The Garden of Solitude - Review

I'll be honest here. I rarely read books from 'debut authors'. However Siddhartha Gigoo's novel had to be an exception. It just had to be. 

The Garden of Solitude deals with the plight of the Kashmiri pandits, the pain and the suffering the migration caused and the emotional turmoil the pandits had to go through. There aren't very many books on the subject. The ones which exist are either out of reach, in all senses of the word, or written in a documentary format, which to be honest, doesnt really make for an interesting reading experience.

So there I was, the book in my hand, eagerly awaiting to delve into the pages. The novel starts off lazily, describing the lives of the residents, the near utopic state which prevailed before the turmoil. Although the descriptions are vivid and eloquent, it gets pretty boring eventually. Hence, even before the real story kicks off, I felt tired and bored.

The story in itself is quite shocking and the events dealt with an amazing amount of sensitivity. However at the end of the day, it just feels like way too impersonal an account. The author does come up with a few glimpses of his literary brilliance, but those are few and far between. It almost feels like an overstretched poetry gone wrong due to the poet's over-eagerness to impress.

This is a must-read though. The plight of the Kashmiri pandits has been a neglected topic for many years now. The author should get all the kudos just for bringing the subject to light.

Buying via ebay in West Bengal

Its practially impossible for electronics goods to enter West Bengal without having paid millions of taxes and furnished thousands of documents. Why do I say this?

The other day after signing up on ebay.in and almost placing an order for an item, I found out that the seller wasnt shipping to West Bengal, specifically. Why? Coz apprently one has to supply the customs officer with a certain form 50, a mythical piece of document which is applicable to professional buyers and sellers in the state. This is done to stop people from evading taxes like VAT etc. Fine? Oh yeah, fine indeed. I'm totally okay with that. But here's the thing, even non professional buyers and sellers (I mean a normal individual simply wanting to buy something for personal use) has to furnish that document! Now how irritating is that?

I want to pay my taxes and all other duties that the government levies, but please, cant they make the whole process simpler? At present most sellers on ebay wont ship you any item if you hail from West Bengal. Let me rephrase that; if you 'live' in West Bengal.

Now this buying via third or even fourth party dealers not only increases the price of the product manifold, it also makes it impossible for the dealers to provide an appropriate discount. Fortunately though, these weird tax rules dont apply to books bought from online stores. Dunno who created these strange laws but I honestly hope someone realises the utter stupidity of the situation and comes up with a solution. Till then, no ebay for me.

The Stupidity of Indo-Pak Relations

The recent floods in Pakistan has wrecked havoc over large stretches of the country. Pakistan is finding it hard to cope with the scale of the disaster and the ramifications of this could unfold in the near future when there is a rise in water borne diseases. Aid is of the prime essence and it is trickling in but frankly a lot more needs to be done to address the situation. Add to this the complicated relationship India has had with Pakistan and what you have is the recipe for disaster.

Pakistan is yet to take a decision on the Indian aid, $5 millions which has been offered by the Indian government. Although to be fair to Pakistan, they have thanked the Indian government for the offer. It is a shame that bilateral relations between two of the most important nations in the subcontinent have reached such a low that even accepting aid for flood victims has to be thought through by taking diplomatic relations into consideration.

However, if one does think deep, there are valid reasons for not accepting Indian aid. India has forever been regarded as the biggest enemy by Pakistan, accepting Indian aid could potentially weaken its anti-India stand, and maybe it would invite the ire of fundamentalists in a country already reeling under immense international pressure for not ating tough on terror.

But frankly, a disaster of this scale requires politicians and leaders in both countries to rise to the occasion and act as good politicians and good leaders for their own respective countries.

Travel

Seriously why cant I just post on my blog without adding a title? You want a title? Okay here a crappy one - "Travel".

I have been bitten by the travel bug! (Dont ask me where) I have somehow developed an acute sense of liking (WTF! 'acute sense of liking'? Medicine does destroy your vocabulary) for travel shows. Be it those Discovery channel-esque ones or the classier BBC ones. The best part of these travel shows is that you get to 'see' and 'experience' various cultures of the world without having to leave your favourite couch. And of course without spending a penny as well (if you dont consider the money you pay your 'cable-wallah', sorry there's no word in the English dictionary to describe a cable-wallah in eloquent terms).

Globe Trekker is one show I like. Back when I was a kid (as if I am all grown up now :P), this programme (yeah, 'programme' and not 'program', I love Queen's English, albeit I hate the Queen) was called 'Lonely Planet'. Why? Hell, it was named after its parent publishing company. Why was the company called Lonely Planet? I dont know, maybe the one who was given the responsibility of 'coining' the name was another med student. Globe Trekker shows are shown in Discovery Travel and Living (a channel which dedicates itself to showing you all the pleasures of life you cannot experience or lets say cannot 'afford' to experience. How else would you describe shows like 'Europe Richest...", etc. etc. unless of course you happen to be Vijay Mallya or his son, in which case you would watch NDTV Good Times rather than this).

You still reading this?

Even Harsha Bhogle has been trying his hand at hosting travel shows. Lets face it, after the downfall of ESPN-Star Sports (in terms of Indian cricket coverage) he really didnt have a job! Oh well, he did actually. Picking cricketers for Mumbai Indians or something aka serving as Tina Ambani's PA. (If you're from the UK, you might not understand what I'm talking about but you will understand what I wrote, but if you're from the US, you wont even understand what I wrote coz its Queen's English! :P Sorry, bad joke)

There a really cool programme on NDTV Good Times, "Highway on my Plate". Hosted by two funny and charismatic anchors Rocky and Mayur, its a real treat.

Now magazines. I heard the other day that Conde Nast Traveller magazine (the Indian edition) is now available in india. And expectedly it costs a bomb! But fortunately there is a cheaper alternative, Outlook Traveller, the annual subscription cost in India of that is around 600 bucks, which is kinda okay. Their website has loads of articles as well, so even if you dont subscribe to their magazine, you can actually read most of their articles online (for free of course).

All good things come to an end, but all bad things must come to an end. Same goes for this terrible post. If you have read this till the very last line, I owe you a treat.

Image: federico stevanin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

R.I.P. Jyoti Basu

Image via WikipediaOne of the most prolific leaders of the Left era passed away today. Jyoti Basu to many is someone who had brought communism to the masses. His tenure as the Chief Minister of West Bengal for 23 years is the longest in any state in this country, and it speaks volumes about his immense popularity.

Many talk about the turmoil Bengal was in when Jyoti Basu took over the reigns which ended the Congress 'misrule' (allegedly, because I was born when Mr. Basu was already the CM, so I cant and shouldn't comment on the Congress regime in Bengal). Without a doubt he was an able administrator, an orator par excellence and a politician the likes of whom this country might never see. As is apparent from the tears being shed by politicians across party lines, he was a friend and a guide to many now established leaders.

His death is without any doubt a significant loss not just for the Left parties and the state but also for the nation.

R.I.P. Jyoti Basu...

End of a decade

This indeed is the last day of a decade! Wow! And what a decade it has been, well I'm talking about myself here. I guess this probably was the most important decade of my life. I gave two of the most important exams of my life Class X and XII, got a sense of what fun in school is like when I got admitted in Kendriya Vidyalaya, and of course then came the entrance exams. I had always wanted to be an engineer. I had even enrolled for a preparatory course for IIT JEE. But things changed after I passed the Class X ICSE exams. My interest in Biology (which I had always considered to be a mindless-mugging-up subject) sky-rocketed and one fine day I figured out maybe medicine was my true calling. Add to that an awesome Biology teacher in school, Mr. Saha and the great 'Biology Sir' (whose name I absolutely cant remember as he was immensely popular by that name), and what I had was a paradigm change in my outlook towards the subject. Within a year I had come to the conclusion that medicine indeed was my true calling. What followed that realisation was hard work, burning the midnight oil and stuff, and by the time everything ended, I was really really really lucky enough to have gotten accepted in med school (or else let me put it this way, I bagged a seat in med school). I was finally gonna become a doctor! Tell you what, thats a crazy crazy feeling!

Well I guess life changed after that. Dunno why, but once you're a med student there's obviously loads of people who sort of want to become potential 'contributors', if you know what I mean. As Mr. Saha once most eloquently put it 'Success has many fathers, failures have none'. How very true it was!

Anyway, the years that followed were some of the most enjoyable days of my life. Med school is truly truly an awesome place no matter where you might be studying. The dissections, the 'trips' to the wards etc etc. Okay there are drab lectures, books which can only be used for weight-lifting and nothing else and screwy professors. But overall its in all senses of the word an 'experience' (Do check out my other blog post about those days here). And the fact that some day I will indeed get that hallowed 'Dr.' before my name is lets say, satisfying to say the least.

I guess I'm leaving behind an eventful decade. A decade which truly changed my life...forever.