When breath becomes air
Mon 11 June 2018 by Thejaswi PuthrayaWhat would you do if you are informed that you are dying (no timeline provided)? Would you continue working towards your dream? Or give up and spend the rest of the time cursing your fate?
Paul Kalanithi is close to completing his neurosurgeon residency at Stanford. He has worked hard all his life to get here but is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. As a doctor he knows his chances are bleak but his doctors (who were colleagues until the diagnosis) try to motivate him. The diagnosis exacerbates his family life (already strained due to the long hours at the hospital). He pulls through with a lot of positivity and support from family and friends. When the first round of treatment appears to be working, he gets back to medical practise. But he realises he is a shade of his past and it's only a matter of time before the impending eventuality.
While the book discusses morbidity, Paul the writer is lively and his writing spirited.
Mahashweta
Dr.Anand falls in love with Anupama and it appears to be progressing like a fairy tale. After marriage, her husband leaves to England for higher studies and she is expected to follow him shortly. But she is diagnosed with Vitiligo and is shunted out of her in-laws and parents …
read moreOn the Origin of Species
I have heard of the phrase "Survival of the fittest" since childhood in contexts unrelated to Charles Darwin's (this phrase was added in a later edition) usage. It always piqued my curiousity on how he (and some people before him) proposed this revolutionary idea. They didn't observe the evolution of …
read morePakistan; or the partition of India
Every person in the Indian subcontinent is aware of the misery caused by the partition of India. A lot of people believe that the Indian Congress Party and the first Prime Minister of India were responsible. They insist that the partition could have been avoided and history would've been kinder …
read moreThe Bourne Identity
Countless number of times people have recommended this book but I pushed back by claiming that this book didn't fit my interests. Recently I realised that my reading has been wide-ranging and I don't have a favourite genre.
A man is found almost dead by fishermen in the middle of …
read moreMein Kampf
Sometimes one just needs to read history without being judgemental to appreciate the context. It puts certain things into perspective. You don't necessarily have to take a stand but only use it to expand your realm.
Mein Kampf is Adolf Hitler's autobiography. The book traces his journey from his childhood …
read moreAurangzeb: The man and the myth
History shouldn't be used to judge even though a lot of people claim that history should be the best judge. To judge a historical period, one must also factor in the context then. Without appreciating the context, one may end up distorting history. Aurangzeb is probably the most hated Mughal …
read moreThe Great Gatsby
When the going is good, everyone is 'friends' with you. But when the first signs of trouble appear, only the true friends remain. "The Great Gatsby" is a novel by Scott Fitzgerald that mashes friendship, love and betrayal in a story set in America in the 1920s (post the World …
read moreMy inventions: Autobiography of Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla may not be as famous as his contemporary Thomas Edison but his inventions (like the AC motor and his experiments in telephony) have had larger impact than Edison's.
If you keep the descriptions of his inventions aside, Tesla was an interesting character. He was a polyglot, believed in …
read moreThree thousand stitches
"Three Thousand Stitches" is a collection of short stories by Sudha Murthy. Unlike her other short story books I have read, most of the stories here are anecdotes from her life and sound vain and righteous. Decent for a quick read.
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