As I see it

Book Review : India : A Portrait (An intimate biography of 1.2 bilion people) by Patrick French India , as everybody would agree remains an enigma by very nature of its diversity, and dichotomy between an emerging India and a traditional one. It’s difficult to define our nation and any attempts at simplifying, classifying or taxonomizing her is a futile exercise.This book recounts India’s journey since its independence and takes a good view at it. I must say a very sympathetic one at that. Narrative is taken along with anecdotes but they overpower the narration . We are left with a string of anecdotes showing a glimpse of India and that’s it. The author has taken an unbiased and optimistic view of India. But he barely skims the surface of the Indian Society, Polity and its Riches. His anecdotes seem to have been picked for convenience and no contentious topic has been taken up. There seems to be hardly any new idea. The more sensationalized story in Indian media, the greater is t...

Book Review : Blink by Malcolm Gladwell We all have heard the adage a countless times i.e. the decision that we take about a person or an object is based upon the first glimpse and the first impressions that we have. This book is about these snap decisions taken by us based on our instinct or intuition. Malcolm Gladwell has argued that sometimes lesser the knowledge available to our senses, more accurate are our decisions. He goes on to recount many incidents where the first impression formed a decision and that proved to be better than a decision based on documentation. But, he also recounts the times when the snap decisions taken in a blink of our eyes was not only inaccurate, but potentially deadly. Thus our unconscious might be right most of the times but unless we have a certain expertise in the area in which we are taking quick decisions based on first impressions only , we might be wrong. Especially decisions that are taken on the face value of a person or on the biases lying ...

Room by Emma Donoghue I haven’t read any other book by Emma Donoghue but just on the basis of this book, I can say very definitely that she ranks among one of my most favorite authors and she is one of the finest practitioner of the art of words. The narrator of this book is a five year old child Jack who has grown up in the Room and we view the Outside through his eyes. He feels secure, safe and happy in the Room where he lives with his Ma and his Ma is his world. Our endearing and brave hero symbolizes the possibilities, hopes and contentment of a happy childhood. The little brave guy deserves a standing ovation. His mother is a tribute to mothers everywhere in this world, who smile through their tears for their children, and are always there for them. The narration reminds us of the first spring of our learning when the whole world was unknown, uncertain except for our mothers’ certain, comfortable and soothing presence. No place on earth is better for repose than a mother’s ...

The Invisible Gorilla: And other ways our intuition deceives us by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons We have a huge faith in our senses. We believe what we see; we react to emotions rather than logic; we feel more knowledgeable about things we use; we react to and believe in a personality and we see patterns in events which occur in a sequence i.e. something that has happened must have been triggered by a prior event. All of this happens because we have been endowed with an incredible brain capable of processing so much sensory information in a blink usually, perceiving details which form the basis of our decisions. We have evolved to look around ourselves, believe in what we see, feel we know what we use, empathize and bond with other living beings and recognize patterns for our safety and simplification of our surroundings. This mode of evolution has ensured our continual survival and development .This from of decision making is what we call our intuition , an invaluable too...