Arbit Scratchpad

Amitav Ghosh is a fabulous writer, who's polished and beautiful prose inspires. His last book 'The Glass Palace' was one great book weaving the history of Burma, India, the World War II with fiction to concoct a very well-researched tale. In 'The Hungry Tide' he gets better. It is the best book of his till date ('The Shadow Lines' for its inter-continental tale and 'Calcutta Chromosome' for its sheer novelty come second and third in my list). 'The Hungry Tide' is set in the tide country of the Sundarbans with its mangrove forests and Royal Bengal tigers, enough to send a thrill of anticipation up your spine. The book is fast-paced and mysterious, as well as mellow and langurous, simultaneously. Starting off with the travails of a lady researcher (Piya) in dolphins and marine mammals (cetologist) from the US, the tale courses through the upheavals in the life of a social worker (Nilima) and her husband (Nirmal), along with their nephew - a tr...

Had been to this concert at Chowdaiah Memorial Hall last Saturday - Zakir Hussain, Taufiq Qureshi, and Niladri Kumar. Superlative performance by each of them. It started with a prelude by manipuri drummers and was followed by a solo performance for about 40 mins by Zakir himself - amazing range - ranging from slowest and low freq to high speed - he played the tabla like a storm. Niladri Kumar then joined him on the sitar - he is an amazing performer for his age - very young guy. Then Taufiq joined in - he plays percussion instruments and other drums etc (like Sivamani). Also he did some amusing things just using his mouth and his hands - aural tones and beats ... Then they were followed by four Manipuri drummers who did synchronized acrobatic dances. Towards the end all of them played out, together. The jokes and humour peppered show (especially quips by Zakir) was my first classical concert proper - thanks to RickB. It ended with auctioning of Shahrukh Khan's jacket which some for...

Here is a short story to break my writer's block: Unconscience (PDF) Update: Here is some evidence for the medical part of the story from a doctor friend of mine - Dr.Vivek Chail. Though the reason for writing the story was more than just exploring medical possibilities through science fiction . hi shamit, thnks for your mail/story link your flow of thought is great. comng to your ques.. 1.is the medical possibility there, that the ova can be extrated from a human female and injected with sperm and placed in an artificial placenta like chamber and fed with appropriate nutrients. the ova extracted frm human female and injected with sperm is the same as test tube baby..frst done in 1970s the second part i would like to clarify that the placenta is a temporary organ that serves as a link between the deloping fetus and the uterus. The fetus develops in the uterus..i suppose you meant that as the "chamber"..still in rare cases the fetus can develop outside the uterus and this ...

Seems like one amazing book, need to get my hands onto this ... Some excerpts and reviews: http://www.themedicieffect.com/book/book_about.html http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4376.html http://www.innovationtools.com/Articles/BookReviewDetails.asp?a=159 http://www.innovationtools.com/Weblog/innovationblog-detail.asp?ArticleID=551 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1591391865/innovationtoo-20

Like the eye of a storm; The silence held, dripping like blood, Only a while it stayed. And then the silence was gone. It was torn apart, By a pack of wolves, So immense and horrific. Peace, in shreds. The blood dripping. He begged of them, They payed no heed. They howled and laughed, And carried away chunks Of his flesh, in their mouths, Red in greed, and malice H e heard his every cell Shriek in pain, H e was going to fall apart. He tried to choke his scream, He had killed his dream. Only for a while, He hit back at the beasts, And tried to flee. Then he picked them up His own body parts. He started eating them, Was he consuming himself ? H e had prayed to thee. Did you hear him ? Could you see ? Was he consuming himself ? Were those beasts inside him ? Or were they outside his existence ? To put himself together; H e had to consume the self. From beasts to angels They had transformed. None can consume himself, He had only consumed his ego.

" ... the assumption that entrepreneurs are one-dimensional human beings, who are dedicated to one mission in their business lives − to maximize profit. This interpretation of capitalism insulates the entrepreneurs from all political, emotional, social, spiritual, environmental dimensions of their lives. This was done perhaps as a reasonable simplification, but it stripped away the very essentials of human life. Human beings are a wonderful creation embodied with limitless human qualities and capabilities. Our theoretical constructs should make room for the blossoming of those qualities, not assume them away. ... By defining "entrepreneur" in a broader way we can change the character of capitalism radically, and solve many of the unresolved social and economic problems within the scope of the free market. Let us suppose an entrepreneur, instead of having a single source of motivation (such as, maximizing profit), now has two sources of motivation, which are mutually e...

The best things about Delhi are its wide roads and smoke free vehicles running on CNG - pollution was very low and winter was just setting in. Reaching there on 4th Dec and after finishing off with VISA formalities at the US Embassy @ Chanakyapuri on 5th Dec, I headed to Connaught Place and did some bit of impulsive shopping. Had (junk) food at Nirula's and reached the airport to find the flight delayed by more than two hours (Jet). Bought a Tintin Collection of '3 books in 1' at the airport. A short trip ... Reached Howrah on 10th Dec, visited grandfather's place; he was hospitalized (AMRI Hospital, Gariahat) on 14th Dec - the day of a nation-wide CITU strike; as he had acute bronchial congestion and related medical complexities. Met up with all my cousins, maternal aunts and other relatives. Came back to Bangalore on 19th Dec.