NINE: CURSE OF THE KALINGAN

INTRODUCTION: This is the second book I am reviewing for bookreviewwalla.com and this is the first book I received by the publisher. I would sincerely thank Sundeep who has given me an opportunity to review this book.
           A couple of days ago , Sundeep has ringed me up at 12 in the night, he was in a hurry and asked me whether I would be interested in reviewing a book which is a fact-fiction, I was actually drowsy and just accepted the offer.
           And now After reading the book , I feel really privileged to actually review  a book of such finesse and  intellect.

JOT( from the back cover) :

THE PAST HAS COME TO DESTROY THE PRESENT AND CHANGE THE FUTURE.


261 BC.
After his bloody battle with kalinga,the Mauryan emperor Ashoka ,overcome with remorse,swore never to wage another war .And to make sure no one else did .His Navarathnas- the NINE-
     Zealously guarded their powers and knowledge, handing them down through millennia and generations to ensure lasting peace.

                                        EXCEPT THAT IT WAS NOT TO BE!
from the corpses of kalingan warriors rose an angry spirit bent upon avenging the kalinga empire ,destroying the NINE and using their hidden knowledge to rule the world and change its destiny.
     
                                                    PRESENT TIME
The bloodthirsty warrior has possessed the body of a young man,making him hunt down and kill the NINE one by one. IT is now up to the chosen Trinity -nurse Tara ,DJ Akash and forensic expert Zubin -to stop him.

MY REVIEW ON THE BOOK:

            The cover page is festooned with a green emerald in the middle, a picture of tomb and a building to the corners.I initially didn't fathom their presence on the cover page, but as I leafed through the book ,they started making sense.
            Firstly I don't have words to describe the author's narrative style. The plot is absolutely terrific.It's a fine tapestry of history,philosophy,science,technology,spirituality, religion. Even though this is a work of fiction few parts of the book are actually objective like:
                                           
             'Everything we experience has a purpose.It might not be what you thought it would be but you know you can handle it.If you were not who you are, if there was the slightest doubt that you were incapable, then you wouldn't have been here.You have a reason to be here..'

These few sentences have a great effect on the reader.I felt , they were written as if to address the reader.

            It's amazing how the author has interwoven the whole plot around spirituality and Buddhism.

'The mind works in two ways :Linear thinking and associated thinking.IQ is associated with the linear thinking and emotions with associative thinking .And a repetition of a chant breaks both these circuits and allows the mind to be in a state of rest and awareness'
         
          Through these lines the author has given a scientific approach towards chanting mantras (religious) which is very informative to youngsters,who are usually sceptic towards  rituals and praying.

          All together the book has kept me curious,enthusiastic and surprising through out the read. Once reading the book, I learned that there are many thing to explore in the world.

Note: I specially thank the author Mrs. Shobha Nihalini who has written this beautiful Novel which has inspired me and educated me about many things and I am anticipating to read the next book of the triology  

                 

                         
                           
     
         

Last Man IN THE TOWER by Aravind Adiga

INTRODUCTION: Even  since I read 'The white tiger' , I fell in love with the narrative style, humor, punches of Aravind adiga. And thus I garbed this book ,expecting it to deliver the same  amount of euphoria I had received from 'The white tiger'


JOT(from good reads); A tale of one man refusing to leave his home in the face of property development. Tower A is a relic from a co-operative housing society established in the 1950s. When a property developer offers to buy out the residents for eye-watering sums, the principled yet arrogant teacher is the only one to refuse the offer, determined not to surrender his sentimental attachment to his home and his right to live in it, in the name of greed. His neighbours gradually relinquish any similar qualms they might have and, in a typically blunt satirical premise take matters into their own hands, determined to seize their slice of the new Mumbai as it transforms from stinky slum to silvery skyscrapers at dizzying, almost gravity-defying speed.

AUTHOR: Aravind Adiga was born in 1974 in Madras (now called Chennai), and grew up in Mangalore in the south of India. He was educated at Columbia University in New York and Magdalen College, Oxford. His articles have appeared in publications such as the New Yorker, the Sunday Times, the Financial Times, and the Times of India. His first novel, The White Tiger, won the Man Booker Prize for fiction in 2008.

MY VIEW ON THE BOOK:  'last man in tower' as he named it  is just a concoction of words without a subtle string to them. There was no humor, mockery, satire ,punches in this book( his book the white tiger is full of them which lured me to read this book). While I was going through this book , I literally cussed him for his irritating narration. I did never expect him to deliver such a dumb, spirit less novel. I am totally disappointed in spite of being his fan since I read his novel 'The white tiger'

All together a laborious,lamenting,lethargic read.

This is the first book in my life, for which I was rueful to read it.

Emperor of all maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Introduction: Cancer ,the very word makes me feel queasy,petrified,deadpan and appalled. few years rewinding from now, cancer turned to be brutally lethal,unlike any other disease patients with cancer literally struggled for life. 
      From my very childhood this word 'cancer' used to haunt me. I remember people being shocked the moment they learn  that someone's having cancer and this made me feel it's some kind of monster. yes. It surely is a monster which  engulfs one from within .
         As a science student  I am very intrigued to  know what this  deadly monster( cancer) is all about. obviously in this google-in-your-mouth era I quickly reach out google and type the word cancer, while I was going through many sites, blogs and pages I read about this book ,"emperor of all maladies" ,with a tagline 'A biography of cancer'.Tagline sounded witty ,cool and alluring. Till date I didn't know that one could actually  write a biography of a  lethal disease.I googled about the author 'Siddhartha Mukherjee', found a video titled 'Siddhartha mukherjee-the cancer puzzle'. 
            Somewhere in his speech he says this. "when press asks Edmund hillary about why he has climbed mount everest, he says that I climbed it because it was there. And now if you people ask me why I wrote this book,I would say that I wrote it because there is no such book". Listening to that witty statement ,I was awestruck with  my mouth wide open and this was enough to just grab this book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher. He is assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and the  CU/NYU presbyterian Hospital. A Rhodes scholar,He graduated from Stanford University ,University of Oxford and Harvard Medical School.
             reading through the book , I noticed one thing which is totally  unique about the author. It surely is a Non-Fiction but reading through the book I actually didn't  feel like reading a  NF, infact the book is a concoction of stories ,anecdotes, analogies all entwined around Cancer. And the narrative is out of box.I  still don't fathom how a cancer physician could write such artistically.And as this book is a biography of Cancer it need not be restricted to medical students. It has history , science and creative writing and can be read by any one .

A biography of cancer: As the book is  all about Cancer ,everyone must be thinking that Cancer is the protagonist ,Ironically it is  not. Sydney farder, the person who has worked hard and carried out a lot of research in treating child leukemia is the  one of the main  protagonists. Next comes Mary lasker , who has created a  stir in collecting the funds required to carry out the research into curing cancer and many others like Yella Pregada Subbarao, Ehrlich,Min Chi Li,Thomas Hodgkin,Rontgen,Marie and pierre curie and many other have contributed in finding a cure for cancer.     

This is the the cancer institute named after Farber at massachusetts ,Boston.

As every story has an end ,Even 'Cancer' should have an End and we hope that 'Cancer' soon dies a brutal death in the coming future.

          

             

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

INTRODUCTION:apple is ruling the music world. Apple is the mantra of young geeks,co corporate giants,musicians,singers,children and even saints. yeah ! saints I saw a nag sadhu at khumbh mela holding an iPad(I  was awestruck) 
        "what's on your iPod" ,was the gesture used to start a conversation.I  was wondering what's the big deal to have an apple product and I was  astonishment to read that a youngster has  donated his kidney to get an iPod and a tab. People wait for hours at the apple store, to get their hands on their apple product and that sounded really crazy. the world was facing "THE APPLE FEVER".so, I was curious to know who was the founder and that was around 2010 , I read an article about his life in the  time's magazine. and felt empathized that he was diagnosed with  pancreatic cancer.
        Later I listened to his Stanford commencement speech,and it was only then I saw him speak.The speech was humorous,captivating and inspirational.
         I felt gloomy  when I heard the news of his death  on October-5 2011, The whole world has offered condolences. And I wished to completely know about him. Then this book on Steve jobs was released few days after his death. 
           And lately my professor has gifted me this book for which I  yearned and I heartily thank  my professor S. Parthasarathy for giving me such beautiful book .

About the author(Walter Isaacson):- Walter Isaacson (born May 20, 1952) is an American writer and biographer. He is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C. He has been the Chairman and CEO of CNN and the Managing Editor of Time. He has written biographies of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Henry Kissinger.
                I couldn't imagine how a person could write a biography of such preciseness and expertise . It was literally like documenting the whole life of Steve jobs giving the precise and minute details. I guess there is some magic in his narrative style , that doesn't let you down, I makes you flow through , the whole read was like a roller coaster ride.  I also wish to read his book on Newton 

Biography:-  what can I say about a person like Steve jobs who has stood in the history next to Einstein and Ford. He was the most influential person of  20th century .His passion was electronics , his inspiration was his father,his innovation was apple.
       His slogan was 'simplicity is the ultimate sophistication' and lesser is better. And he is a bloody perfectionist.He was never to compromise but to always give the best.
        Even though he had such noble traits he had few flaws too.He was too arrogant to his inferiors. This quality of his actually lead him to be ousted from his own company Apple.
        Some thing he learned when he came to India is to be intuitive and that has helped him a lot in making the mile stone in the tech industry.
        He was spiritual, he lived a simple life even though he was a billionaire.

Final verdict: It is a must read by every person who uses an  apple product . because people after reading the book have a special value for it.

CHE GUEVARA by Richard L.Harris

Introduction: Those were the days of my youth, of higher grade, when the uniform wasn't required to attend the higher grade.And then did the image of this revolutionary filled the ambiance, randomly one out of five pals of mine wore a T-shirt depicting the colorful,bold,rebellious image of Che Guevara.

My conjecture about him was little cheesy as every random person who depicted his image on their T-shirts,bikes ,cars etc were snobbish.

         But later one of my friends told me about his adventurous trip throughout Latin America (motorcycle diaries) , I bought that  book and literally rode together with CHE,his narration was captivating and couldn't resist myself from reading his whole life story.

About the author: Richard l.Harris  professor of global studies at California State University–Monterey Bay, has closely studied the life of 'Ernesto' Guevara(CHE) . He was present in Bolivia ,after Ernesto's death and personally taken care to document the true facts about his death( which he mentioned in the book).The author has given an unbiased presentation of all the happenings immediately and after the death of  'Che' which were not known to many( which was also mentioned by the author).

                  Richard L.Harris , Has very well incorporated  the important parts of Ernesto's life ,refurbished  with a mild touch of literature which has  added grandeur to his narrative .the author has precisely imbued the essence of Ernesto's revolutionary moments which  are actually inspiring and throbbing to all those young ones of the world.

                  

Biography of Ernesto: Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la serna known as Che Guevara is the real name of 'CHE Guevara',  CHE was the title given to him which means 'hey buddy'. From his very childhood he was groomed with political ideologies by his parents. He was an voracious reader of all kinds of genre which comprised of books by Nietzsche,Marx,and many other revolutionary and famous  personalities. This habit of his helped him profoundly to learn about the world.

        Its surprising to read that the children in Cuba are made to byheart all his famous quotations , and they sing songs and rhymes saying that 'we want to be like che'.  I was flabbergasted when I  learned that Mahatma Gandhi was Che's personal hero. He liked communist ideas , but he wasn't a communist . His were anti- imperial Ideas 

    He was bloody adventurous that he put his medicine course to stake to carry out a trip throughout Latin america, it was then he learned about the lives of many peasants and made his basis for reforming Latin America.

     His life is a story of simplicity,humbleness love and  sacrifice, which strikes a chord of all the people who read it . Even when he was at a very high position as an Interior affairs officer in Cuba, he used to maintain a simple clad and was always down to earth .

     What's more surprising is even after his death, his eyes were open with a plain smile on his face. 

      Even today Che is considered as the main political character in Cuba, where young students ,intellectuals , philosophers follow his ideas.

                "MEN DO NOT DIE WHEN THEIR LIFE AND EXAMPLE CAN SERVE  AS A  GUIDE TO OTHERS,AND WHEN THOSE OTHERS SUCCEED IN CONTINUING  THEIR WORK" - 'CHE' Guevara

       

Ernesto's Image  shimmers bright on the Interior affairs building of Cuba, which boasts his pride and victory of Cuba. 

      Adding to the 'CHE' was also romantic , who always had a bevy of beauties buzzing around him . Even his love letters and departing notes  written to his wife ,acknowledge his romantic trait.

By this I was literally awestruck, Che's Image on  Cuban currency . This clearly shows the political importance of Che in Cuba. 

I would like to request all the people who learned  about 'CHE' to kindly not involve in any mockery  of his image . Thankyou.

Final Verdict: Overall the book was an unstoppable read.  

Autobiography of a Yogi by paramhansa yogananda

 

      Introduction: I remember long back ,when I was a child, I glanced at the Image of this book in some social gathering at  a book  stall.Later  I came across many people  adressing this book .lately when I  was glancing  the biography of steve jobs ,I read that steve when he comes to India, stayed  in a cave and  read this book several times. This added more spark to  my desperate spirit  to read the book. 
        I actually borrowed this book from my friend's father who actually said that whenever he reads this book , he encounters  good omens. 
        Like I  said , everything about this book seemed to be surprising day by day. I was curious to see what the book has left for me. then one fine day I started reading the book and never stopped it..........

JOT: The author’s spiritual quest started early in life, as he was 
always curious about what lay beyond mere bodily existence. His interest in spirituality and his pursuits down this path introduced him to a number of Indian saints and gurus, and even famous international personalities, the details of which he has put down quite candidly in this book.

In this text, Paramahamsa Yogananda has written about one such guru, Lahiri Mahasaya, in detail. He has also written about his quest to find his own guru, which culminated in his meeting Sri Yukteshwar, who, in turn, was himself a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. Yogananda later spent many years in the ashram of his guru, and was trained in Yoga and spiritual knowledge. He spent years mastering a branch of Yoga called Kriya Yoga. Yogananda later taught this practice to the western world.

He explains his relationship with his guru, and his experiences at the hermitage in detail. Many chapters in the book are devoted to explaining the phenomenon of miracles that are recorded in all regions, across the world. He also attempts to explain the underlying science behind these events. Yogananda later moved to the United States of  America (USA) and he lived there, teaching yoga and meditation to the people there.

In the book Autobiography of a Yogi, the author also recounts his interesting encounters with renowned people like Mahatma Gandhi, Luther Burbank, Rabindranath Tagore, Therese Neumann, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Sir C.V. Raman, and Ramana Maharishi. The book is an absorbing read, and it is written in his unique and candid style.

MY Take On The BOOK: As I  am toatlly into spirituality, every chapter in his  autobiography  influenced me, every leaf of it was brewed with the blend of ecstacy .It was a whole new world  around me. Far in the middle, yogananda's guru describes about the christ consciousness which totally flickered my conscience, from which I learn that there is no religious barrier to  reach the ultimate and every religion has the roots of  of self-realization. 

      This chapter resurrection of my Guru Sri yukteshwara Has left me awestuck. There is alot to lean and unlearn from this book I guess. Spiritual yet scientific and intellectual and emotional too. 

     The moments where paramhansa Yogananda and his guru Sri yukteshwar share the space actually hit a chord in my heart , which made me sissy .

        Alltogether this turned out to be a great spiritual guide,  which has given a way to  discover myself. 

ANTHEM by AYN RAND

FOREWORD: Ayn Rand ! for me this word is another synonym for human spirit. For that something which speaks in us ,which is rebellious . I read  THE Fountain Head , which totally flickered my consciousness. A new kind  of me was born out of the book, a new kind of  humanity  is embossed in her words.Her words through a war at the reader. A war between the dichotomy of consciousness. Her philosophy goes deep into every cell of the body, every minute space of the soul. 
       She  isn't dead. She is alive in the form of the spirit which haunts the reader to unleash  more of her work. Her work is shark, thought provoking and brilliant. And that spirit of hers has brought me to this book "Anthem", made me  dig into it.

JOT(from goodreads): In Anthem, Rand examines a frightening future in which individuals have no name, no independence, and no values. Equality 7-2521 lives in the dark ages of the future where all decisions are made by committee, all people live in collectives, and all traces of individualism have been wiped out. Despite such a restrictive environment, the spark of individual thought and freedom still burns in him--a passion which he has been taught to call sinful. In a purely egalitarian world, Equality 7-2521 dares to stand apart from the herd--to think and choose for himself, to discover electricity, and to love the woman of his choice. Now he has been marked for death for committing the ultimate sin. In a world where the great "we" reign supreme, he has rediscovered the lost and holy word--"I."

MY ANTHEM ON ANTHEM :Firstly I  would advice all the readers to read the preface first . Because leafing  into the book without reading the preface would leave the reader confused. It sounds esoteric. There is some introduction  given in the preface. The Language is totally  unique and It also gives an image that her language is obsolete. But there lies the mystery. The Society in  her book ,chooses a different language where the Idea of Self is shattered . The Concept of Iness is lost ,instead usurped by Mob Dogma.A totalitarian society, killing it's people in the name of  brotherhood. Then comes the protagonist who fights back and brings Light into the brutal darkness , brings "I" into the Mob. 
     Anthem is the protagonist's revelation of  'I' , he re-discovers it and writes an anthem a memoir of the lost 'I'.This anthem on I is Ayn rand's very philosophy which is intended to be imbibed by the reader. This is a glimpse of the Anthem:

I AM......I THINK.....I Will......
    MY Hands......MY sky......My forest .....The earth of mine.......

what must I say besides? these are the words this is the answer.............

The  best lines in the ANTHEM:

MY HAPPINESS IN NOT THE MEANS TO ANY  END. IT IS THE END .IT IS ITS OWN GOAL. IT  IS  ITS OWN PURPOSE. 

one  last thing I wish to mention is that the book ends with the word 'EGO' , I felt the author means the right side of it which is synonymous to 'INDIVIDUALITY', which is the Whole purpose of Life.