A delhi boy whines and opines. Mainly about science, economics and politics. And the quirky things in life.
Look at this image of the back of a book. Can you tell me what I found really infuriating?
I find the sticker “Prakash Books” really irritating. How are you supposed to buy a book if you can’t the read blurb at the back?
I find stores that do this aren’t really bookstores. The person who put the sticker there really doesn’t understand books at all… or doesn’t care.
I once complained to Dr Jaffery that so many of the Sufis in Old Delhi appeared to be blatant fakes. The doctor said he agreed with me, although he added: ‘But William, my friend, you must remember one thing. Fake Sufis are like any other kind of counterfeit. Forgeries only exist because the read gold is so incredibly valuable…’ (pg. 284, “City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi” by William Dalrymple)
Incidentally, if you’re interested in travelogues in general and Delhi in particular, I’ll recommend the above book wholeheartedly. Its a sensitive, gripping and intelligent introduction to modern and ancient Delhi. History has never been so interesting.
Sidharth’s Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
The Human Brain
If there has been something constant in my life, its been the desire to understand how things “work.” The brain is the center of our universal experience but is still not adequately understood. Because of the importance and mystery of the human brain I’ve always wanted to understand how it “works.” I’m not part of the camp that believes that the brain is divine in origin or radically different in some way and thus not amenable to methods of rational, scientific inquiry. No. The brain is an exquisitely complicated and subtle machine with trillions of components. Still, it can be understood and it is being understood. We know more about the brain now than 10 years ago and immeasurably more since a 100 years ago. Large swathes of the public still think of the brain in terms of the language of a bygone era: the Ego and the Id of Freud. Or maybe they’ve seen movies like One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and think of mental institutions as frozen in time; still administering shocks and sedation. Its an unfortunate stereotype because other parts of the medical profession like cardiology have become über cool (with some help from medical dramas 
). Terms like pacemakers, defibrillators, artificial hearts, bypass and triple-bypass have entered into common parlance. Neurology to a lot of people still means Lobotomies and Grand Mal seizures. Its partly the failure of the field to communicate its achievements and partly because medical progress in understanding the brain has been comparatively slow. We have been hindered so far because the brain is the most complex organ in our body.
Nevertheless, Science continues to make amazing advancements in the understanding of the brain through disciplines like Neuro-Biology, Genetics, Chemistry, Artificial Intelligence and Psychiatry. The state of the art has advanced quite far till now. Consider this: We can see what parts of the brain are involved in real-time thought when people are put into a functional MRI scanning machine. So if you are thinking visual thoughts, the visual part of the brain lights up on the screen. If you are having sexual thoughts then the sexual centers light up. This technique is constantly being refined and holds a lot of promise in treating diseases and understanding how the brain functions as a living system. All this is non-invasive live imaging. Sample another development: Scientists have come up with external robotic limbs that monkeys can learn to control through electrodes planted in their brain. And then there is a whole field of anti-depression research that has understood the functions of neurotransmitters in our brains. Today, there are specific medicines available that target one or two neurotransmitters in the brain instead of raising the level of all of them as older drugs did (e.g. SSRIs). For some people, SSRIs and other newer drugs have literally saved their lives.
The Female Brain
My fascination for brains in general and females in particular caused me to pickup The Female Brain by Dr. Louann Brizedine some weeks back. The book is an informative and fun read. There are lot of sweeping generalizations about the behavior of the sexes throughout the book which can make the book seem a little too simplistic, but putting in caveats and “your mileage might vary” statements everywhere would have made things equally tedious. This is not a book for “experts” but Dr. Louann has nevertheless tried to be scholarly with over 100 pages of notes and references tucked away at the end of the book for the benefit of boffins and reactionary critics.
My recommendation is that you read this book to get a good overview of the workings of the female hormonal system and its effects on neurotransmitters and emotional centers of the brain. Dr. Louann shows us how hormones play an important role in a woman’s mood, desire to mate and rear children and communicate with other humans. She explains how estrogen and testosterone influence the wiring of males and females at birth all the way through puberty and beyond. One does get the feeling that Dr. Brizedine tends to blame hormones for everything (given that is her area of specialization) but there are places where she adequately defers to genetics, upbringing, diet and environmental conditions as a way of explaining female behavior. This is not only a book on hormones; there is a fair amount of evolutionary psychology i.e. why women behave the way they behave from an evolutionary standpoint. I’ve read a lot of Richard Dawkins and Matt Ridley in the past and these arguments do have a certain appeal for me.
The book is peppered with stories and case studies of crazy teenage girls and their crushes, infidelity, divorces, postpartum depression, sexual problems, love and marriage. Dr. Louann uses her deep insight into female psychology and medical expertise to treat these patients. Most of these stories have a happy denouement which may give some readers a false belief in the efficacy of the drugs and theories Dr. Louann is promoting. But its a minor quibble.
Dr. Louann Brizedine comes across as a kind woman who sincerely believes in the equality of sexes. The prose is friendly and non-feminist. She has a balanced viewpoint that both sexes have evolved slightly different brains because of the different roles they have played throughout history and that no brain is “superior.” Female brains are better at certain tasks and Male brains are better at certain tasks. Men and woman are partners, she seems to emphasize throughout the book. As a man, I found the book very helpful in furthering my understanding of the women in my life. I came away touched, and infused with a greater appreciation of their innate abilities.
Sidharth’s Rating 4.0/5.0
The Reluctant Fundamentalist is about the collapse of the world of Changez, a Pakistani Princeton graduate in the backdrop of 9/11. Changez has everything: a prestigious job, a Princeton degree and the prospect of a relationship with a hauntingly beautiful Erica.
But then Changez’s picture perfect life comes apart. Piece by Piece. However, it comes apart due to conscious choices made by Changez and not the evilness of the system (his company, his CEO Jim, Erica and her mother are supportive post-9/11 for the most part). Changez’s descent into chaos is scary. It almost happens in slow motion: he knows things are going really wrong; but he doesn’t fix himself because his decisions make sense at that point in time. Pretty soon, he’s so far away from “normal” that he can’t go back to his day job as a financial valuator.
The story is structured as a monologue between Changez and a nameless American at a restaurant in Lahore. Changez reminisces about how he goes from being part of “America” to someone outside it, embittered at its hypocrisy and unfairness. How much this hypocrisy and unfairness of America is really relevant to Changez’s own life and how much is it a convenient (self)-explanation for his self destruction is a very interesting aspect of the book. Changez must really ask himself if a conflict in distant Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan or the odd post-9/11 racist abuse was enough to imperil everything. He never does.
At the end of it, for me, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a warning about the often not too deep urge to let go of it all and self-destruct inherent in all of us. Its is also a warning about how seemingly small influences, over a period of time, can send you over the edge. Erica is a girl worth pursuing, worth falling in love with and worth pining for. But Erica is so troubled, that she passes that seed of trouble to Changez. Once the seed is planted, it can only grow, and it does until it envelopes him. Erica leaves his life in excruciating slow motion: repeatedly enticing him and then leaving him until he is totally damaged from within. And then it becomes so simple for him to get lost in minor slights to his religion, culture and civilization. A sense of injustice, embitterment and anger, are in retrospect, predictable traps for an emotionally raw Changez. Changez, given to planning his life with precision thus far, ends his connection with America very abruptly. The thought process and events that lead to this “breaking point” was the most interesting aspect of the book for me.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a compact but fertile book. There are other threads and interpretations but I’ve chosen what impacted me the most: the breakdown of the self. In the end, Changez seems to salvage his life by moving back to Pakistan as a lecturer. But does he really salvage it? Is he living fully in an imaginary world with his beloved Erica? Or are there other things he might be up to?
Sidharth’s Rating 4.0/5.0
I have had a fascination for Iran ever since I read V.S. Naipaul’s excellent, “Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey” and watched the Iranian Film Festival at Siri Fort Auditorium a few years back.
One of the most gripping documentaries I’ve ever watched is on Iran too, called, “Inside Iran with Rageh Omaar” (available for free and legal online viewing)
So I was naturally drawn to Ms. Azadeh Moaveni’s cutely titled, “Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran” Don’t let the title fool you. Its not Chick-Lit. Lipstick Jihad is about a second generation Iranian-American’s personal journey back to Iran. Moaveni moves to Iran as a journalist, and for no less a magazine than Time. While in Iran, Moaveni has close access to the people in power and is consequently able to speak with authority and clarity on the happenings in the country circa 1997-2005. These were the years when (figurehead) President Khatami tried (and failed) to make his country kinder, gentler and freer. Lipstick Jihad is also an intimate story of Moaveni’s relatives, family and friends in Tehran and America.
Living in Iran can be difficult given all the restrictions on fraternizing between the sexes, the lack of a free and fair democracy and the suffocating rule of the clergy. It can be doubly difficult if you don’t have a Y chromosome. Moaveni describes all these problems on a personal level. How she as a woman found the chador suffocating. How she experienced thuggish behavior and vigilantism. How she found it so tough to reconcile her secular worldview with that of the clergy. How she realized the failures of revolution and the hollowness of its slogans. Lipstick Jihad is not abstract whining or a political treatise. Its all about events and incidents, many of them small, but those experienced first hand. How seemingly small incidents are looked at and analyzed for their true import is simply brilliant throughout the book.
But its not all depressing fare. Moaveni has some keen observations on how Iranians continue to cope, subvert and even flourish in oppressive conditions. And in the process cook a snook at the regime. Moaveni is a proud Iranian and while she has some bitter things to say about her country, one does come away with a nuanced appreciation of Iranian culture. And cuisine .
Normally this genre of “identity”, “exile” and “immigration” literature can quickly get tiresome but Moaveni’s book was good. Read it if you like understanding subversion, disillusionment, broken dreams, outdated ideologies, totalitarian states and scary bureaucracies.
Sidharth’s Rating: 3.5/5.0
The Bahrisons Bookshop is a venerable “institution” in Khan Market, New Delhi. Its frequented by the bureaucratic and diplomatic community of New Delhi. The bookshop offers 0% discount. And it closes really really early. But it does have a good selection of books in its limited space. There are predictably a lot of books on current affairs, politics and diplomacy.
Here is a cute sign from Bahrisons…
Interested in Science & Mathematics. Open Source Software. The Internet. Economics. Politics. ++ Fun Stuff ++
Which is better: India or China?
Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China by Pallavi Aiyar,
288 Pages, HarperCollins India
This is a unique book about modern China. Too often we hear about China from a Western perspective. This book talks about modern China from an Indian perspective. The author, Pallavi Aiyar has spent 5 years in Beijing, first as an English teacher and then as a China based correspondent for Indian dailies. This book is important because Pallavi understands India and China in ways many of our respected political commentators don’t or can’t: she is young (and therefore not polluted by the memory of India-China’s recent history) and she has lived there.
Smoke and Mirrors is a kind of travelogue of China (mostly Beijing) 2002-2007. Some chapters deal with the minutiae of her life in a Beijing hutong and as an English teacher while others are more broad based and deal with Chinese society and economy. Like all talented journalists she wrings out meaning from the smallest of situations and occurrences. Particular emphasis is placed on how other Indians view and experience China: the Indian business man, the doorkeeper, the yoga master and so on.
My primary motivation for picking up Pallavi Aiyar’s book was to answer my simple question:
“Which is better, India or China?”
Like many of my fellow citizens, I have been extremely jealous of China’s rise. This book does not disappoint. Pallavi Aiyar gives a logical and well thought out answer that comes towards the end of her book. So important is this answer for our politicians and fellow citizens, that I’d like to put excerpts of it on the Internet . Here is Pallavi in her own words:
Wonderful wasn’t it? Thanks for the well thought out “answer” !
What I found most interesting was Pallavi’s statement that essentially, we should place a value on our ability of speak freely, write freely, protest, move about freely, choose our leaders and chart our own destiny in a democracy like India. It is not only important to measure a country’s success by the per-capita income, but by the freedoms available to its citizens. This is precisely Amartya Sen’s thesis in the wonderful Development as Freedom.
Coming back to Pallavi, I like to recommend this book unequivocally. A young Indian female intellectual reporting from China is a rare perspective indeed. Lap it up at your nearest bookstore.
Sidharth’s Rating: 4 stars of 5.