Rajat Arya

(Note: I decided, though grammatically incorrect, to no longer italicize the title of each book. I was doing this manually by inserting HTML tags into the page, which caused the W3C to complain. I have finally decided that I will give up on this, for now. Instead I will use quotations for the title.)

Read in December 2006.

In the same vein as The Tipping Point Levitt and Dubner ask interesting questions to explain socio-economic phenomenon. What makes the approach particularly engaging is how the questions are posed and how they are answered. Each chapter in the book is a set of questions, that relate to an socio-economic phenomenon – but he doesn’t get into the phenomenon until partway into the text.

Each chapter’s question is answered using raw data that is analyzed in a novel way. This makes the data come to life and amazes the reader into realizing that data can be exciting. Of all the praise for Levitt, this is what sings most clearly with me – his creativity in using mundane data to prove what did not seem provable makes anything he touches worth reading.

Highly recommend reading this book. Period.

Read more about it from Amazon.com.

Read in December 2006.

This book reminds me how much fun I have reading authors of Indian descent. The stories always resonate with me in a special way. This story is about a girl coming of age at the turn of the century in northern India.

Desai writes the story in a dreamy language that evokes the mind to wander and paint the pictures she describes, and then want to spend time living in the dreams.

I found this novel a welcome change after reading non-fiction and self-help as the two last books. I know so little of Indian history (I’m working on it!) that I cannot speak to the validity of the history described in the story.

In another theme (almost discussed inwarndly and subtly that in your own thoughts at the reader does it strike you that the story is about ambition, pride, and the desire to improve our standing in society and in life. The story centers around a household and its various inhabitants, a 16 year old girl who searches for love and affection from a distant grand-father (a retired judge), their long-standing servant (and his son who is trying to make it in the US), and the new physics tutor with rebelllion on the mind.

I found the ending slightly abrupt, but I am not sure how I would have ended the story myself. A little dreamy, I recommend this as a great read. Read more about it here.

Read in December 2006.

This is a self-help/informational book on the subject of Indian weddings. Particularly timely for me to read it during the trip to India where I met my fiance and proposed to her (don’t you think?). De discusses several aspects of her marriage, of the society she lives in (wealthy modern Mumbai). and her thoughts on the younger generation (that’s me in this context, by the way).

The writing is easy to follow, almost too casual, it seems many times that you are having a very one-sided conversation with the author. However, the chapter breakdowns are reasonable and they stick to the point. She gets to the point pretty quickly in each chapter, re-inforces her standpoint with a few examples, and then moves onto the next topic. She rarely spends time to discuss opposing viewpoints.

Her opinion on the verious facets of marriage are well thought-out and her views, though modern, allow for some traditional / conservative behavior to creep through. Her discussion of modern-day Indian divorce is personal and heartfelt, and she is honeest up front about having gone through a divorce herself.

Unless you are interested in the workings of an Indian marriage (and seriously, with Indians slowly eclipsing the other cultures with an ever-increasing population, everyone should be interested in the inner-workings of an Indian marriage) this book is a good place to start. It’s view of modern-day marriage seems accurate to me and much like what I went through. The only chapter that confused me was when De wrote about how a mother-in-law should act, considering she herself is not one. Her thoughts on this chapter are less succint, and it is clear that this is more idealism than reality.

However, interesting quick book to read, recommend it. Read more about it here.

Read in December 2006.

This is the second time I read this biography of Gandhi. Louis Fischer spent time with Gandhi and had many interviews with him. I first read this book for a book report in 8th grade. I remember it being a little difficult to follow and I remember struggling with it. As a testament to some mental activity since that age (goodness, over 10 years ago now) I no longer found the challenging or difficult to read.

The biography is complete, marginally critical of Gandhi (there is so little to be critical of), but like most biographies of the great man – leave out the potential extra-marital affiar Gandhi may have participated in. It is clear that Fischer respected and was fond of Gandhi. Though he is honest about struggling to feel comfortable spending time Gandhi in his simple life, but the story is very positive.

Fischer refrains from making political comments on the ramifications of Gandhi’s beliefs and actions. This could be because the book was written so close to Gandhi’s death that the ramifications were not entirely known.

If you want one book to try to understand the beliefs, pragmatism, idealism, love, and shortcomings of one of history’s greatest leaders – this book is perfect. It is not burdened with verbosity (unlike my writing style) and reads really smoothly. Highly recommend this reading.

BTW, I cried while reading this a couple times on the flight to India in December. Ironically I was seated for part of my flight in between two guys heading to the Middle East for military work. Here I was reading about the greatest pacifist modern history has known and I was sandwiched by two military folks. Made it even more enjoyable.

Read more about it here.