Book Review [65] : Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (Che Guevara diary)

Che Guevara is a name that still sends shivers to one's spines and enforces the great lines from William Wordsworth about French Revolution, "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven" . This great revolutionary Ernesto Guevara was born on 14th June, 1928 in Argentina. He studied medicine and became a good practitioner. He discovered himself and the desperation of poor Latin American people in his audacious continental trip on his motorcycle. He traveled across Latin America and in due course was intensely radicalized and became a communist Guerrilla. He met Fidel Castro in Mexico in 1954 and volunteered to fight in Cuban revolutionary war against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. He landed in Cuba with about dozen or two fighters in Nov 1956 and waged a guerrilla war against the Batista regime. This book is a record of famous battles, incidents etc occurred in those little more than 2 years of armed revolution (Nov 1956 - 1 Jan 1959). It describes in great details about the problems faced and sacrifices made by the people who believed in themselves and were devoted to the principles of Revolution and to the personality of Fidel Castro. No where in the diary, Guevara suffers from megalomania and his modesty in describing his own achievements is really worth emulating.  

If you are a worshiper of Guevara then this book is like a Bible for you else it is just another diary written by just another guy. 
Recommended (7/10).

Book Review [64] : The Story of Civilization vol 1 (Our Oriental Heritage)

Will Durant (1885-1981) was one of the most prolific writers after the death of Edward Gibbon. He and his wife wrote the magnum opus "The Story of Civilization" in 11 volumes, published from 1935 to 1975. Its a mammoth work and requires a lot of time and patience to read it. 11 volumes have more than 7000 pages in total and every page is worth at least couple of minutes.

Volume 1 (Our Oriental Heritage) starts with the evolution of home-sapiens, early culture, tools, customs and religions. After toiling and vegetating for thousands of years humans built their first civilizations in the fertile valleys of Euphrates-Tigris, Nile, Indus, Yangtze, Yellow river more than 5000 years ago. The Pyramids are as old as the seals of Mohenjadaro, and the epic of Gilgamesh is older than any other known epic. Ikhnaton (aka Amenhotep IV) of Egypt was the first King to start a monotheistic revolution, about 50 years before Moses and about 1800 years before Prophet. The Sumerians were perhaps the first people to invent the script (Hieroglyphs) to write or express human thoughts and sounds. Almost all other scripts had evolved from this script one way or the other. Our own Devanagari script has evolved from Cuneiform script of the Babylon via Brahmi script of Mauryan times. Undeciphered Indus script is the important link missing in the chain of the evolution of script and language. It is widely believed across the spectrum that Indus script was contemporary script of Sumerian script and both these scripts influenced each other through trade contacts.

Volume 1 talks in insignificant  details about the history of Sumerians, Elamites, Assyrians, Egyptians, Hittites, Mittannis, Babylonians, Jews, Medes, Achamenids, Indians, Chinese and Japanese and ignores completely the story of Korea, south east Asia, central Asia etc. This book should be read with an open mind and patience, since this was written in 1935 so bit outdates and the chronology used in this book should not be taken as gospel (eg. according to this book Hammurabi lived in 21st century BC but widely accepted date today of his reign is 17th/18th century BC).

Highly recommended (9/10)

Book Review [63] : The man who knew infinity

Out of the many great figures manifested in British India, J. C. Bose (botanist, radar scientist), C. V. Raman (Nobel prize winning Physicist), M. Vishveshwariah (legendary civil engineer) and Srinivasa Ramanujan (Mathematician) stand apart. They were the supreme manifestation of India's mathematical and scientific genius. The first three lived long lives and celebrated across India in general and their home state in particular, the last one is known only among the educated elite of India. He enjoyed a very short but eventful life.

'The man who knew infinity' is a biography of this great Indian Mathematician written by Robert Kanigel little more than 2 decades back. It was a bestseller then, it is a bestseller now. Srinivasa Ramanujan was born in a poor Vaishnavite Tamil Brahmin family in Kumbakonam town in Madras Presidency on 22 Dec, 1887. He was a self taught man who could write impossible theorems before reaching 20 and without having any graduate level education. He was an eccentric to the core who would divulge in Mathematics at the peril of other subjects, his family and his health. His maths were so complex and advanced that no one in India could appreciate or measure its ingenuity. He lived at the threshold of poverty until 1910 when he got a recommendation and a job as a clerk in Madras Port Trust mainly by the efforts of one Ramaswami Iyer (founder of Indian Mathematical Society in 1906). He wrote many letters to eminent Mathematicians of the time and one such letter reached G. H. Hardy in Jan 1913 (eminent British Mathematician of the time). G. H. Hardy and other friends/patrons of Ramanujan in India helped him to got to Cambridge to do Mathematical Research in 1914. In England he published many papers and became the fellow of Royal Society in 1918, a very rare honour for any mathematician. He made a remarkable progress in number theory, elliptical function, prime number theorems, mock theta function, partition etc although he did not know how to use blankets tucked with mattress in a British bed. His health suffered mainly because of the strict adherence to his vegetarian diet, scarcity of sunlight and food during WW-1 and his family feuds. His heath deteriorated starting 1917, reached India in March 1919 and died in April 1920, he was not even 33. An abrupt end to a life that promised a lot. Kanigel had written this book with a lot of Maths understanding but this book could have been much better, had he concentrated more on Ramanujan's theorems and works. 

This books should serve as an inspiration to all of us, if a poor guy with no formal education of any high order can do these miracles then all of us can definitely out-cross our own little boundaries and achievements without clamoring about the system and limitations.

Highly recommended (9/10).

Book Review [62] : Gandhi & Churchill - The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age

Neo-Imperialism (or The Empire) is striking back. It has become a fashion these days specially among the British and American authors to glorify colonialism/imperialism, glorify the heroes behind these empires, magnify the "goods" brought by the western world and belittle the native culture, religion and science of the colonies. Authors like Niall Fergusson (he wrote Civilization: The West and the Rest) and Arthur Hermann (author of Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age) are good examples of this creed. I had written the review of Niall Fergusson book here. 

Arthur Hermann "tries hard" to get rid of colonial hangover but in the process he enforces it to the hilt and uses so many false stats and myths. According to this book, Gandhi is no body compared to Churchill and Indians were always (not sure about today) inferior to the British people, Indian leaders except Gandhi were power hungry and greedy, Jinnah was tricked by Louis Mountbatten and Nehru while League and Muslims in general were tricked by Hindu dominated Congress, Subhas Chandra Bose was pesudo-Fascist and Nazi sympathizer. It also says that Stafford Cripps Mission of 1942 agreed to give Independence to India conveniently forgetting that it only promised Dominion Status, it also blames Gandhi for not negotiating properly with Britishers and charges him for wrecking the round table conferences and Cabinet Mission of 1946, it also says that Rice production fell acutely in 1943 causing the great Bengal famine but Dr. Amartya Sen has proved that Rice production in 1943 was 3 lakh tonnes higher than 1942 etc. The following passage drawn from this book shows one typical bias of Mr. Arthur Hermann:

"By the end of September talk of war between India and Pakistan was widespread. Nehru convinced himself that if he did not move on Kashmir, Jinnah would beat him to the finish line. On October 25 he ordered the First Sikh Battalion to be airlifted into Srinagar, claiming falsely that Afridi tribesmen were crossing the border and massacring non-Muslims. It was the Great Game all over again, except that the enemy was not Russia anymore but Pakistan’s Muslims. The Indian Army’s first independent military operation got under way. The first war between Pakistan and India over Kashmir began." (chapter 30)

World is what it is. Scholars and Historians rightly blame Germany for the genocides of Jews and others in 2nd WW-2 but they easily forget the artificial famine caused by the Britishers in Bengal that caused the death of 3 mn Indians in 1943. This book and kind like this are sharp reminder that the truth of colonial past should not be forgotten at any cost however "benign" it might be.

Recommended (6/10)

Diary: A week after the Civil Services 2012 result

Its been a week since the declaration of Civil Services 2012 Final results and lot of water under the bridge. This week has been really tough and unbearable for me. I gave it my all to this exam and still lost the race to the Holy Grail of Indian administration. I was hoping to win this quest of Gold but now i have to live with the less precious Silvery Job. 

I seriously started preparing for Civil Services in 2011 when i was 28, before that i was only romancing with the idea. Perhaps this was the most blunderous decision i have ever taken. The right time to prepare for Civil Services is always in early 20s but i have had my own problems and responsibilities and could not afford to quit the job that gave so much hope and prosperity to my siblings, mother, grandparents, wife and my little kid. To continuing working in ever demanding IT Job (and in a company like mine) along with preparing for Civil Services is perhaps the most arduous and difficult Job. I have spent almost all the weekends, mornings, late evenings and half of my hair preparing for this Job. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey and in the end also succeeded in clearing the most coveted exam of India but the dream of becoming a District Magistrate remains a dream. I can not write this exam again although this was my second attempt as i have crossed 30 year age limit so my dream will always remain with me and die with me like a genetic defect. 

I am waiting for the Service Allocation to happen, generally it happens in late July (or early August) and now my best bet is to get Indian Revenue Service/IP&TAFS/IA&AS. Whatever i get, i will be responsible for maintaining the integrity of the financial system of India or collecting taxes for the People of India and if God helps me i can rise to the very top of my potential field/ministry/department. I can only hope for it. Amen.