Dalits, Dynasty and She by Sanjay Chitranshi. My rating: 3 of 5 stars. Dalits, Dynasty, and She is a very good semi-fictional portrayal of Indian politics, especially as relates to caste tensions, scheming, greed and corruption. The story has real potential, and I was truly engaged in the first hundred pages. But, after that, I […]
Robert Wright’s book is a “must read” for anyone interested in and/or practicing mindfulness meditation. This is not a “how to” book, but rather a brilliant analysis (unique, in my opinion) of how mindfulness meditation works to help us overcome useless rumination, destructive thoughts, impulses, and desires that are deeply rooted in our evolutionary biology. […]
I highly recommend “Written in Stone” by Christopher Stevens to anyone interested in language, well Indo-European languages. Each of the 17 chapters gives us on average 5 Indo-European words (verbs); for each word, the author tells stories or weaves narratives to illustrate the English words that come from those ancient words. Sometimes the narratives are […]
The history of the world can be found in an etymological dictionary. Take, for example, the entry for the word “cipher” (zero, code) from etymonline.com, given below. The word traces back to Europe, the Middle East, and all the way to India, where it existed as Sanskrit “shunyata,” meaning “zero” (as well as the Buddhist word […]
This story was published in the Taj Mahal Review, June 2017 (tajmahalreview.com) Kesh marched into the living room, a glass of bourbon in hand. In the other, a pack of Gauloises, half crushed by his tight grip. He plopped down on the couch, set the drink on the coffee table, and ran a hand through […]
While I agree with many of the reviews that the book is thin on plot, for me the characters came to life and the relationships were heart-felt and extremely human (I’m tempted to say menchlich!). I refer not just to the relationship between characters, but also those of characters to country (the local scene and […]
At first, I thought my novel would be a thinly veiled autobiography. After all, wasn’t I Simon, the green architect who lands up in India? I dragged all the journals I had written during my years there and more or less envisioned the novel as a 350-page string of journal entries. But five years later, […]