopylae. It is a nice mix of fact and fiction , the drama just enough to smoothen the rough edges and to add a little spice to a simple battle report.

Of course the victors write the history and it would be worth remembering the words of Mark Twain

“The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”

Though over 2500 years have passed since, the Spartan culture , governed by the laws of Lycurgus continues to inspire and influence military minds, particularly the spartan way of training for war.

The story is narrated in the words of a low ranking person in the Spartan society helot / Squire. It reminds me of another great book on written by a German private , one of the best books I have read on World War – II, “A Forgotten Soldier” by Guy Sager .These books paint a broad brush on the macro events while concentrating on the innermost emotional experiences of soldiers during war and what soldiers call minor tactics or battle craft.

The language used is not scholarly but simple narrative style. Even a profound statement is reduced to simple words. During a lull in the battle a non Spartan tells the Spartans , “I now realize that all the drill and discipline you Spartans love to pound into each other’s skulls were really not to inculcate skill or art, but only to produce this glue that bind a unit together”

” Only to produce this glue”; The words ring true even today. In military academies they talk of camaraderie, team spirit and bonding which are nothing but the quantity and quality of ‘this glue’. At least in infantry battles it this ‘glue’ which decides the outcome, even in the 21st century.

Fifth and the last part of ‘Books, Books and books..’.

Regimental soldiers’ always looked down upon ‘book worms’, yet the Schools of Instructions in the Services like to project an image of Scholar-Warriors. There is a nice promotional video clip on the subject and it is even available on the you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muY3TF1lcmk But God knows that you cannot do much profound thinking with a … Continue reading “Fifth and the last part of ‘Books, Books and books..’.”

Regimental soldiers’ always looked down upon ‘book worms’, yet the Schools of Instructions in the Services like to project an image of Scholar-Warriors. There is a nice promotional video clip on the subject and it is even available on the you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muY3TF1lcmk
But God knows that you cannot do much profound thinking with a 2 kg steel helmet on your head and as an infantry soldier soldier you are more concerned about the well being of your knees than your head.

Be that as it may, Schools of Instruction like National Defence Academy, Army War College, National Defence College , and College of Defence Management boast of great libraries. These institutions get massive budgetary allotments for library and the funds are well utilized to build up quality collections on Political Science, Geopolitics , Defence Startegy, Counter-Insurgency and Counter-Terrorism. And of course , there would be an equally good collection on Psychology, Philosophy, Sociology and Self improvement.

At Armoured Corps Centere and School, I literally feasted on the history of Tank battles, by Liddel hart, Guderian, and Manstein. The effect of this reading on my grades was adverse if any; after all wide reading and army grades don’t go together.


To sum up I have always been impressed with army libraries and my stay in a cantonment has always been enriched by regular visits to these libraries. It is not just the books, but the ambiance, as well. They are clean, well maintained and are surrounded by vast open spaces and plenty of greenery.
Here is a picture of St Peter’s Anglican Church, at Fort William , Kolkata, built in 1784 in the Gothic style. It is presently the Eastern Command Command Library . The biblical saga narrated in the medium of stained glass is one of the finest in the country.

Today, I am glad that I chose to settle down at Mhow, with three good libraries in a radius of 2 km .






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Books Books and Books – IV : Regimental officers don’t read, they are soldiers first !

continued from books, books and books – III My first place of posting was Mizoram. In field area, units usually stock up the kind of books best read when you are ‘soldiering’. We too had such a collection in our officers mess library and there were officers whose only favourite author was ‘anonymous’ We moved … Continue reading “Books Books and Books – IV : Regimental officers don’t read, they are soldiers first !”

My first place of posting was Mizoram. In field area, units usually stock up the kind of books best read when you are ‘soldiering’. We too had such a collection in our officers mess library and there were officers whose only favourite author was ‘anonymous’

We moved to Lucknow shortly where we had the Central Command Library. But it was meant for the oldies. Young officers , at least in those days were expected to be seen only in the sports fields or the training area. After all, unlike cadets, the officers did not even have an academic curriculum to worry about. Yes, the promotion exams were there, but they could be cleared through a combination of ‘kunji’ , smartness and timely support from helpful invigilators. Ostensibly to inculcate the habit of reading, the higher headquarters used to demand monthly submission of book reviews by every officer. As the report date neared, my stock value increased as I could pick up the nearest respectable looking book (can’t write about anonymous , you see) , flip through a few pages and produce an ‘ okay’ review. But, I must say, there were guys who could write a review even without a look at the book; mind you those were ‘netless’ days. When I was senior enough to groom young officers , I used to give them a long list of books to read, on their arrival in the unit and today I can say , everyone of them has benefited from that.
So by and large I read whatever was available in the regimental libraries. Sometimes when co-located with higher headquarters you had a wider choice of reading. Most of these libraries had a big chunk of collection on military science, then popular authors like, Arther Hailey, Sydney Shelden, John Gresham, Irving Wallace, Leon Uris, Robin Cook, Wilbur Smith, Robert Ludlum, Ken Follet, and Frederik Forsyth . There were certain books generally found in most regimental libraries ; biographies of military leaders, books by John Masters, Manohar Malgaonkar, and of course books on second world war. Barring the books on military science, it looks like a typical bookstore at a railway Station or Airport. Well life in Army is indeed like a palace on wheels; even the books we read conform to the idea.
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Books, books and books-III

After leaving the School, I had a brief stint at Loyala College Chennai, for about four months before I joined the NDA. The college library was good but it did not have an open access system. You had to consult the catalog , fill out a slip giving your choice of books and at the … Continue reading “Books, books and books-III”

After leaving the School, I had a brief stint at Loyala College Chennai, for about four months before I joined the NDA. The college library was good but it did not have an open access system. You had to consult the catalog , fill out a slip giving your choice of books and at the end of the day, the books were issued, if available. You could also reserve a book if it was under issue. Well, it was difficult to pick up a book by just the title and the author, unless you had seen the book before. Moreover, one missed the pleasure of physical browsing of books. Its like ordering a pizza on telephone as compared to placing an order after leisurely taking in the sights and sounds and aroma in a restaurant.
And it was like a blind date. Once, I filled out a slip “Basic Theories by Freud” and after the classes, I was greeted by a real monster of a book, a hard bound edition , over 1000 pages weighing over a kilo. I had to lug it home , browse through for a few days before lugging it back.
It was a too short a stay at Loyola to settle down to any focused reading.
At NDA, again, there was a very good library, though it was hardly used by the cadets. Firstly cadets had little free time and more importantly, library was simply not considered a ‘hip’ place to be in. In fact during our time it was part of the punishments to spend the Sundays at Library. Defaulters (you did not have to do much to be labeled a defaulter; a button of slightly different shade, or a twisted lace in your boots can fetch you 7 or even 14 restrictions). Each day of ‘restriction’ included a run in the evening and 3-4 reportings and on Sundays , it included a library session. It goes without saying, I had my share of ‘restrictions’
It is at NDA that I read all the volumes of complete works of Swami Vivekananda, Biographies of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda by Nikilananda and Romain Rolland , Atmabodh and Kindle Life by Swami Chinmayananda. It is natural that philosophy and psychology are grouped together by librarians,. So my next stop was Psychology. I was particularly interested in Jung; a book I intend revisiting is “modern man in search of a soul”.
No Tamil books here and only fiction I read was ‘historical fiction’. I remember reading everything written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn including some prose poem; Gulag Archipelago, The First Circle, Cancer Ward, The Love-Girl and the Innocent, August 1914, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. To sum up, for whatever reason, it was all serious reading and just no fun reading. May be I equated serious stuff with English and it was much later that I read books like PG Wodehouse.




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Books, Books and Books – II

This is in continuation to the blog on 29 Sep 10. Then, I was counting the days to move to Mhow for good. I thought I would have all the time in the world; but as the saying goes , ‘Man proposes, God disposes’. After Sep, it is only now I have sat down to … Continue reading “Books, Books and Books – II”

This is in continuation to the blog on 29 Sep 10. Then, I was counting the days to move to Mhow for good. I thought I would have all the time in the world; but as the saying goes , ‘Man proposes, God disposes’. After Sep, it is only now I have sat down to write something.

My school had a very-well stocked library, or so it seemed to me as a nine year old. I had opted for Lower Tamil (third language ) and I was the only one in my class to do so. My teacher thought I was actually better at Tamil than the guys who had opted for higher Tamil (second language) and he let me spend the time at the library. That was fun.
I started with children’s books, but soon graduated to short stories and novels. The library had a fair collection of English books and generally one started with famous five & secret seven, and moved on to Perry Mason, Agatha Christie , ‘Sudden’, Alistair MacLean, Nick carter, Arthur Hailey and so on . But barring an odd book from each category, my reading was mostly in Tamil . In Tamil ,we never had any children’s books really. so it was Akilan, kalki, Naa Parthasarathy, Jeyakanthan, Jekachirpiyan, Mu varatharasanar and so on. Then there were the popular women writers like Anuradha Ramanan, Indumathi, Ramani Chandran, Sivasankari, Vaasanthi anuththama, Lakshmi (aka thirupura sundari) . Lakshmi was like mills and boons in Tamil. I admit, I liked reading lakshmi kathai as much as other books. Reading in Tamil was fun, fast and easy. Fortunately for us, our teachers never forced us to read English books nor they forced us to converse in English (as they do nowadays) and in any case I used to score better in English than the “famous five” types. (Penguin’s David Davidar was a classmate of mine and he was a voracious reader; thanks to the high weightage given to grammar, I used to outscore him in exams.)
Moreover lots of books from other Indian languages and some foreign languages were available in Tamil. Many famous Russian novels including War and Peace were available in Tamil. I remember reading “Mother “ by Maxin Gorky when I was in 7th or 8th. I did not learn much about the nuances of the Bolshwik struggle or about communism, but the travails of Pavel Mikhailovich against the Tsar’s regime definitely made some impression.
During that period I read hardly anything other than fiction and biographies. Essentially it was Tamil fiction, but a fiction that covered a whole host of serious contemporary social and political issues of those times.
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50 Spiritual Classics

Read “50 Spiritual Classics” by Tom Butler-Bowden. Every book listed is definitely worth a look, but depending on your own temperament, culture and upbringing some of the books may be more appealing. I have made my own short list of 12 books which includes books read, read and forgotten and books yet to be read. … Continue reading “50 Spiritual Classics”

Read “50 Spiritual Classics” by Tom Butler-Bowden.

Every book listed is definitely worth a look, but depending on your own temperament, culture and upbringing some of the books may be more appealing. I have made my own short list of 12 books which includes books read, read and forgotten and books yet to be read.

Jonathan LIvingston Seagull Richard Bach
The Tao of Physics Fritjof Capra

Black Elk Speaks

 Black Elk
An Autobiography : The Story of my experiments with Truth MK Gaandhi
Enchiridion Epictetus
The Prophet Kahil Gibran
Siddhartha Hermaan Hesse
Memories, Dreams and Reflections CG Jung
Think on these things J Krishnamurti
The Razor’s Edge Somerset Maugham
The Miracle of Mindfulness : An Introduction to the practice of Meditation Thich Nhat Hanh
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert Pirsig

Books , books and ..books

Books , books and ..books, that is the earliest memory of my home. Books in the attic, books on the shelves, books on the table and…………….books all over the floor. this is partly because of the love for books but more so because of the inherent laziness to organize and being too preoccupied with reading … Continue reading “Books , books and ..books”



Books , books and ..books, that is the earliest memory of my home. Books in the attic, books on the shelves, books on the table and…………….books all over the floor. this is partly because of the love for books but more so because of the inherent laziness to organize and being too preoccupied with reading that you don’t give the necessary time and effort to earn some real bucks and to put in some real effort to create a library to care for the books you love so much.


my father subscribed for kalki, kumudam, kalkandu, kalaimagal, deepam, manjari, kannan , ambulimama and thughluq, not to mention the deepawali malar published by kalki, sudesamitran, ananda vikatan etc. to top up this reading was the books from libraries, Connemara Pubic Library, and the district library simply called the “mukku library” roughly translated as ” nukkad ” or “corner“.

I never realized till much later in life that majority of our countrymen did not have the luxury of a “street corner library” . Only when I did my BLIS degree at Madras University did I learn that just five of our states have legislation to provide libraries to general public. Another thing I learnt was about the father of library science in India, Shri SR Ranganathan who I believe is distantly related to us.


At the outset, let me make it clear, this post is not to glorify the readers, (though it sounds so) but to understand them, to understand ourselves. Book readers are not superior beings for I have met many people who are much smarter, much more intelligent and much more wiser than some of the voracious readers I have met.

having said that, some of my favourite quotes on books are:-

A book is a garden,an orchard, a storehouse,a party, a company by the way,a counselor, a multitude of counselors . – Henry Ward Beecher

No man can be friendless when he has God and the companionship of good books. – Anonymous

A good Bookshelf is …
A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civilised countries in a thousand years set in the best order the results of their learning and wisdom.
The men themselves were hidden and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette; but the thought they did not uncover to their bosom friend is written out in transparent words to us, the strangers of another age.
– RW Emerson


so said some wise men..

In the run up to republic Day camp, we go through a series of camps to train the cadets. I shared a room with a rajasthani friend of mine, who had a knack for making money, was good at organizing, but was generally not guilty of reading. after a long day, seeing me curled up on the bed with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a book in the other (evidently he had never ever seen a spectacle like that ) he spontaneously remarked ,”sir, aapke lie to book snack ka kaam karta hai” Well, so be it.. book is a snack, book is food, book is drink and it can do any good or harm that food and drink can do.


but once a reader, always a reader and for good or bad you cannot stay away from books. A curse or a blessing I know not.

I would love to die with a book in one hand and a glass in the other, with MS Subbulakshmi’s ‘kurai onrum illai” streaming in….. oh! what a lovely way to go ! ya, a book shelf within reach, with a choice collection of kahil gibran, paulo coelho, spinoza and our own shankara and ramanuja.
and a pen and notepad at hand to record the ‘death poem’ of the Japanese, should the maker care to make you his instrument…..

something like

“Like dew drops

on a lotus leaf

I vanish. “

My earliest memory of my interaction with books was not a pleasant one. It was a typical Sunday ; I remember because the magazines , the newspaper man had delivered were “kumudam and kalkandu. Those were the days when week days were marked by the weekly magazines you received and the beginning of the month by the monthly periodicals and a fortnight was marked by.. yes you guessed it by fortnightlies like thughluq. I was in 2nd standard,( folks, I was in first standard when four year old and in second standard when I was four and half years) . I saw my brother reading “kumudam’ and promptly I snatched it from him and I pretended to read. He quietly picked up the other magazine and started reading and I had to snatch that too. My father who was watching all this , gave a sound whacking, “enna asigai paaru” . yes, I was jealous , but not because i did not possess the book; i was jealous because he could read and I could not. Today I believe i would love such envy in my kid, or any kid for that matter. I don’t remember when I actually started reading , first the jokes, which were a aplenty in tamil magazines and later stories… But the first motive to read was through what we call a negative emotion, ‘plain envy’….

…………….will continue by the grace of God


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book: Families at Home by Reeti Gadekar

It is the debut novel by Reeti Gadekar. The book was shortlisted for Manasia literary award. The plot is set in Delhi . There is police, business families, middle class and the rustic rural characters. The paragraphs describing the various localities and the people living there in delhi are quite accurate and hilarious. the main … Continue reading “book: Families at Home by Reeti Gadekar”


It is the debut novel by Reeti Gadekar. The book was shortlisted for Manasia literary award. The plot is set in Delhi . There is police, business families, middle class and the rustic rural characters. The paragraphs describing the various localities and the people living there in delhi are quite accurate and hilarious. the main characters include juneja the ACP, who sees the world through the eyes of the privileged class with feudal values in personal life and liberal view on everything else. Joseph is a keralite, totally at sea in Delhi, unable to understand the psyche of a delhiite . There is Sajjan Kumar , the ‘thug’ in the police team and then NK and RK talwars along with NK bhabhiji and RK bhabhiji of the typical punjabi business family.

The murder plot pans out like a B grade detective novel, the language is of Hindusthan Times and vulgarity generally passes for humour, may be that reflects the NCR culture. Probably the subject calls for such a style of writing. one example “….Nothing like the Delhi Policeman to wax eloquent on the orifices of the female body and what could be best deposited there…”
About editing, the less said the better it is. There are fragments of sentences, spelling mistakes, repeated words, and generally the book seemed to have been published in a hurry, when the deadline was more important than quality.