Some Indian History

Since the Sunday I have been reading a book called The Argumentative Indian. The book is a collection of essays by Amartya Sen.

The essays are primarily on Indian History and Culture. Here are some of the interesting topics the author has touched upon:
1) Hindutva: The Author portrays the negative influences of the militant Hindu culture.
2) China and India: The author writes about the interaction between India and China between 5th century AD and 11 the Century AD.
3) Class in India
4) Gender in India
5) Secularism

Overall, I am not very happy with this book. For me it has been a very slow read.

Indian's reading this book will feel that the author is stating the obvious. (Well when I pick a history book or a book on Indian culture i look for a different perspective than what is preached by indian history and social studies text books)

On Slumdog Millionaire

What is the big deal about Slumdog Millionaire winning the Oscars. A lot of my countrymen were rejoicing the fact as if the Indian Cricket team had won the world cup.

Hello.. open your eyes, it was the England team which won. And on a closing note, i think there was nothing for any Indian to be proud about in what was depicted in the movie.

And whats with Anil Kappor thanking only the Indian Audience. The movie made 100 times more money in the US than in India.

Travelling in the 90's to some of the loneliest places on earth

Hey everyone, just finished time traveling the 90's. Well, since the last 2 weeks I have been reading a book called Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of The World by Pico Iyer. Mr Iyer entertainingly recounts his travels to North Korea, Argentina, Cuba, Iceland, Bhutan, Vietnam, Paraguay and Australia and that too towards the end of cold war. Oh man, how i wish i could do that.

I really enjoyed the book. After reading this book I have been bitten by a travel bug. I really would love to travel alone along the Indian coast by bus and train. Lets see how the plan goes.

Book on Books

I recently came across a book called 100 best business books of all time at Borders. I can't understand why someone would publish that list on the internet and also publish the book. I will never ever buy such a book. I normally pick books based on Amazon recommendation, weread recommendations, New York Times best seller list and recommendation, wsj recommendation and pmba reading lists.

A Start

I have been planning to start a blog since a long time. To get me started on writing I actually went and bought a book called On Writing Well. This was last year. Anyway here I am typing away my first post.
I think for anything a person does there must be a goal. My goal from this blog is to get started with writing publicly.
And finally I want to use this as place through which i can broadcast my opinion and facts on everyday news, technology, financial markets and books.I will also try to share things i find interesting on the web.