Book Review: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

'Into Thin Air' is the first account of the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster - an event that has birthed a major movie, a few documentaries and at least five books that I came to know of. I consumed the book after consuming the movie, wanting to understand fully what happened on that fateful day - May 10, 1996.

Krakauer was there on the mountain on the day and as a journalist, gives a well researched and a personal account of the day, and of guided expeditions on Everest. Before the book (and the movie), I had no clue that climbing Everest was mostly about having money in the bank and being relatively fit. It was (and still is) the Sherpas that do the work - fixing ropes, ladders, carrying luggage and even preparing meals for clients! I dare say my respect for Everest-ers of the '90s and thereafter, has diminished significantly.

Read the book to understand Everest, how the extreme cold and lack of Oxygen can make one shockingly nonchalant in the face of death, but mostly to remove any Everest climbing "heroes" you might have placed on pedestals.

Highly recommended.

20 movie critics hospitalized with elevated levels of Suroor after watching Himesh Reshammiya’s latest release

Satire...

Mumbai: A pre-release show of Himesh Reshammiya’s soon to be released movie, ‘Teraa Suroor 2’, has led to the hospitalization of twenty movie critics. Apparently, twenty of the audience of about fifty movie critics and journalists, started having fits and screaming in a very nasal tone within ten minutes of the movie having started.

“It all started when Mr. Reshammiya started serenading a girl while building his body, while smoking a cigar, while giving the evil eye to a few bad guys,” Tadapit Kumar, one of the affected movie critics said. “Only the most critical of us critics seem to have been affected. Taran Adarsh made it through the full movie, I hear and even said – sau crore ka dhandha karegi.”

The critics were shifted to J. J. Hospital in Navi Mumbai. When this reporter visited the hospital, nasal chants of ‘Tera tera tera surroooooooor’ could be heard from the hospital rooms where critics were kept.

http://my.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2016/02/22/20-movie-critics-hospitalized-with-elevated-levels-of-suroor-after-watching-himesh-reshammiyas-latest/

Five books you need to read to understand the Gandhi family (and Congress)

Ram Guha laments in his magnificent - "India After Gandhi" that any history after Independence is seen as 'sociology' or 'political science' by Indian historians, which clearly is a fallacy. All history is history. Since the Congress (and by extension: the Gandhi family) ruled India for most of its post-independence years, it is but natural that most of post-independence history chronicles the rise and fall of the Grand Old Party. In my travels through Indian history, I came across the following five gems that helped me make better sense of our country under the Congress party. Read all of them - they are all pacy thriller-like reads - to understand the party's descent from Jawaharlal to Rahul.

In chronological order, as the events in these books occurred...

Emergency Retold by Kuldip Nayar

'Emergency Retold' captures the India of Indira Gandhi's Emergency years ('75-'77) when democracy was suspended in India, with very little logic other than saving Indira Gandhi's Prime Minister-ship. This was the beginning of the end - the seeds of 'family over party, party over nation' were sown in 1975. I loved Nayar's 'Emergency Retold'. Except for certain parts where Nayar lends voice to lengthy diatribes by leaders against the Emergency, the narrative is taut and thriller-like. If you think the Congress leaders of today are sycophantic (towards Rahul), read 'Emergency Retold'. The Indira/ Sanjay combine killed the spirit of the Congress to such an extent that sycophancy became the norm as opposed to the exception. 

The Sanjay Story by Vinod Mehta

  'The Sanjay Story' coincides with 'Emergency Retold' to tell the story of Sanjay Gandhi's ascent; and then goes on to his death. Frank and fearless, Vinod Mehta tells the story of Sanjay Gandhi the way it was. With all his thievery, the formulae of corruption the young Gandhi scion divined to milk Maruti (and fill the Gandhi family’s personal coffers), etc. Sanjay Gandhi’s life is laid bare as it deserved. But the book is essential reading not just for the way it tears up the facade around Sanjay but the similarities between the Congress of the 80’s and the Congress of the day. Mehta chronicles how several senior Congress stalwarts were forced to bow before Sanjay just as Congress’s yes-men do today before Rahul Gandhi. Similar to Rahul, Sanjay was drummed up as a youth icon with guidelines and diktats issued to Doordarshan’s senior officials to ensure that Sanjay’s visits made up a significant chunk of the news. What’s more, the best part of the book is where one of Sanjay’s interviews is chronicled, almost word for word. Read the interview and the absolute lack of foresight or vision, the one line answers, the 'I don’t know’s can only remind you of one man in the present generation.

Amritsar by Mark Tully and Satish Jacob

'Amritsar' chronicles the gigantic mess Congress made of handling the Punjab insurgency in the 80's. Mark Tully and Satish Jacob take the reader behind the facade of the players and play-makers in the great Punjab game. Tully/ Jacob lay bare the machinations behind the Bhindrawale movement - making crucial revelations such as the Congress and Akali hand in creating the monster, culminating in Bluestar. 'Amritsar...' is a thriller from start to finish; Tully/ Jacob keep the narrative taut from the start - the discord in Punjab, to finish - the vengeance of Indira Gandhi's Sikh bodyguards. 

When a Tree Shook Delhi by Manoj Mitta and H. S. Phoolka

'When a Tree Shook Delhi' starts with Indira Gandhi dying in AIIMS in 1984 (having been shot by her Sikh bodyguards) and President Jarnail Singh being attacked by a mob outside the hospital, with the impotent police watching. The title is from Rajiv Gandhi's speech justifying the riots ("When a big tree falls, the earth shakes," said Mr. Gandhi of the riots). A page-turning thriller on the lines of Mark Tully's 'Amritsar', the book exposes the police and political network attached to the Congress government of the day. The first half of the book is Mitta's journalistic account of the riots while the second half is an autobiographical account of the riots through Phoolka's eyes. Both are excellent though I enjoyed Phoolka's half better. 

The Accidental Prime Minister by Sanjaya Baru

What makes 'The Accidental Prime Minister' most interesting is that it is a fly on the wall account of Manmohan Singh’s Prime Ministership. The author, Sanjaya Baru, quit the PMO before UPA 2 began; so the account is of the relatively rosier times of UPA 1. However, the book helps one understand where the skeletons that came out in UPA 2 originated. Baru writes quite frankly about the politics of the PMO – the power struggles between PMO officials – and also reveals Sonia Gandhi’s attempts to pseudo-run the government through the National Advisory Council. What strikes one most when reading the account is that Manmohan was actually a brilliant tactician but what dragged him down was an inherent inability to speak effectively in public. His ability to swing the 123 Nuclear Deal with the US and the elaborately intricate maneuvers he resorted to in pushing the deal through, do help one absolve Manmohan of the stains he had suggested history would do for him. The book needs to be read to understand the history of UPA I and how it let our nation down.

Startup plans to grow at 7.5% a year pre-tax, after putting all investor money in an FD

Satire...

Bangalore: A startup based in Bangalore declared that it would grow earnings at 7.5% per year for 20 years as it had decided to put all investor money in a twenty year fixed deposit with ICICI Bank.

‘Grazzle’, a startup founded by two IIT Bangalore students on campus, had raised the funds from Great Oak Pension Fund – a Norwegian government pension fund.

“We had no idea what we wanted to as regards business and had no intention of raising any money,” Tadapit Kumar, one of the co-founders of ‘Grazzle’, said. “The only thing we had closed so far was our name – ‘Grazzle’. But then this Pension Fund from Norway met us on campus and almost forced us to take money from it.”

“After getting Rs. 1000 Crores from the Pension Fund, we promptly spent Rs. 50 crores on taking out some national level front page ads in ‘The Times Of India’ and have invested the rest in fixed deposits,” he continued. “We are thus one of the few startups in India actually making money from day one.”

http://my.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2016/02/20/startup-plans-to-grow-at-7-5-a-year-pre-tax-after-putting-all-investor-money-in-an-fd/

Himesh Reshammiya requests government to pass legislation guaranteeing ‘Right to Suroor’

How does he get financed at all??

Mumbai: Fearful of censor board chief Pahlaj Nihalani making cuts to his latest film– Teraa Suroor, Himesh Reshammiya, reputed nasal crooner, has requested the Modi government to pass a bill ensuring ‘Right to Suroor’ for all Indians, in India and worldwide.

“Everyone should be able to get sufficient ‘Suroor’ in their lives,” Mr. Reshammiya said, during his telephonic interview with this Faking News reporter. “Of all people, I know what it is like to not have ‘Suroor’ in one’s life. I have spent years trying to understand what the Indian viewer wants to see in a movie and finally, I have the perfect product. I cannot risk Nihalaniji destroying this movie.”

Reshammiya, who has tried to launch himself earlier eight times, assured this reporter that this time he was serious about his acting and moviemaking. “It was all about finding the right director, the right script, the right heroine willing to take off the right amount of clothes… and of course, the right amount of ‘Suroor’.”

http://my.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2016/02/05/himesh-reshammiya-requests-government-to-pass-legislation-guaranteeing-right-to-suroor/

Book Review: Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer

Though I intended to read it earlier, Basharat Peer's book went mainstream after the release of 'Haider'. I admit 'Haider' made me pick the book over Pandita's 'Our moon has blood clots', which I assume has the same base material.

'Curfewed Night' is a disappointing book. It is written more as a chronology of Basharat Peer's life than as a history of Kashmir. It thus, reads like an overlong blog post. Even so, Peer's experiences are interesting enough to be readable. It is also difficult to not be taken in by the poetry of Peer's writing: it is for the most part beautiful, though the tone eventually becomes repetitive and tedious.

I treated the book as a book of poetic beauty, much like Kashmir, and thus enjoyed it. Even so, it is a poorer cousin to books that talk of torn yet indefatigable souls such as Primo Levi's masterpiece, 'Survival in Auschwitz' or Arun Ferreira's magnificent 'Colors of the Cage'.

Book Review: When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and its Aftermath by Manoj Mitta, H.S. Phoolka

'When a Tree Shook Delhi' documents the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi post Indira Gandhi's assassination - the title is from Rajiv Gandhi's speech justifying the riots ("When a big tree falls, the earth shakes," said Mr. Gandhi of the riots). A page-turning thriller on the lines of Mark Tully's 'Amritsar', the book exposes the police and political network attached to the Congress government of the day.

The first half of the book is Mitta's journalistic account of the riots while the second half is an autobiographical account of the riots through Phoolka's eyes. Both are pacy thriller-like reads though I enjoyed Phoolka's half better.

This is the fifth book on the Gandhi family's excesses/ misdemeanors that I have read (Others, all of them good to excellent reads: Emergency Retold, The Sanjay Story, Accidental Prime Minister, Amritsar) and it did not disappoint.

Recommended.

Book Review: Aarushi by Avirook Sen

I could not put down 'Aarushi' as soon as I started reading it. Based on the infamous murder of a young teenage girl in Noida, the book reads like a thriller from start to finish. Right from the murder to the multiple investigations to the court room drama to the Talwar's current life in prison, Sen becomes a fly on the wall as he observes the minutiae of the Talwar family drama.

I have read criticism of the author as being overtly biased towards the Talwars, which is why certain intellectuals/ journalists reject the book. They argue that there is no rebuttal, no point of view of the other side - the police, etc. But it is hard to imagine what motive Avirook Sen would have had in cooking up or buffing up the Talwar side of the story.

At any rate, even if the book is just the Talwar's story of the Aarushi murder, the glaring holes in the investigation and the gangrenous nature of our judicial and police limbs would and should worry any average Indian.

An important book.

Book Review: Fatherland by Robert Harris

I loved the sense of time and place Robert Harris created in 'Fatherland'. There was no doubt in my mind that had Hitler actually prevailed in the second World War, this is what Nazi Germany would have been like. Just for being capable of placing one in this alternate universe, 'Fatherland' is worth a read.

However, I found the mystery/ thriller bits of the book somewhat disappointing. I was expecting more from the plot itself but it tended to underwhelm consistently. 'Fatherland' is one of those rare books where the background in which the story unfolds is more interesting than the story itself at most times.

Perhaps the fact that it was written almost two decades ago when the concept of a mystery/ thriller book was limited, has a bearing.

Book Review: 1857: The Real Story Of The Great Uprising by Vishnu Bhatt, Mrinal Pande

Written by a Brahmin mendicant (Vishnu Bhatt), who somehow fortuitously ended up being in parts of India where (and when) the revolt was breaking out, '1857' is a fantastic book chronicling the first great uprising of the Indian freedom struggle. Vishnu Bhatt wrote the book as a diary - which was published only after his death in the early 20th century.

Several of the heroes of our history books make an appearance: including Rani of Jhansi, Tantya Tope, Nana Sahib, etc. Bhatt has no ulterior motives; so his chronicling is honest and catches instances which text books tend to gloss over or delete... such as excesses by the mutineers. Even though the book is a hundred years old, I am surprised some political party hasn't tried to get it banned (yet) given its honest depiction of history.

Mrinal Pande has done a good job of translating the book; however, her analysis and commentary at the end read somewhat odd and out of place (talking of class differences, et al in a history book) and diminished my joy of discovering the book.

Overall, the book is a must read. Just give Pande's weirdly pedantic commentary at the end a miss.