Empires of the Indus by Alice Albinia

This is a travelogue cum historical cum archaelogical. I had read a book review of this a few years back in Business World , I think. It had come in for high appreciation.

Excellent. The Author has travelled right across the delta of Indus right through the tributarties to the main source near Tibet

Admirable stuff. It is no easy task, a young woman through , Pakistan , Afghansitan and parts of Muslim dominated India ( in Kashmir ) and Tibet.

She stays for days in unlikeliest of places , with locals, roughing it out with them in huts /semi permanent structures , managing to stay in uncomfortable places ,eating whatever was locally available. Just reflects the focus and committment of the author.

It is very difficult to capture in a "precise" all that the author came out in the book. It definitely requires another read. This was written over a period of 4 years.

First and foremost, the author makes a point that the river Indus which finds several mention and did in fact form a major part of the Hindu scriptures ( more specifically Rig Veda )runs mostly through Pakistan. Together with Ravi, Beas , Sutlej, Jhelum and Chenab , and two other rivers from Afghanistan and North west Frontier it flows south , forming a delta in Pakistan and gets in to Arabic ocean.

The author traces the name of India from Sindhu,Indu and Indus to India.

There are some interesting pieces like, presence of Sheedis who were migrants form Zanzibar or Ethiopia.

There is the mention of how Buddhism grew in parts of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan and Afghanistan right from the days of Ashoka, Kushans and Kanishka. Budhist monasteries set across , the silk route helped merchants in easier movement and in a way helped in propagation of Buddhism. Places like Bamiyan where there were huge Buddha sculptures , one may recall were destroyed by the Taliban.These were , supposedly more than 2000 years old.

She also traces Ghanzni and Babur from Turkey and Uzbek to Afghanistan to India

The author reads up on Rig Veda( she , one understands ,is quite conversant with urdu)

She visits Harappa and Mohenjadaro and touches upon the not conclusively proved theory of the IndusValley Civilisation in the two cities ( which were very well developed with Civic facilities)

was well before Hinduism and how the Aryans coming in Horses drew the people in these places down south.

Interesting bit of information of Polyandry in some parts of Tibet and she drawa comparison to Polandry in Mahabharatha.

It is like reading a History book and unless one notes down , assiduosly, one can not do justice to a precise also.

It is first hand account by an unbiased Historian and deserves to be read and reread for better understanding. One is left with admiration on the kind of courage shown by the author in travelling ( on jeeps, cars, buses and on foot) through all kinds of terrain.

May be next read should be a bit slower and should note down the chronology and the sequence better.

She is also saddened by the fact that the river is running dry in some places and heavily dammed so much so that the delta which was quite rich is now rendered dry and devoid of any significant cultivation.

Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini

Very moving story woven around displaced Afghan s, , atrocities in Afghanistan perpetrated initially by the Communist regime and the Russians and later by the Taliban.

Story carries a lot of conviction, the Author himself , being one of the Afghans, who spent his early years in Kabul and shifting to US in the early 80 s. Part auto biographical I presume and longing to get back their old peaceful land though I would think, that peace in a place like Afghanistan was far and few between.

The story brings out the kind of huge divide between the Sunnis ( Majority in Afghanistan) and Shias who are a minority and by and large confined to one part of Afghanistan. Contempt and feeling of superiority by the local Pashtuns Vis a Vis the Hazaras ( the Shia Muslims of Afghanistan , who bear a facial resemblance to Mongolians) just shows that rascism was/is as much in Asia as it is in Europe or US or Australia.

Having a normal life under a peaceful Government is a big blessing, atleast that is what one would feel once one reads the state of affairs in Countries like Afghanistan. The sad irony is , how the locals welcome the Talibans ( post the communist rule and the Russioan puppet Governments) and in a matter of few days Talibal prove to be a far worse alternative. They carry out ethnic cleansing by getting rid of Hazaras ( the shias with part Mongolian lineage).

The author weaves the story in such a way that the protagonist of the story feels a deep sense of guilt both on the personal front which realy reflects on the larger social front also since almost all the Afghans who leave their country to greener pastures would be carrying a certain sense of guilt.The story traces the journey of the main character , how he gets back to Kabul and brings back his childhood mate's and half brother's ( he himself gets to know about it much later ) son to US. His father had fathered his half brother with the servant's ( Hazara ) wife .

When intellectuals across the globe are talking of the accelerated development happening across the globe, here is one country ( seems to be the case across all these theocratic states )which appears to be going back to uncivilised and hunting days, where survival is just dependent on which side of the political class you lean or you just get killed. May be there is a lesson for all of us , may be a inclusive growth would help us all have a more peacful world. The deprived lean and take refuge under extreme religion . Religion is some kind of a drug ( Oscar wilde or Stevenson said that Religion is an opiate of the masses ) which gives the udnerprivelged a perceived equal status and also the freedom without any sense of guilt to usurp from the haves.

A world without war and conflicts arising out of greed to rule and enjoy at the epxens of others, may be a Utopic world, not real.

While Western nations, more specifically , Germany has its great sense of guilt , in Holocaust, it appears that quite a number of other nations have had its own share of Holocaust equivalent.

Scary part is, weapons with enormous destructive potentiel are in the hand of some of these theocratic states , more specifcally our neighbours who are sliding fast on a path of self destruction , they may unwittingly take us along with them, if not fully , atleast they may cause huge damage.

Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Quite a tough read. Author tries to bring out the point how, we quite often mistake success by chance to some innate abillity. Talks , how we inspite of knowledge and research, when acting are instinctive. One point which comes out quite often in the book and which makes a lot of sense of what he terms survivorship bias. He talks how most of the samples chosen for studies are the ones which have survived and and obviously have the chances of being highy successful. The ones which have failed and have fallen by the wayside do not figure in the study at all, skewing the results .

Author comes domes down heaviliy on economists. His refrain is that Economics which is a socail science has been made a mathematicak science by Economists who had great mathematical knowledged and tried fitting in human behaviour in to mathematical models. He is quite vocal and forthright in mentioining that these so called Econometricians have done greater damage to Economics .

He takes the example of Trading community ( more specifically the derivatives and securities ) and brings out how successes could be more in numbers but of smaller magnitude and failures though fewer in numbers generally wipe out the trader. He gives several examples for this. Occurences whose occurence is expected to be rare or impossible are the ones which wipe out people since the tendency is to take chances on those .

Author is well read and quotes Philosophers and probability theoreticians and mathematicians in ample measure.

May have to read once again. Have bought " Black swan" by the same author. Understand that , the latest alsoe deals with rare occurences and how they impact our lives in a big way.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Good book, quite different from others. Deals with factors which contributed to success of Individuals or groups of Individulas. The authors backs his theories with data. The thrust is on how various factors, societal, circumstantial etc play a part in pushing a person up in the field of his choice and in fact sometime the field of choice itself is dictated by circumstamces.

He does not totally discount innate ability or intelligence , but makes a case for how , circumstances, hardworkplay , being in the right place at the right time make a huge difference in making a person successful .

He starts off with a simple example of Canadian hockey team. He starts with a simple but a bit of a shocking statistic of how most of the top class players in Canadian Ice Hockey team are all born in the first hal of the year, in fact clustered around Jan -Mar. He goes back and finds that the cut off for age group categorisation in Canadian Hockey is Jan 1, and in the age group competitions , how a being older a few months especially when the boys are 10,11 or so, make a huge difference in physical development. Since perform better , they get grouped for special training , receive special training and coaching, get to play with better players, these in turn leave them better players and gives them a lifelong advantage. Ultimately , it is the additional coaching and practice which make them the outliers rather than just the ability

The author also bring up the point of family's role , in terms of the environment in which the kids are brouight up and how their life is shaped by the kind of activities they are pushed to when they are young.

To support his claim, he takes out data how, kids from lower,middle and high Income families studying in the same school make similar progress when the school is in session and how the Middle and higher income kids get ahead post the summer vacation. This is primarily due to the kind of learning and activites that are encouraged by the parents in the off school days.

The author analyses the importance of several hours of practice and working on a specific area of specialistaion. He talks about the 10,000 hour rule which is nothing but, how a person becomes a top notch expert once he has put in around 10,000 hours of practice or work in a specific area of expertise.

He brings in the examples of Bill Joy who was one of the architects of the programmes on which most of Internet runs, Bill Gates founder of Microsoft who somehow got hooked on to Computers due to availability and how they honed theor skills with hours of practice by working hours on Computers which were by sheer set of circumstances available to them. This availaibility was a matter of great advantage at a time when there were not too many computers available.The author also brings in how the Beatles looking for some income , employment got an offer to play in Hamburg on small platforms and how theye filled in hours and hours and honed their skills.

He also brings in the story of how the Immigrant Jews from Europe with certain skills in the garment Industry became a raging success in US . While it is true that they displayed entreprenership and risk taking capability, they were also helped by the fact that there was a specific need for the skill set that they possessed and they made us of the same to get ahead in life.

The author nrings in his own family background of how colour prejudice plays up one set of people and hels them get ahead in life. He traces his origin on his mother's side to a great great great grandmother who was a slave and with whom the white owner has a relationship and has kids through her and how mulattos were considered in a predominantly Black Jamaica , were considered superior to Blacks and were bestowed priveleges and how the samw helped them get ahead. he also mentions the enactment at the right time of law by the Brotishers to help Blacks and the colored to get a better life.

Good book , easy language, something all of us can relate to and backed by data