To my dear Kali

Kali, U remember?

I met you in Chennai way back in 2005

U remember the night – the last night of that year

what only didn’t we do?

we laughed, we joked, we thought

The world is small and can not keep us apart

we were simply naive and immature

You thought what I thought and

we both were wrong!

 

Hey baby, I am just joking

we were right

we are far but always together in our feelings

we are in different time zone but still

everything clicks together between us

U miss me there, and I remember you here

You think of sending sms and I start typing one here

You finish typing sms and then, you receive mine

you smile there and I here, after few seconds

Isn’t that lovely? Isn’t that great?

Don’t you think we are madly in love? You think, don’t you?

 

But, you also think and so do I,

you think what i think and

we think

how long this can go?

Don’t we need to settle?

Exactly!

The same what I was thinking

We will baby one day!

You ask me one day?

I say soon, this year

from a far distance

you look into my eyes and you say, “I trust you”

I imagine us being together and

and I softly say, “I love you honey” “I love you so much”

N my roommate kicks on my butt

N I hear “oiee gadha sapna pani k k dekhna thalis?” (Oh! you dumb ass! what kinds of dreams you started seeing these days?”

There is a pain on my ass

but, I remian calm and say to myself

If only he knew my kali!

Super Freakonomics – A Book Review

In my previous post, I had reviewed the book called Freakonomics. At the end of the post, I had mentioned that the joint authors of Freakonomics have ventured in writing another similar and equally famous book called ‘SuperFreakonomics’. I have just finished reading the book called SuperFreakonomics and the review is here.

Generally, I read books buying. But, this time, I downloaded the book and took print of same in my office.  I cannot read soft copy as I do not find coherence and attachment on online reading except short news and columns. If you are interested in downloading this book and like to read, you can get the book from here. (However, you are advised to find out yourself if the e-book you are going to download whether comply copyright laws and if any violation, you alone would be responsible for any consequences, if any.)

Now, coming to the merits of the book, the book is interesting and since it is a sequel of the previous book Freakonomics, the subjects addressed here in SuperFreakonomics are also similarly freakish. The authors have chose very interesting subjects and tried to see their co-relation between economics and these simple topics which seemingly may never have any relation whatsoever in our mind. For example, the authors talk about economics of prostitution and it is very interesting to know that prostitution these days, has been reduced as compared to previous centuries. Thanx to consensual partners, friends and girlfriends and boyfriends. It also shows how the cost of prostitution is going down and shows oral sex is utterly cheap. J Anyway, the point is earning capacity, ability and differences between high class prostitutes – who are good looking, intelligent and ready to serve their customers and the low class street prostitutes. It also shows the violence involved in this profession.

The second interesting issue is about how to deal with terrorists. Is there any way where terrorists can be identified easily before they strike their target. There are also topics in the book regarding drunken driving versus drunken walking and from data, they show that may be drunken walking is always more riskier than drunken driving. They also deal with issues of longer life: the one who gets a noble prize is likely to live extra few years than the one who is just nominated. It seems same thing is also possible in Basketball Game. N the authors also discuss about the effect of name on academic performance and tenure in Universities. The Author having both surname and first name both starting from A seems to be much luckier to get academic nominations than the one having both starting from Z. want to change your name?

So, above are some of the topics that SuperFreakonomics deals with and comes the final topic that has been very much controversial. The topic is about Global Warming. Though the authors take all the topics lightly and try to find out simple and easy answer, in global warming, their easy answer looks something much simpler. They talk of sending some sulphur dioxide in stratosphere, which is as I understood some 25 kilometers above our land, and try to cool the earth and save us from global warming. I am not sure if this works but the Authors have been criticized for their ‘nonsensical’, ‘bizarre’ and for their unworkable approach. The authors have been criticized by New York Times Economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Crugman and other environmentalist for distorting the facts and figures and research of other scientist and economist. Whatever! But, on plain reading too, it looked the issues and ideas look less convincing to me also. So, this Chapter on Global Warming is something, I say, is less researched by Authors before they decided to write a book on it.

You can read other reviews of the books here, here, here, here and here. These reviews are both appreciation and criticisms of the books, especially on global warming chapter and the way to solve it. Overall, the book is good to read. May be, I already read something similar book – Freakonomics and since the matters are addressed and handled in similar manner, this time I found it less interesting but still enjoyed. I recommend you to read it once! Interestingly, the review on The Guardian also did not rate it so highly in comparison to Freakonomics.

In the series of books reading, I am reading next a book called Shantaram written by Gregory David Roberts. The book is about India, especially about Mumbai and autobiographical account and fiction of a person/author who escaped Australian Prison and forged a Passport and came to India. The book is very interesting, I know and what I also know is the book is very very bulky – something about thousand pages. Therefore, I will be taking something about a month; minimum may be, I guess, to complete the book. Therefore, in between reading of Shantaram, I plan to read some small book also – most probably of Manjushree Thapa or of Samrat Upadhyaya. Whatever I read, I come with updates and reviews.

Keep on Reading!

Freakonomics – a Book Review

I had read this book called Freakonomics sometimes back and going to review it here today. The book can be purchased from here:

http://www.infibeam.com/Books/info/steven-levitt/freakonomics/9780141019017.html or from many such other online book stores. I strongly suggest you to look around in various websites before you buy as there will be varying discounts. The book is written by Steven D. Levitt, who is an Economist Professor and Stephen J. Dubner.

The book is amazing to speak in short and in few words. For those like me who want to read on plain economics without going in deep and without being distracted by calculus and quantitative analysis, the book is the one to read. For them, who know economics but do not know how to apply on our common sorroundings, the book is the one to read and ponder. Though the author takes help of the some of the mathematical tools to analyse, what he does is to apply economics principles in seemingly unrelated topics. For example, no one thinks that there is any economic rationality behind drug dealers staying with their mothers. But, the book demystifies this point says that yes there is. Think of the economic linkages between cheating primary school teachers in USA, sumo wrestlers in Japan. You cannot think of anything unless you read the book. Cheating, I mean, cheating in their profession and not in their personal lives. J

This is the greatness of the book. The Authors, one Economic Professor and other a Journalist after constantly observing, researching and applying minute principles of Economics come to the conclusion that there are economic rationality and relations between various social activities. Let us see another example and this is the first topic covered in the book and I found the most amazing among all. What is the reason of reduction in Crimes lately in US, in the decade of 1990s when there were predictions that crimes go unchecked? There were experts who told that crimes would grow but when crimes did actually reduce, then, he same experts came with various explanations like Gun Control Laws, Rise in Affluence, Population Control, and better Police in US etc. etc. These experts could not see these all when they were predicting that crimes would go unchecked but when actually crime rate got lowered, they started devising reasons for that. That may be so, they may be right but Freakonomists say that these experts are either wrong or even they are right, they are fractionally right. So, what is the main cause of crime reduction? They relate the incident of Roe v. Wade, US Supreme Court judgement which allowed the abortions legally. The Authors say that this judgement made sure that unwanted children were not born in US and mainly, the unwanted children used to get birth in poor black ghettos, and reduction of such numbers ensured that the children which were like likely to get driven to crimes were not actually born. So, US got a relief! No one saw this point before authors make a link between a US Supreme Court judgement and a crime and whose effects were to be seen after 20-25 years as the judgement made sure 20-25 years back that a child was not born who is going to be a criminal once he attains an age of 18-20 years later. What a link and what an observation.

The books keep on revealing those economic secrets that once you start, you cannot stop. I am sure that everyone who read it must have liked it. So, it became a bestseller. The greatest point about the book is the book is very simple, written in a simple language and you need not have even college level economic degree to understand it. Authors make it so simple that it is just like reading stories and nothing about economic principles. Second thins about the book is it covers such a simple topics that we wonder what economics has to do with such a mundane things. But, authors are good and very good to demonstrate us what economic link they are trying to unravel.

But, do not be confused that this is not a standard University textbook on Economics. This is not a book that you read and be economist, as one of the Authors is a Journalist here. This book does not help you to score more marks on your Economics Paper in College. But, certainly makes you wiser and takes you to the world that you start thinking for a while, if not for a longer time period. I say, a MUST Read. Enjoy Reading! And Comment here with your views.

For Official Freakonomics Blog, you can visit here and for other reviews, here, here and here.

(A Short Note: The authors were maintaining a blog with New York Times and later have published another book called Super Freakonomics, I shall review the second book shortly.)

Book Review – An Economist’s Miscellany written by Kaushik Basu

I just finished reading a very small and interesting book called ‘An Economist’s Miscellany written by Kaushik Basu’. Mr. Basu seems to be a renowned economist in India which I did not know before I read the book. He is currently the Chief Economic Advisor to Indian Government/Prime Minister and works from Finance Ministry, New Delhi.

Before that a PhD in Economics, Mr. Basu was professor in Delhi University and as a visiting Faculty to other US Universities.

His book can be bought from http://www.oup.co.in/search_detail.php?id=145824 or from many other online sites.

The book is about Economics, his travel reporting, his memoir, his thoughts on current social and political events, and lots more deep thought issues relating to social sciences. He writes on everything and makes the book very very intelligible, easy to understand, relevant and interesting. The book mainly contains the adapted versions of his already published newspaper articles which were written on different subjects. In the book, he makes Economics a very easy one sans derivative, anti-derivative, i.e. without using calculus, without any sorts of quantitative techniques and therefore, makes the complex concepts of economics a very easy one and very easy to understand. He does not go after theorist and theories while talking on economics. He talks of normal social events to demonstrate how things are from economist’s angle.

However, it should not be construed or misconstrued as economics book. It is not. If you want to read economics as per the syllabus prescribed by world’s greatest Universities or searching for some standard textbook on economics, this is not. This is a whole point how this book covers economics of common man for common man and to understand the economics concepts from Basu’s book, you need not have in-depth knowledge of economics. This is a beauty of the book. The Author demonstrates us how sexy! A economics can be without any fashion and cosmetics. The plain and simple beauty of economics, it portrays.

This is about the chapters that deal with economics. But, Mr. Basu deals on more things than economics alone in his book. As already said, he deals on travels and arts. He deals with sexual, minority and women rights. He talks on laws on land acquisitions; he talks on same sex rights; he talks on government enterprises like Air India how badly managed they are! Therefore, the economist gives you handful of things on various subjects and on subjects on much more than economics itself.

After his articles are chronicled in the book, there are two short stories translated from Bengali to English. The first one deal with money lending business and second one is on religious superstition. Whole book is written in a light hearted manner and so, these two stories also appear to be. These both the stories, I had heard and read before long time back and to read them after a long time, was a very refreshing. In the end, there is a play and put in a lighter manner about Profession, conference and love. The story revolves round Delhi University and Train Journey to Banaras (Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh India), and then, a professor snatching (of course not literally) other man’s wife and marrying (?) with her who happens to be a very bright student of the professor in Philosophy many years ago in Delhi University. And the book is over.

While reading this book, nowhere you feel bored. Since the book itself is a small one, and there are multiple short articles, stories, essays, you can read them without any difficulty. The lucid manner of writing makes each article interesting. You have to travel with Authors to various places around the world and he shows you the world’s some of the best Universities, Professors, of course economists, arts, and museums. Therefore, at no point, you feel fatigued from the book.

The Oxford University Press has taken care to publish the beautiful book and the paper quality is a finest one. Nicely hard covered and appropriately priced, (Of course, I bought with discount from one of the Indian online e-commerce sites and I recommend you to check many of them before you purchase, you get wholesome discount), the book is a one who every intellectual and common man must read it. You must read not because you become economist overnight but it teaches you the quality of being simple and the pleasure of reading stuffs which are simple and therefore, beautiful.

I had almost forgotten one aspect of the book that was: author frequently makes reference to his mother. Maa was 90 years old woman and always with love and insights to the author who lately started losing memory power and the Author lost her in October, 2010. Our condolence to Mr. Basu on her demise!

Overall, I rate the book 4/5 and strongly recommend reading and sharing your views.

You can read its review here , here , and here as well.

Book Review – an elegy for democracy – forget Kathmandu

I have recently finished reading this book called Forget Kathmandu by Manjushree Thapa, a much praised Nepalese Author who can write books in English Language.

The book was published many years back, most be the first edition should have been out by 2004-05 but later, the author seems to have updated the books with recent updates. I could lay my hand on updated edition of 2006 which has tried to cover the political misadventures happening in Nepal at that time.

This book, I had started reading almost 6-7 months back but had to stop in between as it could not meet my expectation then. The expectation was because of reviews and other aspects of author that I had read in magazines, webs and in NewsPaper. It could not meet the excitement of expectation then and I just stopped. Later, I thought  I should give a chance and finished reading by sticking my principle that once I start reading, I should finish it however, unintelligible, boring or idiotic the book could turn out to be.

So, how was the book? Before that, what was the book all about?

The book was about Nepal based on the Author’s travel to remote west during one of those ceasefires between Maoist insurgents and Government of Nepal. But the time line of the story starts immediately after the royal massacre of 2001 and goes to flashback to make the readers conversant about Nepal’s feudal history, about how Shah Dyanasty was established and how Shah Kings were in the past. The history whatever has been reported on the book is based on whatever author could hear and read from childhood textbooks. There is not much research on that. She conviniently takes the liberty of bashing Shah Dynasty throughout making unreasonable linakges between how irratically some of the Shah Kings acted in the past… when I say past almost 150-180 years ago.

The author wisely claims that it is not that ‘History’ that we generally understand and mean by ‘History’, and therefore, takes a complete liberty of attacking everything about Nepalese Moanrchy from past to present. The book conviniently makes general remarks about geographical unity of Nepal but culturally disintegrated nation. The same statement here and there that every left, right, royalist, businessman anyone makes when they have to give speech in public.

Now, if that is so, who is responsible? Of Course, Brahmins and Kshatriya, and those who were educated and became closer to ruling class. Now, the book starts bashing to higher castes. So, target is educated higher caste people who were in control of power and argument starts that they did nothing for the nation.

Now, the turn of how Maoist movement erupted in Nepal. As everyone says and the book mentions that after people of lower casters and dalits  and woman are oppressed for years, they get the Maoist movement a forum to voice against state and Maoist have tried to channelise the sentiments.

Then, the author revolves around evryday’s incidents about how many people were killed in cross fire between Maoists and Security Forces. Of Course, she knows the reality between these so called cross fires and keeps on going about how many people die from cholera, dysentery etc. everyday in far remote western Districts where the insurgency has already made the living a normal life very very difficult.

In the end, author takes a trip to few of the western Districts of Nepal along with a malcom so called Human Right Activisit and talk with people. Majority of People talk about state forces’ atrocities but on the same breath also mention the dislikes to Maoists. They do not like Maoists because insurgents force them either to join the party or mostly force villagers to feed party cadres. While walking in these districts, She meets young people without any future if you join party or not as Nepal hardly gives any real oppourtunity unless you belong to an educated elite class having good political connection and the book ends its story. In the updated version which I got, there are few extra pages on Maoist and Political Parties’ meeting and agreement to topple monarchy in Nepal through peaceful movement sometimes during 2006. This is all or everything about the book.

So, how was it? To be very genuine and honest, I was disappointed. I found author just wanted to flow with the sentiments based on whatever was already in public and in the general knowledge of almost everyone. There is no new research and at ease the generalisations have been made.

You are democrats or not, leftist or rightist, I feel that one sided bashing of elites, higher castes and royalists leave a sour feeling. Not that they do not deserve to be criticised, but the book fails to constructively align its thoughts on how to bring the country back and particularly which era to blame for Nepal’s calamity. Being born in a remote country side and brought up there, I have seen many of such social problems and discriminations in Nepal and many young people like us are witness to Maoist problems. Therefore, getting lecture and ‘gyan’ on these things from manjushree did not bring anything new in terms of knoledge and value addition. Though looking at her family and educational background, her ability to talk on these issues could also be well questioned. However, I would not go to that extent to criticise this book.

Well, for the foreigners, may be, for them who have very less idea about Nepal, the book can be a starting point. Or may be for them, who would like to know negatives about our country, it can be a solace but after going through some reviews and having expected a something different than usual sloganeering on the issues, the book turns out to be a forgetteable one.

If you can lay hand on it, You may read it. Otherwise, you can concentrate on good books. In my shelves, I have another 2-3 books of Manjushree and I, at least once, expect to read and comment on them – good, or bad, whatever the creations turn out to be!

Till Next post, enjoy reading my blog.

Some more short poems

Number I:

Life cannot be as clear as mineral water

calm, transparent, pure and without any impurity

it has to sustain all bad things

and quite often it has to absorb all dirty and filthy things

Life does try to purify itself sometimes

in hope of getting something good

it struggles hard to get it purified

but fails nevertheless

…………………………………………………….

Number II:

Go where? When I have nowhere to go

Do what? When I have nothing to do

I feel useless and deserted sometimes

by the tide of time

by the hurricane and katrina of dead moments

I feel I have nowhere to go and nothing to do

…………………………………………………………………

Number III:

Right, Right, and Right

is what they said is Right

Right is Right is what they say

But there is nothing that is absolutely right

……………………………………………………………………………

Number IV:

The Water

The water droplets

that breaks the sunlight

into many pieces

reminds me my place where water was there

not in droplets but in a big flow

But today

when I see around

only the deserts and sandy lands

that yearns for droplets of water

But suddenly, I see a droplet of water

that reminds me of my past

………………………………………………………………

Number V:

Nepali Haiku

नेपालीमा हाइकु

ब्यङ्लुरको तालिम
पिपिटी हेर्दा
बोरिङ्ग बोरिङ्ग छ

……………………………………………………………………..

Number VI:

Do not come on my way

I had said you long back

you came to love me and

you got hurt

you cant blame me and

You never did! But bbay

I feel sad for you

I feel bad for you

you can watch my way

You’ll see I go a long way

to get lost in the lap of nature

and dont care anything

and dont care anyone

…………………………………………………………….

Nepali Gazal, kabita(नेपाली साहित्य, कबिता र गजल)

This is a Nepali गजल written by ANJAN BIBASH ACLO. I do not know him but He has posted this गजल in My Blog. I liked his गजल and have made as a new Post. I am thankful to Anjan Ji and wish him all the best in future in writing Nepali गजल. I believe that he could make it even better had he tried little more and I hope that he certainly does his best on coming days.

Since I like Nepali Poem(kabita) and Nepali (गजल), I will be posting here some more गजल when I have time. You can also send me your Poems and Nepali Gazals.

Literature is such an interesting thing in Life and our Nepali literature is also very rich. Just We need to do is keep on Contributing to this field.

नेपाली साहित्य, कबिता र गजल मन पराउने साथी हरुलाई तल को Anjan जि ले लेख्नु भएको गजल प्रस्तुत गरेको छु। तपाईं पनि यदी नेपाली गजल मन पराउनु हुन्छ भने यो ब्लग हेर्दैइ गर्नु होला। मेरो ब्लग मा पालिदिनु भएकोमा धेरै धेरै धन्यवाद।

समाज सग अयोग्य भै ठोकिन पुगे I

रिसको आवेगमा आँफै सग झोकिन्न पुगे II

जिबन जिउनु को औचित्य नै रहेन I

आफू आफू सगै एक्नास सग ठोक्किन पुगे II

मन भरी का चाहना अभिलाषा सगै I

होड बाजी मा अघी सर्ने म आँफै पहिला रोकिन पुगे II

मुग्लानिएर जवानी दासता मा ब्यतित हुँदा I

समय को पावन्दी मा आफ्फै ठोकिन पुगे II

Dear All, one small thing to inform you that these four blogs are inter-related and maintained by the same group:
http://yuvazone.blogspot.com/
https://talkingforum.wordpress.com/
http://nepaleselaw.wordpress.com/
http://talkingforum.blogspot.com/

Please Make convenient to visit them regularly.

Nepali Poem, Nepali Kabita, Nepali Gajals

This Post is hacked. 🙂 Visit New and Modern Blog Nepali Kabita, Nepali Gajal Haru to read more Poems and Kabita.

 

 

Visit us at http://nepalesestories.blogspot.com/

 

 

Constututional Assembly Debates: An example

This is a small piece of Constitutional Assembly Debates in India that took place while forming India’s Constitution. They are very great source of law and study of it gives us idea how the issues are debated in Assembly. This is just a piece. For full Reading, Follow the instruction provided in the Article.

The Name of the person is the one who is speaking and in brackets, it gives us idea where he came from and what is his designation. They are talking on very many issues that you know when you read it. The name and designation is not so important, focus on the texts and what they have to say on a particular topic.

A Nepali Gazal-Just a try.

If you are reading my blog for quite a long time, You know that how happy I could be if I write or read Gazal in Nepali. I love my language, literature and specially Gazals written in Nepali Language. It’s not my first attempt to write Post in Nepali.