Augustus August

Sorry for this rather long hiatus, will be back :)

Book Review [93] : From Plassey To Partition

'From Plassey to Partition' is a must read book on modern Indian History; due to paucity of time i am not able to do a detailed review of the book but if you have faith in me then its a great book to study. 

To put in perspective this book is a much better book than India's struggle for Independence by Bipin Chandra et al. 
Highly Recommended (9/10)

Travelogue: My trip to United States of America

Foreign trips are great learning experience if your eyes, ears and minds are open else it may appear a trip through a stolid country side. United Kingdom was the first foreign country that i visited (in Dec 2007), i was relatively green and impressionable and justifiably impressioned by the neat and clean cities of London, Winchester and Belfast and professionalism of Britons. I made good number of friends out there, i was a private individual working for a British firm so the responsibilities were not significant.

This month (7th to 21st June)  i traveled to USA on an Official Passport of the Government of India and as an Official of the Government of India and this resulted in a different kind of experience both inside and outside of Airport. We found US Immigration Officials very friendly and they did not even take our fingerprints (any unexpected privilege or right raises the level of ego). Our first stop was at Chicago; we (Myself, Aman, Ravi, Arun, Sanjay, Anurag) were joined by Yashasvi, Nidhi and Amrita at breathtaking Millennium Park in the heart of city. WY (We + Yashasvi) then minutely explored the coast of Lake Michigan at a level that can shame even the likes of Holmes. WY found the place where Great Swami Vivekananda gave enthralling speech at World Parliament of religion in 1893. The old building had been renovated many times; without even asking about Vivekananda the old lady official of the museum gave us the document containing that famous speech :)

From Chicago we moved to Riverside where we had 2 weeks of study program organized by University of California with site visits to Federal Reserve - LA, Transit Agency, Hollywood, Getty Museum and the District Attorney Office. WY-1 enjoyed every evening with shopping in different stores (Walmart, Target, Ontario Mills etc) and we became very close to each other. We also skipped one night to see Las Vegas from close quarter :)

There were 5 highlights of the tour:

Re-selection of our comrades in Civil Services of India

The camaraderie of WY-1

National Anthem rendition at District Attorney Office

The Shopping spree 

Chicago exploration

The tour ended on a sad note with the departing of IDAS friends to their Pune Academy. In last 6 months i came very close to IDAS guys and made some very good friends and i will surely miss their company, their discussions and above all their sheer presence in classroom, library, mess and in sports complex. Friends, i will miss you all.

Book Review [92] : A Cultural History Of India

A L Basham (1914-1986) was one of the finest historians of last century and current apostles of Indian history like Romila Thapar, R. S. Sharma etc owe their celebrity status to legendary Basham. I read 'The Wonder that i was India' couple of years back and was impressed by the sheer simplicity of the text without loosing any weight of the scholarship. 'A Cultural History Of India' is another gem from him, first published in 1975 under his editorship. Its a collection of essays and articles on various facets of Indian culture by great scholars and intellectuals like Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, B. B. Lal, S. A. A. Rizwi, Romila Thapar etc. 

This book is written with such a passion and scholarship that no one can put if off once started; it enlightens you with unleashing so many hidden treasures that you can not stop yourself saying what a wonder that is India. It does not suffer either from right wing exaggeration - nationalistic chauvinism or from left critic of Hindu religion, art and culture. It has dedicated chapters on Indo-China historic interactions, India's influence on South East Asia, India's contact with ancient west and on ancient-medieval literature etc. Before reading the last few i did not know that "Few India leaders proposed to Cabinet Mission of 1946 that one of the descendants of Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah II should be made Constitutional Emperor of India, this would solve the partition problem". It many sound like an absurd idea but all ideas are absurd idea before they are actually unleashed. There are many such revelations in this book. I took almost 3 weeks to finish this magnum opus so please get a copy and enjoy the ride

Highly Recommended (9/10)

Book Review [91] : India - China Relationship

'India - China Relationship Rivalry and Engagement' is a very thought provoking and well researched book on the India - China relations. It does a historical survey of their relations, covers various dimensions including political, military, economics, energy etc as well their relations with respect to USSR/Russia, US and Pakistan. Its a good read for a student of the geopolitics of South Asia and gives a great insight into the coming challenges and opportunities in South and East Asia. The Sino-India partnership can make South Asia the next West of the world in terms of economic prosperity and high HDI but their rivalry can make it a poor cousin of middle east. The choice is on the leadership and the people of these two countries. The future generations have lot of expectations from these two countries.

Although this book was published in 2004 yet this book contains some very good gems from the volatile history of India and China.

Highly Recommended (8/10)