tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55892967594636908132024-03-14T06:29:13.659+05:30The House of BooksDeepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-70328028390319825572022-02-25T12:19:00.003+05:302022-02-25T12:19:33.551+05:30Notes from the Holocaust<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQrrQSZPfdynpi59t6-bEBIWLTfCedubwROaJ7xPYp30UVKWwuZz6rjC7k5vCPUYdwP3JmLDowzb6hwQNSZqYdrRHZHJSLp7sxWFomTxHhUpvHhgVQpqQIncvnLTQljOnD5w3Hm0-afvYecIKgH94Kg64nn39KT-jQVANnl-qj7dqtDCNf5a0uhv8w=s2560" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1579" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQrrQSZPfdynpi59t6-bEBIWLTfCedubwROaJ7xPYp30UVKWwuZz6rjC7k5vCPUYdwP3JmLDowzb6hwQNSZqYdrRHZHJSLp7sxWFomTxHhUpvHhgVQpqQIncvnLTQljOnD5w3Hm0-afvYecIKgH94Kg64nn39KT-jQVANnl-qj7dqtDCNf5a0uhv8w=s320" width="197" /></a></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>Viktor Frankl (2008),
Man’s search for meaning, Rider, London, pp. 154</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I read this classic book and ended the last year on a
thoughtful note. As December sets in, something tugs me to ponder over the year
gone by and my reading list reflects the search for meaning and purpose and a
propensity for introspection and reflection. I had saved up this book for the
last and as the winter gently rolled in, I was with this exceptional individual,
who when faced with unspeakable experiences of adversity, oriented himself
towards life and humanity. As I read through Viktor Frankl’s notes from concentration
camps during the second world war, there were two people narrating the story. The
first was the professor of neurology and psychiatry who spoke with lucid objectivity
and dispassionate clarity on what made the survivors last in the midst of
horror and incertitude. The second was the individual who reminisced about the
life he lost and thought about the life that awaited him with hope and longing.
The extraordinary scholar and the ordinary person and the contradiction of the
nature and tone of the arguments are some of the things that makes this work a
compelling read.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The book is divided into three parts – the experiences
at the concentration camp, the introduction to a school of psychotherapy based
on these experiences and a post script. The first part reads like a memoir, the
second an exposition, and third a thoughtful reflection that asks a few
questions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We live at a time when history is actively being
forgotten or misconstrued and the assault on truth and memory is gaining
traction as this <i>The New York Times</i> review of books <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/11/books/erasing-the-holocaust.html">Erasing
the Holocaust</a> trenchantly argues. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is important to lean on memoirs and other forms of historical records to remind
ourselves what we have been through and educate ourselves about the
consequences of erasure. Beyond the inspiring cadence of the triumph of the
human spirit, that is what this book serves to remind us. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-46583381316574042992022-01-12T12:36:00.001+05:302022-01-12T12:36:49.963+05:30Love in the time of AI<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbeU0qRIdUbgVNhSnp7oMr3ZSyB67uka0NRSqamZC0fJQH6ZOaxRYRa7YLUBdox6l5Veg0KAu0WQBqeIGDlpJgXxvrKWdqpkxFd9LhccoiFgcl_ZO4-FZa_MJc_kLB8cmNvsLdBZm6LzrX88Ee5bRoqvTeReq-YW0ZB7paAWgLThvB3q7YSTICNNrO=s339" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="339" data-original-width="220" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbeU0qRIdUbgVNhSnp7oMr3ZSyB67uka0NRSqamZC0fJQH6ZOaxRYRa7YLUBdox6l5Veg0KAu0WQBqeIGDlpJgXxvrKWdqpkxFd9LhccoiFgcl_ZO4-FZa_MJc_kLB8cmNvsLdBZm6LzrX88Ee5bRoqvTeReq-YW0ZB7paAWgLThvB3q7YSTICNNrO=s320" width="208" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;"><b>Kazuo Ishiguro (2021), Klara and the Sun, Faber,
London, pp.307</b></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is a brand-new year and I am beginning with one of
my favorite writers of all time – the elegant and masterful Kazuo Ishiguro. The
blurb of his most recent book <i>Klara and the Sun</i> spoke about robots and
my inner voice screamed ‘please don’t go to the other side’. Ishiguro is one of
the four authors (others being Alice Munro, Julian Barnes and Penelope
Fitzgerald) that I never want to deviate from the path they tread. The day they
go uncharacteristic will be the beginning of the end for me. In a world where
most things are so irreversibly mutating, I have a terrible propensity for
stability and consistency. These authors remain my anchor points for the world
as I know it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Dreading the worst, I bravely began this beautiful
story set some time in the future in which children are genetically modified
and have robots with artificial intelligence for companions. I mused, ‘clearly,
the worst has already happened’! But then, something emerged slowly from the
ruins of this dystopian setting, something akin to what you felt when you were
reading <i>The Remains of the Day</i>. A master at work on something delicate
and undestroyed – the primal innocence we are born with. This is Klara’s
reckoning in the human world and she blooms not as AI, but as a child, asking
questions, always being curious, and heartbreakingly human. Before long, we are
rooting for her as she navigates the politics and platitudes of the society in which
she is planted in. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The most beautiful part of the book is the
relationship Klara has with the sun. It is one of the oldest tropes of
nourishment and life and it symbolizes something undying and irreplaceable in
us. It is our capacity to love someone and act on that love. Klara’s love for
the child she accompanies is more poignant in the milieu that it is set
against, that of a withering human world. And what happens to this person as
she unfolds human-like in an inhuman world forms the rest of the story.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It takes mastery to weave the old with the new,
retaining something unexpected from both. Ishiguro weaves a rich tapestry not
with grandiose strokes, but with fragile imperceptible ones that paint pathos,
innocence and first learning, that of children awakening to love and loss with
unfailing dexterity. By extracting the human essence out of humanity, he shows
the most enduring part of us that are yet savable and worthy of saving. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If this is not a great way to begin this year, I don’t
know what is. Here’s wishing you a beautiful year ahead with books!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-5623799430503267652021-11-10T09:46:00.002+05:302021-11-10T09:46:58.448+05:3012 women, 200 years<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivr2ii2HkuA-RN3nbax4n3lU4sRLHOwojUxizd-xMa3Vn_kD7NBNqLVhfhd9wtA2JEA3tFdAIYkSaOZ_wnXhWKo-ISaqU_kv2FPPwtdr0qLglkJCArJZnUP5BGQPX8RY6Tyw-Mp46pcZI/s2048/BC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1334" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivr2ii2HkuA-RN3nbax4n3lU4sRLHOwojUxizd-xMa3Vn_kD7NBNqLVhfhd9wtA2JEA3tFdAIYkSaOZ_wnXhWKo-ISaqU_kv2FPPwtdr0qLglkJCArJZnUP5BGQPX8RY6Tyw-Mp46pcZI/s320/BC.jpg" width="208" /></a></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Bernardine Evaristo (2019), Girl, Woman, Other, Penguin
books, pp.453</b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The book came to me as a gift, literally,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">a discerning friend’s nod for my love of the literary.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I am glad this book and this author found me <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">they way they did, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">when I was least expecting.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">That’s when you are the most vulnerable <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">and completely open,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">an attitude best suited to read <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">something so expansive as this novel, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">the story and history of twelve women <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">through two centuries across many continents, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">told in a compelling contemporary way.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Bernardine Evaristo, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">writer, poet, playwright, professor, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">the first black woman to win the Booker Prize <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">an accolade she shared with another great writer, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">is a gifted story teller.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As you read through the novel <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">this aural quality pervades, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">the prose is poetic and musical, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">evocative and vivid. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So, you picture the protagonists and the places <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">and hear them speak and think, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">walk through the gullies of your mind, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">sashaying and shushing, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">as they erupt into thoughts and doubts. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is a tour de force of human history <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">in the last two centuries, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">colonialism, slavery, racism, casteism, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">sexism, queerphobia, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">all roads taken <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to be the human race we are today,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>explored within
the microcosm <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">of individual lives, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">specific plots and timelines. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And yet they interrupt each other, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">invade and interact with one another <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to give the map of a gnarly tree, the pedigree, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">from which, these unlikely compatriots <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">hang like irreverent fruits. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">They are ancestors and descendants, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">peers and sisters, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">exploring and bickering their way <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">through history and their stories. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Girl, Woman, Other has <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">the themes and temperaments <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">that Evaristo’s works tend to have, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>an evaluative
perspective of received wisdom<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">from as many angles as possible, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">and a lyrical quality to radical thoughts. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As winter buries us with an impossible longing <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">for a year that is fast slipping by, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">this is the perfect companion <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to soothe and comfort you, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">enlighten and frighten you,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">but above all give you so many opportunities <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to live out the lives of others<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">however imaginary.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">That’s what all good writers do. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-53869115133302810052021-08-07T16:28:00.004+05:302021-08-07T16:28:45.800+05:30Irish Love<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAnM2WxP6BO048C6dyBF2WitYeQ63dB6GnqYW946oF0uhCuZhLAJT9yOVh5Sv1jSYyuvek_6o2xzZ-kceeCL_Fp9QVuGXq2RNpafd3Qe8c4VuVqS3HE2juBvC6nuQH0wIZ26zrOGDBtOc/s2048/Sally+Rooney.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1334" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAnM2WxP6BO048C6dyBF2WitYeQ63dB6GnqYW946oF0uhCuZhLAJT9yOVh5Sv1jSYyuvek_6o2xzZ-kceeCL_Fp9QVuGXq2RNpafd3Qe8c4VuVqS3HE2juBvC6nuQH0wIZ26zrOGDBtOc/s320/Sally+Rooney.jpg" width="208" /></a></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">Sally Rooney (2018),
Normal People, Faber and Faber, London, pp. 266</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is the book you should take with you in summer to
remember what it feels like to read a great love story. It is small town
Ireland and two young people are in love as they move from high school through
college and are just about to begin life. It is that time of life when it is
perhaps the most awkward to write about love without sounding flippant or pedantic.
It is difficult to speak of love that is so young and unsure, yet when done
right it is the kind of quiet love that makes you yearn for good literature. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Sally Rooney does it right. Not just in the convincing
way she portrays the protagonists, but also scooping up the sounds and smells
of the small town, the flavor of its people, the tone and tenor of high school
in the backwater stillness of the place, its intimacies and resentments. The
book brings to life those who have adapted themselves for life in a quiet town
that the world does not come to. It requires skill and an astute mindset to
stay full of life and happy in any place, but more so in a quaint little space dancing
to its own tune. The town is abuzz with news - rumours, love affairs, desertion,
quiet suicide, seething anger and the whole melodrama that makes life. And
amidst this are two people, vulnerable in their lack of self - consciousness,
who manage to escape that world without meaning to, and stay connected with
each other.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I admit it is difficult to write about it than read
and enjoy it. Grab a copy and have a lovely summer! There is an adaptation streaming
on Prime, but you are not going to, are you?<o:p></o:p></span></p>Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-59985769457803146972021-07-31T13:29:00.001+05:302021-07-31T13:29:30.024+05:30Intimations<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGRjeB_nY_c4grI70vBGe29zebBx0ksmdaUtGuMMuy1jua_KGHvq5AAGRrRh8HnpyhpNmAcVBuVIuTm8FdqrikSQQCeYZ0bYG6nqbdsICa-uyUbptGNlfalI3jcxmQ5AGvo5iWWXR-nbs/s400/Zadie+Smith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="281" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGRjeB_nY_c4grI70vBGe29zebBx0ksmdaUtGuMMuy1jua_KGHvq5AAGRrRh8HnpyhpNmAcVBuVIuTm8FdqrikSQQCeYZ0bYG6nqbdsICa-uyUbptGNlfalI3jcxmQ5AGvo5iWWXR-nbs/s320/Zadie+Smith.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"><b>Zadie Smith (2020),
Intimations, Penguin Books, pp. 82</b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We all need the quiet homecoming of the literary kind,
especially at a time we were forced to confine ourselves and sever all physical
ties to people, places, and things in the year of the pandemic. It was not one
long year we could foresee, neatly planned with a release date set. Rather, the
news of our own predicament came to us in ebb and flow, like a menacing current
of wave, swinging our hope to despair and back. At a time like this, we needed
the quiet intimation from a philosopher like Zadie Smith.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In this slim but profound meditation spanning six luxurious
essays, Smith fills the questions she asks as a human, prised open from her
faith and familiarity with the world, by giving answers only a writer can. The
thought traverses the intimate world of peonies, neighborhood, the familiarity
of strangers and their silent solidarity in belonging to the same world and
world views, slowly moving to the shattering of this world not with a big bang
but with a quiet twang in which lives were upended. What does it mean to ask
the same old questions of being and belonging in this new world of suspension? What
can one hope for? How can we imagine again?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This stunning book of thoughts was my tough companion
through some of the most difficult times of my adult life as I lost certainty
and learned to live without it. And I dread to think what you would have gone
through, dear reader, although I also know you must be the stronger for it. For
you and I are survivors. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There were many who did not outlive this pandemic. Let
this space, these words, and thoughts be dedicated in their loving memory. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-82939296535827551922021-06-03T11:06:00.002+05:302021-06-03T11:06:44.214+05:30The Tyranny of Merit<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHHJ8m4UqG8MfwfFIcMsolzNh6tk24DmJkjzWgXL_E2cO8TKjWGVemTDQca437dP50irtcuk865OdgmspRwXP3I87VE0Due2VWGfiGTOuZnGiS-9r2mRfePVWuUz5zXARakbj50VdgTjQ/s2048/Book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1331" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHHJ8m4UqG8MfwfFIcMsolzNh6tk24DmJkjzWgXL_E2cO8TKjWGVemTDQca437dP50irtcuk865OdgmspRwXP3I87VE0Due2VWGfiGTOuZnGiS-9r2mRfePVWuUz5zXARakbj50VdgTjQ/s320/Book.jpg" /></a></b></div><span style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>Michael J.
Sandel (2020), The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?, Allen
Lane, New Delhi, pp. 272</b></span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">You might know him from the legendary course <i><a href="https://online-learning.harvard.edu/course/justice?delta=3">Justice<span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></a></i> Michael Sandel is a political
philosopher at Harvard University and the author of celebrated books such as <i><a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/sandel/publications/what-money-cant-buy-moral-limits-markets">What
Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits to Market</a> </i>and <i><a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/sandel/publications/justice-whats-right-thing-do">Justice:
What’s the Right Thing to do</a></i>. His new book on the discourse of merit unpacks
the foundation of the ‘winner-takes-all’ world we live in. This is an important
work for our times and can be productively read with the last two reviews of this
blog on the <i><a href="http://thehouseofbooks.blogspot.com/2021/04/americas-deaths-of-despair.html">Deaths
of Despair</a></i> and the <i><a href="http://thehouseofbooks.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-future-of-work.html">Future
of Work</a></i>. The undercurrent that these thinkers are trying to navigate is
not just the causes of unacceptable inequality that exists in our world today,
but also how we have acknowledged, justified, and normalized it in our lives
through narratives and discourses. An important idea that we have used to make
sense of this inequality and impoverishment of many amidst prosperity and
abundance of some is that of ‘merit’. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">By merit, Sandel does not allude to the rhetoric of ‘you
deserve what you get’, but how the institutionalization of the merit rhetoric
works in practice. Be it higher education or professional career, the accident
of birth and the substantial benefits it endows is rendered invisible and made
unnavigable to outsiders, creating a patina of neutrality behind which an
unequal and unjust world operates nonchalantly. Consequently, the public values
in social institutions such as education, healthcare and work that enables
social mobility is blocked and accountability is difficult to elicit when
ideology supports unjust privileges in the name of just desserts. Using the
case of the United States of America, Sandel argues how we veritably inhabit
two mutually exclusive worlds, one of privilege and the other of despair, with their
own norms that rule these worlds.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">With seven chapters excluding an introduction and
conclusion, this book makes for compact reading. As always, Sandel makes the history
and the axiomatic premises of his arguments accessible and revealing. He uses
contemporary and relevant illustrative examples, asks challenging questions,
and pushes us out of our intellectual comfort zones. By doing so, he compels us
to look long and hard at the society we have designed for ourselves and deemed
worthy of passing on to the next generation. This is the type of writer that
you must never miss reading. Get your copy today.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-81187092819280554302021-05-01T11:54:00.000+05:302021-05-01T11:54:07.739+05:30The Future of Work<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4zlz2lRMJGQp4HhL583ytj1_68CXF8gkkpLHLOg-hMoASkSOuURMIqTNtWH8ldLodsJe_dghE6ZixZP_JM03w3xjJ6Z7Xby9c4Od9kldyGhcJ4mak_R6zf1_dcKHRgIFkT7HqfDEBxxw/s2048/81G-ACi1OLL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1334" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4zlz2lRMJGQp4HhL583ytj1_68CXF8gkkpLHLOg-hMoASkSOuURMIqTNtWH8ldLodsJe_dghE6ZixZP_JM03w3xjJ6Z7Xby9c4Od9kldyGhcJ4mak_R6zf1_dcKHRgIFkT7HqfDEBxxw/s320/81G-ACi1OLL.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Daniel Susskind (2020), A World without Work, Allen Lane,
pp.326</b></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This International Labour Day,
here is a book that looks into the future of work. As we commemorate the rights
at work that were incrementally earned over a century by means of labour
movements, the cruel irony is that we are facing a future where there is much
less work in the form of formal employment. As machines become adept at solving
tasks, how do humans find ways to sustain economically? Without work, how do we
define the meaning and purpose of life?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Daniel Susskind is an
economist at Oxford University and the co-author of the much- acclaimed <i>The
Future of Professions</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having been
part of the British Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, he has considerable
experience at the highest levels of policy making in the United Kingdom. The
influence of having dabbled in the world of ideas that work on the ground
shines through this book, as Susskind grapples with technology and automation that
decimates work that humans perform, and argues how we must respond and rise up to
this challenge. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The structure of the book
clearly demarcates the three sections - threat, context and response – each with
four chapters. In the first section, Susskind examines the historical context
of misplaced anxiety throughout the industrial revolution when machines continually
displaced human labour. Through the historical examples, he seeks to understand
and compare tasks performed by humans and machines. Understanding how machines
work is helpful in estimating what kind of work they are likely to displace humans
at and others they require humans to collaborate with.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In the second section, Susskind
explores unemployment theoretically. Here, the author elaborates on task encroachment
by machines, differentiates frictional from technological unemployment, and
examines the relationship between technology and inequality. In the third
section, the author moves on to how we can respond to the unemployment
challenge posed by automation. He discusses the role of education, state
regulation and corporations in responding meaningfully to the reality of less
and less work in the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you want an overview of the
type of changes that are coming in the world of work, this is a good book to
begin with. The approach taken to understanding the issue is predominantly
economic, but Susskind also brings in perspectives from history and sociology
to augment his arguments. The language is clear and succinct and the parts are neatly
organized. In fact, there is a structural symmetry to the form led by the
content of the book. A high recommendation for graduate students, academics,
policy makers, and the lay reader alike. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-23279404019336804622021-04-13T20:21:00.001+05:302021-04-13T20:21:37.200+05:30America’s Deaths of Despair<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHISiZaTxOx3L66xv8y9_npzT3qEgBZ_8wprCAYcg3zuXneGSN9LF0E0sOKEeM-FR8dQ9G2Q74vhf8mW1-IESbATi9q8i1TWB-DLLFfU9NIztZbgXCyWIiiaEDqRYkYVoz4fwgCq-PNMo/s2048/81RfAV-oO1L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1347" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHISiZaTxOx3L66xv8y9_npzT3qEgBZ_8wprCAYcg3zuXneGSN9LF0E0sOKEeM-FR8dQ9G2Q74vhf8mW1-IESbATi9q8i1TWB-DLLFfU9NIztZbgXCyWIiiaEDqRYkYVoz4fwgCq-PNMo/s320/81RfAV-oO1L.jpg" /></a></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">Anne Case and Angus Deaton (2020), Deaths of Despair
and the Future of Capitalism, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, pp. 312</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is perhaps the most
important book to come out last year that argues trenchantly about what
inequality can do to a society. Princeton economists and real-life spouses Anne
Case and Angus Deaton (who also happens to have won the Nobel Prize in
Economics) examine the reasons for the recently observed deaths of despair
among white Americans. In doing so, they open the black box of what globalization,
deindustrialization, and persistent unemployment and low-quality employment have
pushed an erstwhile working-class group into poverty and precarity in a span of
a few decades. Divided into four parts, the authors dissect the problem, bring
evidence-based arguments and look for possible institutional solutions. As the
title suggest, they are optimistic enough to believe that there is a future for
capitalism despite its epic tragedies!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The authors begin with
the question, why the ‘deaths of despair’? The poignantly named phenomenon refers
to the recently observed deaths among the erstwhile white working-class Americans
resulting from suicide, alcohol and drug abuse. These deaths of despair have
risen to hundreds of thousands in recent years making a disturbing mark in
large-scale demographic data, indicating systemic malaise and reversing the
great public health strides in life expectancy since 1918. In exploring these
deaths, the authors unearth the dismantling of society that systemic failures
of institutions and politics resulted in after the golden decades immediately
succeeding World War II. The book also critiques how the American public health
system particularly failed its people and often actively colluded in their
descent into despair and demise. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The story of the American
white working-class despair is set amidst the indifference of the rest of the
world as it shifted gear to a new ideology and left entire communities bereft
of well-paying jobs, a place in society, and meaning in their lives. The best
thing about this book is how data has been used to make claims and arguments. The
writers bring disaggregated panel data from public health and economics to
compare white middle-class Americans with other demographic groups such as
Hispanics and African Americans to demonstrate how they slipped and fell as the
discourse around progress and prosperity changed rapidly since the 1970s. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Beyond the immediate
issue of the white-working class crisis, this book gives space to the race
question in the United States, the equation between white privilege of the
working class and minority politics, the divide on the immigration issue and
partly explains the resurgence of populist politics. Unlike some data-driven
scholarly works, this book is written with a heart. The pain is palpable and
the poignancy is evident even as evidence is marshalled to show what went wrong
with a surgical precision. Read the work with care and debate vigorously the
arguments it provokes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-20310416532878662462021-03-02T11:53:00.002+05:302021-03-02T11:53:55.985+05:30The Great Gender Data Gap<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFuwBGUDp_N2U-H5eipgcd-zV4PU4sJe9R0wy7OWiTDzGIQkLxHWXG4h8R2bqbWzULvtN3GUfLT6VDtp7gmkV-_x6bUZcZA7IDipPShJ34Ch0X6LcCD8pUWik4ZmAGVzt-jWvwoeMreGg/s2048/Book+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1339" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFuwBGUDp_N2U-H5eipgcd-zV4PU4sJe9R0wy7OWiTDzGIQkLxHWXG4h8R2bqbWzULvtN3GUfLT6VDtp7gmkV-_x6bUZcZA7IDipPShJ34Ch0X6LcCD8pUWik4ZmAGVzt-jWvwoeMreGg/s320/Book+cover.jpg" /></a></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">Caroline Perez (2019), </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">Invisible Women: Exposing
Data Bias in a World Designed for Men</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">, Chatto & Windus, London, pp. 411</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As we celebrate the
international women’s history month in March every year, there is no better way
to gain perspective than grab a copy of this well-researched and witty book
that fiercely lays bare the gender-shaped hole in human history. Caroline Perez,
a writer, broadcaster, and an award-winning feminist campaigner, brings her excellent
research acumen and flair for debate to illuminate how the human society has
been designed to suit the default setting called male. As a result, the female
gender has always had to either unfairly adjust to the setting that did not
take into consideration its existence or vociferously demand change often inviting
the wrath of everyone. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Using mundane
everyday inconveniences such as phones that are too big for their hands or city
planning that was oblivious to their existence, to systematic structural inequalities
such as assumptions of merit and skills at workplace that affect their progress
and well-being, the author argues how women had to contend in a world designed
for men.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Divided into six parts
and sixteen chapters, the book delves into specific examples spanning the private
lives to the public where the female is made invisible and its implications for
everyone. Perez uses different types of data such as statistics to case
studies, quantitative inferences to in-depth interviews to make her point. What
makes her job extremely challenging and the reader’s experience exceptionally
rewarding is that she succeeds in showing us the absences. Demonstrating care
and domestic work, she unpacks the working of millions of women working
invisibly and silently to keep the visible acts of male achievement alive. She
also pulls up female achievement which has for centuries masqueraded as male
genius, unearthing artists, scientists, doctors, engineers, thinkers, creators,
and dreamers who contributed something original to humanity. She then discusses
how can we build a future that is gender acknowledging. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Anyone who believes in an
equal human society must read this work. So should individuals who are design
thinkers and want to make a difference. So should young students and experienced
researchers. This book indicates where we have been blind-sided and how to go
about correcting ourselves. This work speaks of our unfair and unequal self-fulfilling
psychological prophecies that have systematically failed to acknowledge girls
and women as creative, constructive and capable human beings. My hope is that
through works such as these, we have the persistence to also unearth other
gender-shaped absences that have languished in the dark shadows of history. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-19346182937966866292021-01-19T17:19:00.001+05:302021-01-19T18:21:55.008+05:30The Life with Books<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhcNNZP4_drUvG-dAkW_kkYU8DosfcKqGpJZYaS-wQBWCq6fjGDWxbHVbeTMK26LUrDEShzEO3UeZwsTPeHo7OBrKXPhy-WhtbTUSIrDWaKQlizWqOpvOpyKlsQeT4FQkFr2KkecAhroo/s770/5724487-EXAKRJPB-7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="770" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhcNNZP4_drUvG-dAkW_kkYU8DosfcKqGpJZYaS-wQBWCq6fjGDWxbHVbeTMK26LUrDEShzEO3UeZwsTPeHo7OBrKXPhy-WhtbTUSIrDWaKQlizWqOpvOpyKlsQeT4FQkFr2KkecAhroo/s320/5724487-EXAKRJPB-7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo credit: Saatchi Art/ Reproduction of the painting <i>Reading a Book</i> by Trayko Popov</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">“What do they know of books, that only books know?”</b></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">This blog about books, that
began its journey on a boxing day, has completed seven years of</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> life. I knew that
as long as I was up and about, one of the few things that I would be sure to do
was read books. Writing about them was a natural step further; choosing to
share it with the world, a cultivated commitment. Yet here we are in another
decade, you reading what I wrote, and I reading what I am about to write. This
will be a good time to share some of the things I often get asked about the
blog.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">First off, why this blog? I
owe my love of reading mostly to the head-librarian of my school. Without
knowing what a library was, one day, I forayed into its expansive entrance. The
librarian sternly picked up four books from the nearby shelf and waved them in
front of me. I reached out to one with a horse on the cover. She asked me to
come back in a month to return the book along with a library notebook to write
about what I had read. That is how I finished Anna Sewell’s ‘Black Beauty’ the
first ever book I read on my own in English. For the first two years or so, I
logged every single book I read in a notebook duly read by my librarian who had
picked those books for me. So, reading, like all the goods things I have ever
had the good fortune to learn, was a team project that was heavily supervised
at first. That is also how reading began as an obsessive act of recording. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Do I read every book I write
about here? No, I read far more! From the larger list of books, the ones
featured here come for many reasons – gravity of theme, weight of arguments, originality,
contemporaneity, recognition and so much more. If I have to boil them down to
cardinal principles, then there are two that I have never violated. I have
never written about a book that I really did not love. I have also never shared
a book that I thought was not beautifully written and produced.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Why a generalist blog? When I
began writing about books, there was no plan shape it up a particular way,
including increasing readership. I have never really tried to attract readers
by talking about just one type of books. In the end, talking more about one type
of book would mean staying untrue to my reading, which is more akin to grazing
the pastures than eating from a menu. Deep down, I read for pleasure and would
not like to have it any other way. And even deeper down, I have always believed
that books would help me with everything I need to know. Hence, the rabbit
hole!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And now for the question that
I do not get asked at all. Do you, as a reader, have to be wary of anything? CLR
James the great cricket historian asked in his beautiful book ‘Beyond a
boundary’ “what do they know of cricket that only cricket know”? This article
begins with a similar rhetorical question on books. It is impossible to
understand books without the larger context of life in which they are immersed.
Conversely, it is challenging to comprehend life without books. Maybe,
understanding this dilemma is a good way to be reminded of the importance of
critical reading? So, dear reader, who stuck with me through thick and thin
volumes, welcome back to happy reading!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p>Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-28905997116159306272020-09-07T04:52:00.001+05:302020-09-07T04:52:31.790+05:30The Portrait of a City <p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM7NMMdDzrdRp3aBuOT1pea9AbpYsMheuqx1mtA_7C0RtU8TQzSple4enetBTmnwNvyHNulpB87yfytMX0pC1c6CFINL-DIJs5ZmTSCLeNaCaJ6Bqx4j73F0HPQKPwgt9G6zEtkesApjk/s900/DK+Iyer+2020%252C+Collage+Poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="900" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM7NMMdDzrdRp3aBuOT1pea9AbpYsMheuqx1mtA_7C0RtU8TQzSple4enetBTmnwNvyHNulpB87yfytMX0pC1c6CFINL-DIJs5ZmTSCLeNaCaJ6Bqx4j73F0HPQKPwgt9G6zEtkesApjk/w400-h284/DK+Iyer+2020%252C+Collage+Poster.jpg" width="400" /></a></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">© Collage Poster Deepa Kylasam Iyer 2020</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Short Biography of Cities Series (2013), Aleph, New
Delhi.</b></span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is something very
assuring to the reader about short introductions and mini-series. I suppose it
has to do with size; books of shorter length look conquerable, portable, and manageable.
It is like running the smaller versions of marathon so that the amateur feels
confident of completing the race. Nearly all of the introduction-series by various
publishers also takes pains to bring color, design, and layout to the package
that loudly suggests ‘ease’ to the idea of a book. I love reading philosophy
and history in short versions (Oxford introductions and Routledge short series come
to mind), find my footing or acquire a taste, and then move to the grander and sturdier
tomes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When I discovered the
short biographies of cities (Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata) in my collection, I
knew they had to be read together. First off, these mini-books are under 170
pages, roughly (15cm x 10cm), and hard bound with beautiful ivory covers on which
delicate water colored themes open the gates to the city. The narrator is usually
someone who has either lived a greater part of her life in the city, or has an indubitable
connection to the ‘urbs’. The story of the city often begins with the grand
sweep of history, then meanders through personal histories as we travel the
nook and lanes of its landscape. There are maps and memories to fill in the
bits nobody can speak about anymore. The best part is perhaps a gentle pointer
to the bigger, definitive dramatic narratives on the city to which this simple sketch
could be seen as a prelude to. I sure hope a second round of series come soon
with smaller towns of southern Asia from the same publisher.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Till then, at this time
of the year when everything collapses from the bright light of the relentless
summer to the gentle dark of the inevitable fall, the time of in-between things,
grab a cup of something soothing and dip into a short escape to something so
grand as a city! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-55490082235704856362020-08-08T09:48:00.002+05:302020-08-08T09:48:38.145+05:30Lost but Won<div class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp-mcf3s2u66ClCa214CB-txFzEoBbdJWaBlkupamH3QS14Uj2Cb7Wlq66DFh3t4MjSZW94F5gCPcJRYZK3hV3OfLAFs8moJ0LK2pNvBAFqRl3ddIe9QCKAuWNtXV674jd3USjpuEIB10/s499/Book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="313" height="399" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp-mcf3s2u66ClCa214CB-txFzEoBbdJWaBlkupamH3QS14Uj2Cb7Wlq66DFh3t4MjSZW94F5gCPcJRYZK3hV3OfLAFs8moJ0LK2pNvBAFqRl3ddIe9QCKAuWNtXV674jd3USjpuEIB10/w250-h399/Book.jpg" width="250" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>Prashant Kidambi
(2019). Cricket Country: The Untold History of the First all India Team, Penguin
Viking, pp. 453.</b></span></i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The last two years have
been exceptional for the historical cricket literature genre in the Indian sub-continent.
Two excellent histories on the Indian women’s cricket came by in quick succession
(</span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Free Hit</i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Supriya Das & </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Fire Burns Blue</i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Karunya
Keshav & Sidhanta Patnaik), both exhaustive and celebratory, followed by this
story of the first all India cricket team by historian and Leicester University
associate professor Prashant Kidambi. This tome is written in the great tradition
of cricket prose in the subcontinent, the pre-eminent of which is Ramachandra
Guha’s </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">A corner of a foreign field. </i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What the claim means is that the historian’s
meticulous research into archival materials is matched by the story teller’s
felicity of expression, to bring out Indian cricket’s birth in the hotbed of
its political history.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Historian as
Story-teller</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Kidambi brings his historian’s
arsenal to aid the digging and unearthing of the hidden people and incidents
that make up this compelling story. Cricket’s idyllic and expansive Victorian
mores undergo a fiery transformation when supplanted on the subcontinental
shores. Layered by religion, caste, class, and political ideology, cricket
becomes a ‘game of thrones’ between the British, Indian pundits, and the plebeians.
Kidambi lays out, with an archeologist’s precision, the barebones of the
politics, economics, and sociology of the sport that presciently reverberates to
the present day.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The most poignant parts
of this historical sketch are the extensive and empathetic portrayals of some
of the least known pioneers such as the Dalit brothers Palwankar and Shivram
Baloo, whose stupendous achievements in the face of adversity is as epic as
their exploits in the field. Kidambi also unwaveringly captures the ebbs and
flow of history beyond the boundary, to narrate how some waves passed cricket by,
whereas some others changed the course of its future.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If you are like me, partial
to cricket in its long format and its prose in the equally long form, this book
is for your collection, to be read, re-read and bequeathed to heirs, like you
would a Neville Cardus, CLR James, or Ramachandra Guha. If you have no idea why
cricket prose should be gushed over, try this book. Like a good beverage, you may
grow a taste for it. Cricket (like literature and monogamous marriage) should
be battled with a gentle life-long commitment. Unlike the short ebullient high of
the more thrilling avenues of adventure, this one works on your system slowly, and
wins you over completely. If at all, you are destined to have an unfortunate affliction,
why not be the gentle moon-faced cricket aficionado?<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-59719762482767489402020-07-02T16:03:00.000+05:302020-07-02T16:03:23.317+05:30Dealing with Disruption<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Ovib495yqITF98Nk-I3NmdzOUzYtK2pn2lo__DSADWfAEbf74D2KkoZmazFO5L7t9jLIBVHjP-9_7xW0roo1AJBKCy3crry-sDSt0J9NouOX2MRzA_eR3fnumJBR8pyRQ8IjcoarE1I/s1600/811pr%252B4v89L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1064" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Ovib495yqITF98Nk-I3NmdzOUzYtK2pn2lo__DSADWfAEbf74D2KkoZmazFO5L7t9jLIBVHjP-9_7xW0roo1AJBKCy3crry-sDSt0J9NouOX2MRzA_eR3fnumJBR8pyRQ8IjcoarE1I/s320/811pr%252B4v89L.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Clayton M. Christensen (2000), The Innovator’s
Dilemma, Harvard University Press, pp. 252.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I bought my copy of ‘Innovator’s
Dilemma’ the week after Harvard Professor and one of the most prescient business
thinkers of our time, Clayton Christensen died early this year. Author of
numerous influential books including ‘The Innovator’s Solution’ (2003), ‘How Will
You Measure Your Life?’ (2012), and most recently ‘The Prosperity Paradox’
(2019), Christensen was a teacher, and philosopher who had also established
research organizations, investment and management consultancies that advised
businesses to do well. This blog article is about his most famous book, and
also a small way of giving tribute to his great intellect. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Main Thesis<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The core of the book is
about answering one question- how can businesses successfully deal with
disruptive technology? The thesis of this book resonates even more so in a
period when automation and platformization are disrupting the framework of our
political economy. Christensen uses the example of the disk-drive industry that
he had worked on towards his doctoral research. Then, he corroborates his
findings using evidence from other sectors. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Christensen’s main
finding is that companies that follow ‘good management practices’ such as listening
to their customer base succeed with sustaining established technology, but fail
miserably when faced with disruptive ones. This is because disruptive technology
does not work out first in established markets. Disruptive technology enters a
niche base of specialized users and takes time evolving in form, design and applications,
while waiting for the right market to be introduced. First mover advantage
matters the most while commercializing disruptive technology. There is a long
period of gestation while research and experimentation take precedence over marketing
and sales. Due to all these factors, mainstream companies and leaders in an industry
often miss the advent of a new technology about to disrupt their sector. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Using empirical
evidence from successful case studies, Christensen proposes ways in which business
organizations can successfully survive and dominate a disruptive technology
curve.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Researcher’s
Writer<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This book is powerful
not just for anyone who wants to understand how businesses should deal with
disruptive technology, but also to young researchers about to write their first
book. Christensen shows how to write a good book based on your original
research. All the myriad conflicts a debutante author faces- how to use data,
how to present findings in an interesting manner, how to arrange the reams you
have researched over the years – are all pared down here. Written in crisp,
simple, clear, everyday language, Christensen builds a thesis, without batting
an eye lid, and without losing your attention. Get started on this book, and
stay ahead of the curve!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-51507840656406794282020-06-10T09:29:00.001+05:302020-06-10T09:29:48.191+05:30Mind Master<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeMppby3ULdJp-zYNWa4d54l6E7YMx_RUyloTzkzn4iNSCwv_HPOtQrUC2tQ_NGC-XnEuVbkB2DspNA6xiW9J5eBfAEMxx-d30nyZkeWbB3fugEHkHbt8ETTV3tVXz7pQLJ3xN7-rOQy0/s1600/Book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeMppby3ULdJp-zYNWa4d54l6E7YMx_RUyloTzkzn4iNSCwv_HPOtQrUC2tQ_NGC-XnEuVbkB2DspNA6xiW9J5eBfAEMxx-d30nyZkeWbB3fugEHkHbt8ETTV3tVXz7pQLJ3xN7-rOQy0/s320/Book.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b><i>Viswanathan Anand
(2019), Mind Master: Winning Lessons from a Champion’s Life, Hachette India,
Gurugram, pp. 262<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I love reading sports
champion’s memoirs. It is a great way to know how the big game looked through
the eyes of the player, all the ups and downs as we knew it as purveyors of the
game against how it felt living through it. It is something like a gladiator
telling you how wrestling with the lion felt like. For me it works like this.
First, there is a quick tallying of the big moments in my head against their
impressions, and the vicarious pleasure of living through it again. What
remains when you have finished reading is the opportunity to take something
useful out of their lives into your own. Two of my all-time favorite books from
sports champions are Pete Sampras’ ‘A Champion’s Mind: Lessons from a Life in
Tennis’ and Garry Kasparov’s ‘How Life Imitates Chess’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">India’s First
Grand Master<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">You can imagine how I
felt dipping into the memoir of India’s first Grand Master in Chess and former
World Champion Viswanathan Anand when I was waiting for the pandemic to subside
and life to start over. The book gives you everything that you are hoping for,
especially if you are a chess aficionado. It also gives a bit more- each
chapter ends with a classic move on a chess board from the greatest games Anand
ever played, with a nugget of wisdom to go with it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Anand takes you through
the big breaks in his chess career and gives a peek into his chess story -the
beginning, the first win, the first foreign tour, being Grand Master and World
Champion. We also get a gentle foray into his life story – with two sets of
parental figures across two continents, meeting his wife, making friends (and
enemies) and the birth of his son. He vividly describes the theatrics that goes
into dueling it out at the board, the politics behind the scenes, and the
advent of artificial intelligence that changed the way chess is played. Anand
is fierce at his game and gentle as a person, and this contradiction resonates in
the way he narrates his story with its soft sways and edgy turns! We feel nervous
and anxious with him as he describes going into a game, and are forlorn as he
deals with the loneliness of his failures and successes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Personal Insights<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The best part of the
book for me was the personal insights. Anand keeps notes of every game obsessively,
an old practice instilled in him by his mother. There is always the clarity you
expect from a man who writes down his thoughts and the deliberate privileging
of one fact over another, one facet above the rest. For example, whilst talking
about fortifying his game, Anand brings us to the ideas of serendipity and
limitless learning. He talks about how important it is to be curious about the
things you do not know, and learning a wide range of things that are of no
immediate relevance. He says it naturally as part of the narrative and yet you stop
and take note of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In many ways, Anand is
an unusual champion. He plays in the top league of the game at the age of
fifty! That fact speaks of the way his mind works, sharp and steady, patient and
resilient. That is one among the many reasons to read this book. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-9395196865142503582020-05-06T16:50:00.000+05:302020-05-06T16:50:53.111+05:30Understanding the Gig Economy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcklCWxT1Qz8VV1qYrnAZDtGmkG1jNOHEhutSebuwOa6ZcrLxBf3LQBj4pqgFbohyx0pTkPy0LOHA6iXbwB1WcGiTRoTxdVBKXGrOVr4pydutR-4I0dJEs7M6Pi-6PaK-Ka-A6ZKj1DvY/s1600/Gigged.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1049" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcklCWxT1Qz8VV1qYrnAZDtGmkG1jNOHEhutSebuwOa6ZcrLxBf3LQBj4pqgFbohyx0pTkPy0LOHA6iXbwB1WcGiTRoTxdVBKXGrOVr4pydutR-4I0dJEs7M6Pi-6PaK-Ka-A6ZKj1DvY/s320/Gigged.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"><i>Sarah Kessler (2018),
Gigged: The Gig Economy, the End of the Job and the Future of Work, Random
House, pp. 288</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What does it mean to be
a young person looking for her first job after school today? The traditional path
to dignity, stability and independence that work offers is fast receding in the
age of the fourth industrial revolution with the advent of automation,
artificial intelligence and on-demand platform economy. Just like the industrial
revolutions before, this process is redefining work and the role of workers.
Unlike the industrial revolutions before, this process is evolving so rapidly
that the shelf life of a new business idea, the technology that drives it and the
organizational structure that supports it is morphing in a matter of days. Great
wealth is made in a few years and great losses too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Such upheaval piles an
unprecedented amount of risk and insecurity on the shoulders of workers who are
taking the mantle of independent contractors, freelancers, consultants,
temporary, contractual and part-time workers. When a large number of jobs informalize,
the scope of worker rights diminishes. Financial and income security are traded
for the much advertised ‘flexibility’ and ‘autonomy’ that the changing nature
of work poses. Naturally, venture capital interest is substantially geared
towards those ideas like that of Uber that has minimum infrastructure and
maximum revenue potential. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is the world of
gig. Sarah Kessler does a fantastic job of taking us on a tour de force of the
new world order. She does this through the voice of employers, workers, and tech
entrepreneurs who make up this space. She traces the idea of work and wealth historically
and places it against the rapidly collapsing first decade of the twenty first
century world of work. She brings out the contradictions of the arguments that justify
gigging the economy, and the concerns that embed it. She talks freely and
frankly to people dreaming of opportunities and those struggling to make the
ends meet. She observes, comments and fills the gap of their narrative with
details and view points that presents a compelling perspective.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is a fine
introduction to anyone who wants to understand the nature and scope of the gig
economy. Kessler is a tech blogger, tenacious researcher and compelling
storyteller. Equally accessible to a specialist and novice, this book lays bare
the essentials of a complex economic system through lucid prose. Befittingly,
the biggest endorsement of the book comes on its front cover from none other than
the master economist narrator and Cambridge professor Ha-Joon Chang! If you
loved ’23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism’ by Chang, you could read
this book as ‘a few important things they don’t tell you about the gig economy’.
Exciting read!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-649583216640392962020-04-03T13:17:00.000+05:302020-04-03T13:17:53.038+05:30Walk the Talk<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo9veYUWkT7_3Ma40KAazjguWCpEwXnHKtmbelsiLcuNyhNpYe9u6p9-KZGzzWf71rIwywBVE-s1mskOs7bfLPKEx_kX452szmajQW2K8XxyZ1JhI-xuHQqztkUL7oxodengQaMsWkzJk/s1600/TED.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="329" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo9veYUWkT7_3Ma40KAazjguWCpEwXnHKtmbelsiLcuNyhNpYe9u6p9-KZGzzWf71rIwywBVE-s1mskOs7bfLPKEx_kX452szmajQW2K8XxyZ1JhI-xuHQqztkUL7oxodengQaMsWkzJk/s320/TED.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i>
<i style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>Carmine Gallo
(2014). Talk like TED: The Nine Public Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top
Minds, Pan Macmillan, pp.278</b></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As the flu darkens our
horizon, what we need more than ever is a constructive way to spend time in
confinement. The perfect book that can comfort and enlighten us through these
times is either the good old classic that reminds us of things we mastered once
or a manual that enables us to learn something new. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This month’s book is an
engaging version of the second kind. ‘Talk like TED’ explores the question,
what makes great speeches and how you can deliver one. Author and former CNN
correspondent Carmine Gallo rummages through 150 hours of over 500 TED talks to
find patterns that make speeches unforgettable and inspiring. He deconstructs
the actual performance of the speech, interviews good speakers, and researches
ideas from psychology and neuroscience to understand what makes modern oratory
tick. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Making Hearts Sing<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gallo argues that all
good speeches have three qualities- they are emotional, novel, and memorable. The
emotional component of a good speech is delivered because of the passion of the
speaker. What makes your heart sing is something that is intensely meaningful
to you that forms the core of your personality. Only such great passion can
elevate the hearts of others. Whilst thinking of a theme, the first thing to introspect
is what inspires you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The second quality, novelty
is not the easiest aspect to bring into your speech in the age of information.
Gallo argues that novelty need not be new information, but new ways of
presentation. All good speeches (and definitely TED talks) had jaw dropping
moments - be it jokes, anecdotes, props or visual aid. The reason novelty is
such a powerful pull factor is because learning activates dopamine production
in our brains, giving us the same kind of excitement that gambling does!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Finally, the third
quality that Gallo discusses is ‘being memorable’. This aspect is cultivated
through relentless practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Intense
repetition of an act not only improves our confidence and timing, but opens new
pathways in the brain that reacts differently to content. A pattern emerges in
your presentation that links the different parts as part of a larger whole. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Both as a commentary
and a manual, this book is a brief, fun, and exciting read to hone your skills
at presentation. When the world opens to you again, be ready with something
great!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-86250099458814214722020-03-02T10:54:00.000+05:302020-03-02T10:54:19.531+05:30In Search of Love<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOPSDaaMgJEwvHJtFIJs1fWIVu1JZaKS6Z6TssRVduBo6AVUa8W7V5yLUBSi78btlN4DiFNT58ggbQRVjVQgUQZ3Py8cjDDIax68c6VuogqQZpwi3-rmbyGBhpMz6I_GGtZD7eV8ixDyk/s1600/91-cNUlvCeL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1068" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOPSDaaMgJEwvHJtFIJs1fWIVu1JZaKS6Z6TssRVduBo6AVUa8W7V5yLUBSi78btlN4DiFNT58ggbQRVjVQgUQZ3Py8cjDDIax68c6VuogqQZpwi3-rmbyGBhpMz6I_GGtZD7eV8ixDyk/s320/91-cNUlvCeL.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>Madhuri Vijay (2019),
The Far Field, Fourth Estate, New Delhi, pp. 432<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Madhuri Vijay is a debutante with a compelling story.
Her novel ‘The Far Field’ won the JCB prize for literature in 2019. I got hold
of the book with the beautiful cover art and wonderful story telling about identity
and memory in contemporary India. This story of the mother-daughter developed first
as short fiction in 2010 and was subsequently developed as a novel. Vijay’s
voice is tender and distinct, and is an asset throughout the narrative. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">‘The Far Field’ is the story of a young woman in India
who drifts away in life until a powerful memory from childhood triggered by her
mother’s death, leads her on a mission to understand her past. Her journey
takes her to militant Kashmir in search of a familiar face only to get
entangled in an irredeemable quest. The narrator-protagonist is unreliable and
vulnerable, evoking alarm and sympathy in equal measure. The anti-hero telling
a story of anti-climax is essentially the essence of the tale, although there
are layers and depths to explore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Echoes and Mirages<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One device that Vijay uses masterfully is the ‘echo’.
There is a constant reverberation between childhood and adulthood, Bangalore
and Kashmir, mother and daughter, that gives us the feeling of shifting time,
space and gaze. This is a great narrative device to show comparison, contrast
and the manner in which arcs end and cycles come to pass. In many ways, the
daughter avenges her mother’s death but the brooding, meandering valley and the
story warns us of what is to come. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">At another level, this is a story about the
impossibility of redeeming the past and the relying on memory. What is gone is
gone forever and to wade into incomplete stories is to rip apart its integrity.
Memories can be mirages that lead nowhere but to further illusions. Perusing
such illusions cannot but end in doom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is good fiction coming out of India asking the
larger questions of political identities through the personal quest of love and
loss. The description of bustling towns and the quiet valleys of Kashmir are evocative.
The human and natural characters from the valley are portrayed with flair and
compassion. The portrait of Kashmir through the silent mountain, the gurgling
ravines, the vigilant cows and goats, the incessant weaving and the busy
everydayness of life is on point. The light and shade, the people and the
forces parallel each other in a dreadful deadlock. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As we celebrate women’s history month, a fresh voice asking
us difficult but important questions is here with us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-52488636275130909122020-02-01T09:12:00.002+05:302020-02-01T09:12:58.709+05:30Economics for the Future<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNxY9KvkvXp5XjG5nzl79fH800oY8HTfmibNtwj4f9jFnfNP741_G-qPdB5vpWUJffr3jKV4di3ZYi_UJi4TEVzQw_3r6_xASiKCYPLIsJMmr_MhwFRyKVaBwxQ_7Q40_wNzspusnpQNY/s1600/MIT-Good-Economics_4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="639" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNxY9KvkvXp5XjG5nzl79fH800oY8HTfmibNtwj4f9jFnfNP741_G-qPdB5vpWUJffr3jKV4di3ZYi_UJi4TEVzQw_3r6_xASiKCYPLIsJMmr_MhwFRyKVaBwxQ_7Q40_wNzspusnpQNY/s400/MIT-Good-Economics_4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b><br /></b></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>Abhijit V.
Banerjee & Esther Duflo (2019). Good Economics for Hard Times, Juggernaut,
New Delhi, pp.402.</b></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Banerjee and Duflo are
back with arguments for conceptualizing economics that is useful to build the
future. This is the second book of the Nobel Prize winning duo (</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2019/banerjee/lecture/">https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2019/banerjee/lecture/</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">) and real-life economist couple after their debut ‘Poor
Economics’ which was reviewed in this blog (</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://thehouseofbooks.blogspot.com/search?q=Poor+Economics">http://thehouseofbooks.blogspot.com/search?q=Poor+Economics</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">). The authors take on the biggest problems facing humanity
today- climate change, automation, immigration, welfare and poverty- and
explore how a better use of economists’ frame can help solve them. Armed with
data, case studies, relentless humour and tender feeling, this work is rigorous
as it is humane. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Critique of
Economics<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The book begins with a
frank critique of economics as it is practiced today. Economists come in for a
fair share of brickbats for their obsession with economic growth as the
ultimate yardstick of good policy making, the method of trade liberalization as
a means to achieve them, the unwillingness to move from assumptions of rational
economic choices and the inability to connect with the larger public on issues
that impact the average person. Crouched under the complexities of fallacious
assumptions, mathematical modelling, and inept communication, economists have
created a wide gulf between themselves and the rest of the world. Banerjee and
Duflo argue that continuing along these traditions is unhelpful as it is
unethical. They call for an approach that uses realistic assumptions and make
bare the caveat emptor rather than continuing with misleading simplistic
versions of the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Analysis of Issues<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One of the biggest
takeaways from this book is the way the authors examine some of the pressing
issues today by presenting deliberate questions that challenge commonly held
assumptions. For example, all over the world there is a surge of fear against
immigrants as arguments abound that they reduce chances of employment and
welfare of others. The authors examine immigration both from historical data
and theoretical assumptions to bring out what happens to the local economy when
groups of a particular skill-set immigrate? Who wins and who loses and what is
the long-term impact? The nuances in their reasoning give clear pointers as to
how the problems could be solved. The authors caution that careful
intervention, not outright prohibition is the way forward. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, other issues such as automation,
welfare and climate change are dissected with reasoned arguments and empirical
evidence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Banerjee and Duflo are
known for writing eminently readable books which provoke our thinking and
arouse our feeling towards action. They do not disappoint this time. Their
canvas is bigger with better challenges to tackle head-on! A great book to
begin your year and decade!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-40479716606141780972020-01-01T10:11:00.000+05:302020-01-01T10:11:51.335+05:30A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Tawang<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFRAm0IQuXdQdsmCJ-zNa2AtzZGZtCtKgtjHKof1Q0KPq87OWnRrelILxGw-hbeP59f8cnuTiXoIuc3NnciMu02nUGZaYXemJCT6gIEa4RXttyPH7VThQAFUrLVmZuvDRSxf4BvmGiKoo/s1600/Sen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1298" data-original-width="831" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFRAm0IQuXdQdsmCJ-zNa2AtzZGZtCtKgtjHKof1Q0KPq87OWnRrelILxGw-hbeP59f8cnuTiXoIuc3NnciMu02nUGZaYXemJCT6gIEa4RXttyPH7VThQAFUrLVmZuvDRSxf4BvmGiKoo/s320/Sen.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Nabaneeta Dev Sen (Trans. Arunava Sinha) (2018), On a
Truck Alone to McMahon, Oxford University Press, New Delhi</span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A great way to begin this year is to embark on this
journey with the inimitable Nabaneeta Dev-Sen to the edge of imagination! Prof
Dev-Sen, who recently passed away, was a prolific author of eighty books
(written in Bengali), poet, public intellectual and a much-loved teacher. It
was only in 2018, that her widely-read travelogue originally published in 1984
in Bengali was translated into English. I must acknowledge the terrific
editorial work done by Dr. Mini Krishnan of Oxford University Press (India),
under whose discerning eye and able guidance, some of the amazing writers in
regional languages in India have been made accessible in English. So, I grabbed
a copy and happily jumped into the dizzying ride of pure impulse and
spontaneity with one of the funniest adventurers I have ever had the pleasure
to read!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Edgy Ride<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Armed with a double masters and a doctorate, a young
Nabaneeta is invited to a literary conference in Assam in the North Eastern
part of India. The absent-minded professor is at her goofiest best from the
word go! She boards the wrong flight just in time to make it to the right one.
She goes off on a wildlife safari as monsoon rages and fellow academics dig into
warm comforts. She sets off to Tawang, literally the edge of India, alone and
without a travel plan, hitch hiking her way up the mountains. We fear on her
behalf, only to be outwitted by her gift of the gab that pulls her out of every
sticky wicket.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On her way to Tawang, the narrator meets seedy truck
drivers who give her a ride up the hills and puritanical bureaucrats who share
their cottages over-night for rest. She makes friends with nuns in a Buddhist
monastery and understands how pragmatism rules the decision to join religious
order in the high mountains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She learns
to live with shepherd families, sipping yak tea, unperturbed by the gaping
language barrier that makes conversation impossible. The first Buddhist <i>gompa</i>
(temple) she reverently visits ends up being a fan house dedicated to India’s
first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, in the middle of nowhere. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Spirited and Spiritual<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Tawang is a place of pilgrimage thoughtfully planned
by visitors from all over the world. In this book, the subversion of accidental
journey to a spiritual centre is a perfect foil devised by the author to reveal
something more profound as the book unfolds. Soon enough, Tawang becomes a
pathway to transient comradeship and compassion between people who are as
different as they can possibly be. Through this journey, the narrator and the
unwilling fellow-travelers jump hoops, break walls and bend mountains to open their
homes and hearts to a stranger. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As the journey closes and the last glimpse of the <i>gompa</i>
fades out, we realize that all along, it was a spiritual journey in the truest
sense of the term. Tawang stands for love, loss and longing and this impulsive
solitary adventure was a way to pick pieces of life and start all over again.
And that is why this book is the perfect way to begin a year, start all over
again, pick up pieces, grieve for what is lost and embrace what is to come. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I wish you the warmth and comfort of books the year
around! We made it to a new decade, fellow travelers!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-46931536895258982942019-12-02T10:36:00.000+05:302019-12-02T10:36:04.598+05:30An Anthology for Winter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8X-9Q3Yg1Jgh20yD4j-47R_9cfj2orV_n6baeVmOaMe5Iz-8f-RkQZv-jflVUT6SSor_2wx7e3CBegqhNT3mPUsxcbDGksTTPMpIIimInbJtyIaz0yGBoKPYiUR9IjC1MxoKVvYsBGcI/s1600/Best+of+Quest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="999" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8X-9Q3Yg1Jgh20yD4j-47R_9cfj2orV_n6baeVmOaMe5Iz-8f-RkQZv-jflVUT6SSor_2wx7e3CBegqhNT3mPUsxcbDGksTTPMpIIimInbJtyIaz0yGBoKPYiUR9IjC1MxoKVvYsBGcI/s320/Best+of+Quest.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Best of Quest
(2011), Edited by Laeeq Fatehally, Achal Prabhala & Arshia Sattar,
Tranquebar, Chennai, pp. 660<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There are many ways to end a year and cozying up with
an anthology is the best of them! The sweeter the nostalgia for times gone, if
the said anthology is from the alcove of lost time. <i>The Best of Quest</i> is
one such tome that compiles English writing from and about India during the
period 1955-1976. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It was the height of the Cold War and an international
enterprise called ‘The Congress for Cultural Freedom’ was set up to spread
liberal ideas of freedom through literary endeavors. Covertly funded by the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), this endeavor took various forms through the
launching of classical ‘little’ magazines such as <i>Encounter</i> in the UK
and <i>Quest</i> in India. So much for the thrilling background story of
who-dunnit!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In India, fresh from British colonial rule, <i>Quest</i>
must have represented the niche space of liberal cultural ethos expressed in
the colonist’s language (For archives: </span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.freedomfirst.in/quest/quest-archives.aspx">http://www.freedomfirst.in/quest/quest-archives.aspx</a>)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">. The diversity of the literature spanning essays,
fiction and poetry were deliciously served by those who went on to build new
India such as Kamala Das, Nissim Ezekiel (poet and its first editor), Adil
Jussawalla, Dilip Chitre, Ashis Nandy, A.K. Ramanujan and so many more. The
subject of the discourse was also delightfully diverse from the portrait of
historical figures to those of historical institutions, from the pleasures of
commercial cinema to the gravitas of ancient paintings, from breezy travelogues
to political arguments for gender rights. The housing of the pedantic with the
pedestrian, polemic with the anti-puritanical signals the firm ascendance of
modern, liberal view of the world that a part of India hoped to achieve. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Evocative Journey<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">From the vantage point of contemporaneity, reading
these perspectives evoke a multitude of emotions. The first is nostalgia at the
loss of the punctuated leisure that these pieces present. I believe this quality
has been lost along the way through the onslaught of neoliberal consumerism. Today,
we do not read with such relish. To my generation, it is a loss of inheritance.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The second is envy at the ease of writing, the style
of the language and the strength of the argument, no matter the subject. Such
candor requires confidence in the self and its place in the scheme of things. With
the way we are today with ourselves and our social media, something of such
integrated self is lost. We can share kink, but not erotica; viewpoint, but not
argument in under 30 seconds. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Finally, there is pathos, the moving portrait of what once
was and what dreams have become. I believe this is the biggest loss. The
ability to not only say most of what you think, but to be politically
incorrect, to be funny and unabashedly self-deprecatingly so, to use irony to
drive home a million home truths- the loss of such powers hurt a bit more in
this age of extremism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I think it is for the feeling of what <i>Quest</i>
represents than what it contains that you must revisit the <i>Best of Quest</i>.
Besides, the volume comes with an exquisite cover art and vintage Quest post
cards. Certainly, a collector’s delight and a great way to wind up the year!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-34016979024552274362019-11-01T12:02:00.000+05:302019-11-01T12:02:09.266+05:30The Master’s Voice<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ5Hn4x2imzySWTownCNplCheasyhG2fytpZLQhI2ospNcCagYoZCbsRwbkDX2geSC2muhPxdcbd7YWk_g-mHFm2jFthsOtRzPjpQb-kaLWXmVsiohBiZKBpGvwtWSIp0ddtRWXBWLcFg/s1600/Munro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="258" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ5Hn4x2imzySWTownCNplCheasyhG2fytpZLQhI2ospNcCagYoZCbsRwbkDX2geSC2muhPxdcbd7YWk_g-mHFm2jFthsOtRzPjpQb-kaLWXmVsiohBiZKBpGvwtWSIp0ddtRWXBWLcFg/s320/Munro.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="text-align: left;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Alice Munro (2000),
The Love of a Good Woman, Vintage, London, pp. 340</span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">‘The Love of a Good Woman’ is an anthology of eight
stories by Nobel Laureate Alice Munro. The stories bring out her native country
Canada in its full splendor. Set in different time periods, seasons and moods,
these stories plumb the Canadian life through the slow, pendulous prose that
swings back and forth between memory, love, loss and longing of its characters.
The terrain of Munro’s narrative is like the peat bogs that are ubiquitous to
her landscape, it is slippery and difficult to navigate, but buries within
something precious and clarifying. You journey to the end of the story and wait
for the story to reappear in its entirety, illuminating parts that you did not
know existed in the first reading. That is part of the delectable satisfaction
in entering Munro’s beguiling world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Truth and Illusion <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The book begins with the story ‘the love of a good
woman’. The good woman has cocooned herself in a role that she plays to
perfection. Just when it seems life is invariant; a small opening comes into
sight. There is a road that could lead to new beginnings, but her rite of
passage is through a test of truth that could make or break her life. We leave
her at the beginning of this crossroad. Similarly, the story ‘Jakarta’ is a
man’s journey to understand what he truly lost four decades ago. In the search
for clarity, he meets with an old friend’s narrative that could either be the
very truth or a tragic delusion of a broken heart. We leave such protagonists
in the middle of their journey where new beginnings are just a corner away,
shielded by a wall so deliberate and vile that we fear the outcome even as we
know the inevitable has to happen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A characteristic that simmers in this quiet cauldron
is the echo in the narrative that ricochets and threatens the fragile worlds of
our characters. A daughter visits her father’s clinic after aborting her child
only to assist in another for a stranger. A grandmother plays the same silly
game she used to entertain her daughter with, only to enter a dangerous
territory with her grandchildren. Reverberating through this story is her own
adolescent wanderlust, her daughter’s careful separation and the reunion with
the next generation. There is always this echo from the past that spirals into
something more tangible and intends to wreck the future. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A Woman’s World<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Finally, there is the delicious perspective of women,
forever becoming more of themselves, no matter what. They push through dreams
and hopes, erotic fantasies and dangerous liaisons, adventures and wanderlust,
nightmares and confounding labyrinth of their lives and memories, to emerge at
new beginnings. It is in the stunning voices of these women that the world
opens out and shuts down in unexpected ways in these stories.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This book is an excellent introduction to the master
of short stories that Munro is. If difficult pleasures are what you are looking
for, you have arrived home as a quiet winter sets in! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-86968553407736717792019-10-02T14:48:00.000+05:302019-10-02T14:48:41.933+05:30Gandhi: The Definitive Biography<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZb77ppWrjX4szT_AazzqovAqp7HsHOfdtg8tEcURpYNw4qedUV0d0ItJ79RKNorvNz8__Nb0GrziJnGsuYVPGY03kGe2gsSvhd4IJWheE9WpVyZLtkx-BJ5g4jyizNqgXEfK4KNeWDYc/s1600/G.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1054" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZb77ppWrjX4szT_AazzqovAqp7HsHOfdtg8tEcURpYNw4qedUV0d0ItJ79RKNorvNz8__Nb0GrziJnGsuYVPGY03kGe2gsSvhd4IJWheE9WpVyZLtkx-BJ5g4jyizNqgXEfK4KNeWDYc/s320/G.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>Ramachandra Guha
(2018). Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World, Penguin Allen Lane, New
Delhi, pp. 1129<o:p></o:p></b></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This year marks the 150<sup>th</sup> birth anniversary
of Mahatma Gandhi, the man who in many ways defined the twentieth century. Gandhi
had a long, eventful, and public life in three continents, the most prominent
of which was spent at the helm of the mass struggle for freedom in the largest
empire of the colonial world in British India. Furthermore, Gandhi shared in a
lucid and direct manner, the arguments and counter-arguments that governed his
political life, and the experiments that shaped his private world, through his
published works that run into 95 collected volumes and personal papers that span
many decades. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What is new for a biographer of such a prominent
personality on which many scholars have spent a lifetime? In the second (and
last) part of this extended biography, Ramachandra Guha does the astounding feat
of throwing new light into a well-rehearsed story with the academic authority
that comes from sustained scholarship and undying interest in the subject. Perusing
sixty archival sources including the collected works, letters, contemporary
newspaper articles and published secondary resources, Guha is also the first
biographer to use materials from the recently released personal papers of
Mahatma Gandhi that was entrusted with his last secretary Pyarelal. Divided
into five parts, the second volume of this biography begins in 1915 when Gandhi
returned to India from South Africa, until his death in 1948. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">From Empire Loyalist to Satyagrahi<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The story begins with Gandhi’s return to India, fresh
from his struggle on behalf of Indians in South Africa, as a loyalist of the
British Empire and a decorated volunteer during the Anglo-Boer war and the Zulu
rebellion. In the next three decades, the political experiments of Gandhi take
its course through three experiments in Satyagraha (or truth-force),
non-cooperation movement, civil disobedience through the Salt March and Quit
India proclamation. Throughout the narration of this political struggle, three
characteristics stand out in this biography. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Guha devotes considerable space to bring out the
Gandhi’s thought process behind his various propositions. One example Gandhi’s
insistence on spinning cloth that combines the ideals of personal uplift,
social reform, economic self-sufficiency and national pride. Similarly, the
other pre-occupations such as learning languages and reading about religions
have been given fair treatment. Just as freedom and self-sufficiency went hand
in hand for Gandhi, personal relationships and first-hand knowledge was a
road map for inter-community cooperation. Understanding the Gandhian rationale
helps the reader to appreciate the protagonist’s intense and (often mind
boggling) obsession with seemingly disparate activities in the midst of intense
political struggle for freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The second feature is that Guha delicately brings out
a nuanced evaluation of Gandhi’s outlook. For example, on the women’s question,
whilst Gandhi supported education, abolition of the purdah (veil) and gendered
division of labor, he also acted like a patriarch who assumed that woman had a
prominent role in childbearing. Such seemingly contradictory viewpoints lead to
the biographer’s remark that Gandhi was progressive by the standards of his
time but conservative by ours. Similarly, Gandhi’s obsession with diet and
celibacy, and his changing assumptions are patiently and painstakingly brought
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The third feature is that Guha brings out the lesser
known personalities in Gandhi’s life and acknowledges the role they played in
making Gandhi who he was. An excellent illustration is the generous and tender
portrayal of his secretary Mahadev Desai, his unceasing commitment to Mahatma’s
life and the poignancy of his death. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Gandhi for Our Times<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The book concludes with an epilogue that brings out
debates after Gandhi’s passing. What has Gandhi to show for himself in today’s
world? Guha enumerates four points. First, Gandhi had that rare quality of
being monastically steadfast in his principled stands whilst maintaining an
open mind to new ideas and arguments. He permitted himself to change, even
contradict himself as he formed and reformed his opinions. It is this quality
that leads to what is perceived as ‘inconsistency’ in Gandhi’s thoughts. For
example, his take on race, caste and women changed significantly in the course
of his lifetime. It is only by thinking through him and walking with him all
the way, that we understand the validity of his suppositions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Second, Gandhi had a heightened sense of self
awareness that opened himself to criticism from various quarters. It stands to
his merit that rather than withdrawing, he thoroughly enjoyed and engaged in a
good fight. Third, Gandhi did not have a private life, in the sense the modern
reader understands it. His experiments, inferences and the journey of
self-discovery was widely shared with the world, exposing the best and the
deeply controversial in him. Finally, Gandhi had immense physical and mental
strength to perform these experiments on himself, including some of his
greatest fasts and long marches in his act of Satyagraha. Gandhi fasted every
alternate year in the last thirty-five years including two 21-day fasts. These
four remarkable characteristics, qualify, illuminate and sometimes confound him
in the eyes of all who read him today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Whatever I look for in the best of books- novelty in
perspective, persuasion in argument, the beauty of the literary- are abundantly
present in this book. Seldom does a larger-than-life historical figure meets
his match in the biographer, the way Gandhi meets Guha. Clearly, this is the
book of the year for me!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-63771245559313478822019-09-10T10:45:00.000+05:302019-09-10T10:45:06.251+05:30The Third Pillar<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhMteTg1BpDcsbE_cPRzzAtEoSJncV9DjPJhW-D8y_SxQXa8IMmAGGERjeskcr6KS7Ki9AmGm0j_TzZ82FCmXyyNo2KANQyqJaGgWXUE_8thgt5i4QQEHXUj9o8L_6yEgA0mcjl8FGikY/s1600/Rajan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhMteTg1BpDcsbE_cPRzzAtEoSJncV9DjPJhW-D8y_SxQXa8IMmAGGERjeskcr6KS7Ki9AmGm0j_TzZ82FCmXyyNo2KANQyqJaGgWXUE_8thgt5i4QQEHXUj9o8L_6yEgA0mcjl8FGikY/s320/Rajan.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>Raghuram Rajan
(2019), The Third Pillar, HarperCollins, New Delhi, pp. 436</b></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Third Pillar</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> explores the neglected variable ‘community’ that economists
barely discuss in their analysis of market economy. The state-market is the bipolar
continuum within which all economic policies embed themselves. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leaving out the community is essentially
leaving out people. This omission has a human-centred cost because of the uncertainties
unleashed by automation, financial crises and climate change that characterize the
anthropocenic age that we live in. It seems that the explanatory models of
economics are complex; the policy prescriptions required to forestall
calamities dependent on large structures and institutions. People who are
caught in between are unable to secure quality university education, find
employment, access social security and settle in families of their own This
book examines the cause and consequence of this context, keeping the community,
at the heart of its analysis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When a financial economist reviews the role and the
reality of the community, a lot of questions abound. How far can he go meaningfully
within the limitations of his discipline? What new idea does he bring that the
sociologists, anthropologists and historians have not given us? Rajan surprises
the readers on both counts: the breadth of his analysis of the variable ‘community’
in reference to state and markets and the depth of his enlarged vision for the community
in the near-future. To accomplish this creditable feat, he marshals evidence
from economic history as well as case studies of countries and cities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Inclusive Localism<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The book is divided into three parts. The first traces
the origin and rise of the three pillars- the modern state, the market economy
and the community. He describes the historical circumstances under which each
pillar rose with its particular characteristics and also addresses some lost
possibilities. The second part argues why an imbalance of the three pillars in
mid-twentieth century changed the equation of how we perceive them through
various models in social sciences. The ascent of the market has come about with
limited state capacity and unravelling community. Therefore, the problems of
the market such as recurring financial crises could scarcely be contained or
addressed by a depleted state and weakened community. The rise of populism and
the anti-competition rhetoric has been an attempt to retaliate against the
market’s logic of ups and downs that has resulted in widening economic and
social inequality. The third and final part of the book addresses the measures
to restore this imbalance. Rajan has proposed ‘inclusive localism’, a concept
by which communities can remain diverse and vibrant whilst having the power and
financial resources to improve their local institutions and keep the
neighbourhoods in good health. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This book marries the abstractness of theory with the concrete
implications of policy. It is one of those books that you will finish fast
because it is too important to miss. It is this contemporary relevance, the
authority of evidence and a delightfully fresh and non-pedantic voice that sees
you out of the last page. A winner through and through!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-15943806981101457952019-08-02T11:00:00.000+05:302019-08-02T11:00:14.025+05:30Negotiating Rights in Neoliberal India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs1E6uW4lOx3hHBkfEABZxmaAn7Fd2CuEh7LepVVg3lZXujC6NpbYFJsefLHJj8BEhAOoiSqzUJDbC1wcVgK6vSNbsExIH6W2RfPYi1NT6LfPh67Ovjry39xs2hQJzjlUygPcgZLh8dB8/s1600/I.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="327" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs1E6uW4lOx3hHBkfEABZxmaAn7Fd2CuEh7LepVVg3lZXujC6NpbYFJsefLHJj8BEhAOoiSqzUJDbC1wcVgK6vSNbsExIH6W2RfPYi1NT6LfPh67Ovjry39xs2hQJzjlUygPcgZLh8dB8/s320/I.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>Zoya Hasan
(2018), Agitation to Legislation, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp.178</b><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We live in an age of social movements that connect
local political demands of small communities to global movement of production
and consumption. From <i>Occupy Wall Street</i> in the United States to <i>Indignados
</i>in Greece and Spain, these movements articulate demand for rights based on
claims of inequity and injustice. Beyond political resonance, they are tied by
the same structures that they seek to transform- the withdrawing state, privatized
services and coalition politics of neoliberal capitalism. These movements are
vehicles of new discourse of politics as increasingly the old vocabulary of ‘class’
seem reductive as groups grapple with fragmented and multiple identities. In
this context, this work explores rights movement in India through three prominent
case studies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The author of the work, Zoya Hasan is Professor
Emerita at Jawaharlal Nehru University, one of India’s best universities for
social science research. This book is a collection of three lectures she presented
at the National University of Singapore. The work presents an overview of the
campaign for right to food, the campaign against corruption and the campaign
for women’s reservation bill for political representation. Woven within the
history of contemporary India, Hasan contextualizes the narratives within the
fold of neoliberalism. She explores the relationship between public protests,
political mobilization and policy making. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Formal and Informal Politics <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Hasan places the public movements for rights against
the neoliberal paradigm of development that has made social entitlements to
basic services such as food, health, education and employment legally
enforceable. She specifically examines what makes some social mobilizations
more successful in turning into laws than others. For analyzing this question,
she explores the process through which public protest interacts with formal
political mechanism, prioritizing itself, negotiating the specifics and
competing with demands for rights forwarded by other movements. This framework
pits the interaction between social movements and political parties as a site
of competition, contention, dominance and resistance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I found this work illuminating on two counts. One,
Hasan deals with social movements in conjunction with party politics and traces
the journey of a demand from the ground into the wells of the Parliament. Two,
she compares the competing dynamics of various social movements that push some
forward at the expense of others. For example, as she points out, the right to
food campaign in India was successful in becoming an enforceable law because it
was ensconced in a gamut of a group of ‘rights’ that gave it a sense of
coherence and urgency that something like women’s reservation bill lacked. This
type of insight makes it interesting to know what makes public protest click or
fizzle out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If you have been following contemporary social
movement literature as a scholar, this is a great introduction to Indian case
studies. If you just want to make sense of the politics of public protests,
then this is a great first step!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589296759463690813.post-70458398139934821832019-07-01T10:32:00.000+05:302019-07-01T10:32:49.814+05:30Markets and Match Making<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi33O_Rh7gRjl3yHRrRoORCjaSrJnsuKmV9wEleExLqZnkbhZOFaRuRVUQxi7f736UM10LAzHBAP5kN8zdZvy7JMPdd2xrnCJw6KqLzZ3SUx8UYvTUXJ4aE_4q3sp6cvE6KIc-CGtMxT9A/s1600/Roth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="325" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi33O_Rh7gRjl3yHRrRoORCjaSrJnsuKmV9wEleExLqZnkbhZOFaRuRVUQxi7f736UM10LAzHBAP5kN8zdZvy7JMPdd2xrnCJw6KqLzZ3SUx8UYvTUXJ4aE_4q3sp6cvE6KIc-CGtMxT9A/s320/Roth.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Alvin Roth (2015),
Who Gets What and Why, William Collins, London, pp. 260</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">For anyone who is interested in the implications of
market failure, this book opens a new road. In a breezily delightful work,
Nobel Laureate Alvin Roth, illustrates the challenging field of market design
and match making that comes into play when ordinary markets fail to trade
certain goods and services. The main highlight of the book is how Roth
accomplishes to convey a complex economic problem in an engaging manner by
taking a conversational tone that makes reading this work a joy ride!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">To begin with, markets fail to capture information of
demand and supply through prices when it ventures to trade in certain types of
goods and services. In such cases, non-market values crowd out market principles.
Take the example of trading in organs like kidney or school admissions in public
education system. The act of buying and selling these ‘commodities’ lead to
undesirable outcomes for the society because of value preference that makes such
trade repugnant or inefficient. Then, the efficient way to allocate resources
becomes the task of a very different type of exchange- that of match making.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Match making markets are different from regular
commodities markets not just in their provenance. Match making markets have
interested parties on the demand and supply side who wish to be allocated with
efficient outcomes without the help of price signals. To accomplish this, both
sides provide an ordered list of their preference and a central agency
allocates optimum matches. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Match making and market design has been successfully
used to solve optimization problems in organ transplantation, school
allocation, employment offers and much more. This book lucidly illustrates the
illuminating problems on which Roth worked on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is an introductory work that is meant to get
students and lay readers get hooked to the idea of designing markets. Like
always, more math in store for those who want to progress further. What is a
bit of game theory when you get to solve interesting puzzles like these? I say,
go for it! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Deepa Kylasam Iyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04537224737575292901noreply@blogger.com0