My Year in Books 2024!

It's the time of the year..to count my blessings? Nope, to count my books 📚

Ok, blessings too. But mainly books. The books I have read, the adventures they took me on, the thoughts they left me with. Here are a few -

📙 I devised a “reading philosophy” 

This year had a lot going on, work-wise, bandwidth-soaking events that often left me with little space for “high-concept” reading, so I devised a system where I interspersed the heavies with some light escapes.

I stumbled across the famous (fictional) Sicilian Inspector, Montalbano, in the form of a recommendation from a friend. Another dear friend had just moved to Sicily and it seemed like a meant-to-be situation. I had also been enjoying the Japanese detectives Kaga and Galileo, and who could say no to our favourite British octogenarians solving murders every Thursday from peaceful Kent. As a Marvel-esque galaxy of Detectives gathered in my mind, I conceived of an ambitious project – to read Detective fiction from around the world!

Well, it may not be that ambitious, but it certainly was interesting. Thrillers have a way of capturing time and space like few books do, and for the price of a crime I got to read about local cultures, politics and food. So much food 😋

So here I am and my latest pick is Inspector Chen Cao, a poetic crime-solver in a China of the 90s. A China a-straddle lingering Maoism and Deng Xiaoping’s shiny new reforms. A perfect mix of sugar and spice and everything nice. 

📙 I started Audible

This year my “reading” went multi-media, physical books, kindle ones and Audible. From never wanting to read anything but physical, I now actively pick books for each medium. But I have a system, physical books are for keeps – beautifully written fiction or mind-opening non-fiction, kindle is for light-fiction and audible is for experimental non-fiction. 

My first book on Audible was “Kitchen Confidential”, an autobiography by famous chef Anthony Bourdain, narrated by him too. And it was a roller-coaster of a listen, across his early childhood that resulted in a culinary career, to the underbelly of this world, the rough, tough and often-rejected-from-mainstream-society men and women who find their way into kitchens across America, serving food and experiences to oblivious patrons. 

📙 “Where did you come from, where did you go” or I read across Genres 

I read across history, investigative non-fiction, evolutionary science and history, science, parenting, finance and many more genres. A few notables below -

In “Smoke and Ashes” Amitav Ghosh took me on a journey of the poppy plant, the story of Opium in the 19th century, colonial forces using it to exploit a nation (India) and destroy another (China). He ended with the mind-bender: was it humans that used the Poppy plant for their ends or the other way around, the plant using our basest instincts for survival and propagation?

I read about the on-going opioid crisis in America (hello again poppy) in “Empire of Pain”  and in “Cobalt Red”, about the disturbing account of miners in Congo unearthing Cobalt under atrocious conditions to power our technology addiction. 

“A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution” which exactly as the title sounds, explained how we hold the power to edit our genes in our hands today, a prospect more revolutionary than AI and as simple. 

In “Anxious Generation”, a MUST-read for parents with young or teenage children, I learnt how unbridled access to the internet, coupled with a childhood increasingly spent away from the real world, can lead to terrible consequences. 

I learned about the 5 fundamental breakthroughs that have paved the path for human intelligence from single-cellular organisms to modern humanity in “⁠A Brief History of Intelligence”, and in “Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From”, the fascinating 65000-year old history of the homo sapien, our migrations, genealogies, the DNA that divides us and the common origins that unite us. Across a subcontinent as diverse and rich as South Asia and in these polarising times, we would do well to remember what Tony Joseph leaves us with: We are all Indians. We are all migrants.

I read Andre Agassi’s “Open” and Salman Rushdie’s “Knife”, the former a complex testament to the sacrifices demanded by world-class competitive sports, and the latter a deeply touching narrative of the seconds, minutes, hours, days and months of one’s life right after tragedy strikes, such as it did Rushdie on that Chautauqua stage where he was stabbed 15 times. 

📙 I went time-zone hopping

As I collected travel miles this year, from Singapore to Berlin to Dubai, I also did my best to pick local authors and stories. From “Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital” to “Chess Story” by Stefan Zweig, I shuttled across time-zones and timelines. 

I went into the past with Ravindranath Tagore’s “Gora”, a timeless tale of nations and nationalism, religion and its rigidities, mores versus morals. As relevant today as it was in the early 1900s.

📙 I read books about work 

And finally in my year-end "light fiction" mode I realized once again that there no such thing. 

Much like Hermione’s bag of plenty, a book-any book is a bottomless storehouse of goodies. How much we take depends on us, our moods, which way our receptors are facing, our willingness to go deep or not. 

I found myself reading stories of people burnt out, starting again, finding a renewed purpose or lack of, liberating themselves from the conditioning of a lifetime and lifetimes, in the form of these amazing books about books, namely “Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop” and “What you are looking for is in the Library”. 

As somebody working to unravel the new definitions of work, I realized that these books too offered glimpses into the new ways that work was seen today. 

**

This is me. Has all this reading transformed me? I cannot quite say how but I know it has. 

Ending with the happy sight of my beautiful-wonderful-new (now half a year old) bookcase. A life-long dream come to fruition. 

Here’s to all your bookish and non-bookish dreams. May 2025 be the year they come true!

Harry Potter redux

I find myself thinking on and off about the Harry Potter series. The fact that the books are hugely enjoyable and the reasons behind why they are so, are obvious to everyone. However it is not equally widely acknowledged that the books have the power to enrich our lives, proving themselves to be far more layered than just any well-written set of books. 

For the ones who feel as I do, here are some of the things I love about the Potter series and which have led to J.K Rowling being, for me, a leading light among the illuminati who walk this planet. 

1. Hermione Granger - An all-time favorite literary character. She is all those things I admire, many of which I wish now that I was when I was her age - fearless, self-respecting, resourceful, and absolutely completely herself. I heard JKR say somewhere that at an age when a lot of girls are trying to fit in, are willing to tweak themselves in order to do so, become popular, Hermione never played to the gallery. For example, she never considered that in order to win Ron's affection, she would need to be less intellectual and less frequently right. Her character grows naturally through the series, both softening and strengthening, in an uncompromising manner.

For the brilliant role model she is to young girls and people in general, I love her and JKR for creating her in her own image.

2. "It's not your abilities, but your choices that make you what you are". 

“‘It only put me in Gryffindor,’ said Harry in a defeated voice, ‘because I asked not to go in Slytherin…’ ‘Exactly’ said Dumbledore, beaming once more. ‘Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.’”

This is one thought from HP that lies around like a sleeping dog inside my head, with one eye and ear open, looking for moments to prove itself useful or just get up and bound around with joy. 

And while it may sound obvious, a proverb, a saying or a moral doesn't hit home till you see it take shape in front of you. This one comes to life beautifully and tragically throughout the series.

3. When Harry's mother sacrifices her life for Harry, it is this act of sacrifice and love that magically protects Harry from Voldemort, and so the curse famously back-fires. 

Voldemort is unable to touch Harry due to the power of his mother's love.  

It 'tangibalizes' something we have heard preached down to us so many times. Tolkien also did the same thing, with Bilbo's act of sparing Gollum's life eventually helping save Frodo's at Mount Doom. Brilliant, both of them. What beautiful ways to express that no good deed, act of kindness or love goes unseen and unrewarded. And in HP, it also says that a parent's love really does have power. 

4. Severus Snape - We don't understand what his deal is till the end but once we do, we realize the full weight of what JKR has done - created a character that is so complex, so rich, so heroic in his own way, that the mind boggles at how she did it in such an inconspicuous manner. 

His love for Lily, justified dislike for James Potter and his rowdies, his bad boy days, and then reform - sweet dangerous reform. 

Lovely shades of grey. 

5. “‘Tell me one last thing,’ said Harry. ‘Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?’ Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure. ‘Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?’”

Pure gold. Free to be interpreted in multiple ways. Today I choose for it to mean that the mind shapes and controls the 'real' world and in that sense is more real than anything else. Our thoughts, visions, dreams are the true source of everything and everyone. Today, that's what I choose for it to mean.

Acknowledgments -
http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Rebirth_of_Tom_Riddle
http://thenectarcollective.com/2013/10/life-lessons-learned-harry-potter/

Gay talks

The country or at least the urban, newspaper-reading, facebook-using section of it has been consumed with discussions on homosexuality since the past few days.

The very fact that national newspapers are carrying headlines on it means that the term and the action it speaks about has found its way into living rooms all over this country. And that I believe is the 'one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind' kind of thing taking place right under our noses. Who knew we could speak out openly about sex of any kind, forget gay sex.

On the other hand, the BJP, in a bid to retain the support of their traditional, staunch religious supporter base, and most probably the RSS, have proclaimed gay sex to be 'unnatural' and something they can't support.

I have a few things to say on the matter -

- The BJP should ensure all of its talking is done by its spokespeople and not by random juvenile and absurd members like Baba Ramdev and Subramanian Swamy. The fact that these people are occupying key positions in the BJP and are allowed to speak unfettered does not bode well for the iQ of the party as a whole or their competence (at managing their public image and their people). These glaring flaws would be more than enough reason for us folks to not vote for them, howmuchever Modi shouts from the roof-tops and tries to woo us with his silver-tongued talks on progress.

- Coming to the stand the party has taken: it is antiquated, un-researched and logic-defying. To make one of the many possible arguments against homosexual sex being unnatural - one fact is that it is hugely prevalent in the animal kingdom, around 1500 species have been known to depict homosexual behavior; in fact this was one of the reasons behind the landmark decision taken by the United States Supreme Court in 2003, which made same sex activity legal across all states in the US. Secondly, people are born with this orientation, feel it from within, as natural as being born with one hand more dexterous than the other, as Kanishka Sinha explains here. So how can it be unnatural? Thirdly, even if the first and the second were untrue, and people decided to have homosexual sex to add variety to their sex lives, out of curiosity, or any other reason, with other consenting adults, in the privacy of their homes, then who is the State to tell them that they can't?

- Allowing for the fact that the BJP stance is a poll strategy and they don't want to alienate their voter base (Subramanian Swamy keeps repeating that 84% of the people of this nation are against homosexuality - a statistic I don't see any basis for), I think they are misreading the situation. Not all of the traditional, middle class, slightly older demographic is dogmatically against homosexuality. They are being exposed today in an unprecedented manner to media - fiction and celebrities - and actual people who represent this reality, and are warming up to the notion of it. While they still may have great difficultly in accepting it in their own children, they certainly don't see it as criminal behavior or a disease. Admittedly there is still huge progress to be made, but things aren't so bad that a party which supports the fundamental rights of a different-but-harmless minority will automatically find itself out of favor with this demographic. In fact to the contrary, a party which insists on mouthing silly and neanderthal speech like the kind the BJP has been, stands to lose favor among the educated and rational section of the population. Much as I dislike the Congress, it is admirable that they have come out unequivocally against the article.

- The Supreme court may be making a statement and compelling our parties to take sides, reveal their strategies, show how committed they are to minority issues, etc, which is all good. But once it becomes apparent that no legislation change on this issue will be possible, given how divided the parties are, they should step in and take a judicial recourse. In this country, with these sort of gutless/coalition politics being played and practiced, a change such as this has to come from an extra-legislative body.

The times they are a-changing. And a party which has made progress its poll proposition but does not walk the talk, will learn that lesson a very hard way. A party which can't promise freedom to every one of its citizens can certainly never deliver progress.