Food for thought and otherwise

So this post is about a book on food.

The book is called “Indian Food A Historical Companion” by K.T.Achaya. I first wrote about this book here. Recently, i wrote about this in telugu here which goes to show that i fell in love with this book. It was infact my birthday gift to myself :P .. Boy oh boy what a gift! :P

“The Hindu” had  two articles on this book long back .. links to that here and here.

I will keep this short partly because i have already written about it once so the initial enthusiasm would have died down obviously ;) . Anyway, the book is about the history of our food as the title says. The book talks about our eating traditions and the paraphernalia around our cooking styles etc from pre-vedic to vedic to modern days. This has got mentions about where all the food we eat today has come from and where all our food customs have come from so on. The book will also change your own idea of globalisation .. once you finish the book you would realise that the kitchen is the best example for globalisation. And if your kitchen itself is so globalised then what is the point harping about protectionism elsewhere ;) ?

Anyway, some of the interesting snippets from the book are as follows:

Mention of Meat eating and meat cooking expertise in vedic scriptures amazed me. Particularly so because i had absolutely no idea about the food of the gods ;) . So as per the book Brahmins of those days had their share of horse meat after the sacrifice during the yagna ;) . Similarly, there is talk about meat of  Deer, Peacock, Porcupine, Rabbit, Rhinoceros, Lizard, Monitor Lizard, Donkey, Camel, Monkey etc :P . So next time you say anything overtly racist about the eating habits of our eastern neighbours then please look back at your own history :D

Then  the book also talks about alcohol consumption across various eras etc. It has some mentions of wine consumption by Lord Rama-Sita as well. A very nice collection of stories these.

Achaya then slowly traces the evolution of vegetarianism in India, the social pressures created by the rise of Buddhist and Jain religions which neccesitated these changes so on.

The best part of the book starts after this. There are so many stories about the export-import of our kitchen items that after sometime your whole idea about swadeshi will be shattered.. if at all there was one in the first place i.e., ;) . I will try and jot down some of those stories.

• Pineapple came to India from SouthAmerica
• Jalebi has Persian and Arab origins
• Cocunut has travelled along the ocean waters from Papua New Guinea and reached india through the waters of Indian Ocean
• Sweet Potato has its origins in Peru
• Rajma and Ragi are again from South America. Infact, the ancient South America-India civilisational links make a fascinating read
• Rice has a east indian-chinese-vietnamese origin
• Sesame Seeds, Mustard Seeds, Brinjal, Cucumber are Indian (Yay!!! :P)
• Ladyfinger or Okhra has come from Africa
• The andhra special “Gongura” is infact from Angola or Sudan it seems :P
• Some citrus fruits like Lemon, Mosambi, Orange and others like Mango also seem to have an Indian origin (Yay!! :P)
• Most of the spices ofcourse seem to belong either to India or Malacca Strait
• Pumpkin came from Mexico and Pomegranate came from Iran/Iraq :P
• Sunflower wasn’t there in Indian till the 1940-70 period until the russians brought it ;)
• Groundnut came from Europe while Soya came from China
• Tomato came to Europe from Mexico in 1550 and reached India in 18th Century
• Potato came from Bolivia to Europe in 1570 and reached India in 1830

Thus, Ladies and Gentleman .. from times immemorial we have been a globalised civilisation :P .. Like they say we were a melting pot of various cultures and traditions and foods thereof. This book has many more such stories.. it is a must read for anyone who loves eating :D .. I think we welcomed all foods and thoroughly Indianised them in the due course .. guess that is how it works for everything else as well.

Indiaaaa .. Incredible Indiaaaa ;)

 

Speeches

This book is a bit more serious but very captivating .. It is called “Great Speeches of Modern India” Edited by Rudranshu Mukherjee. I’ve always loved the idea of reading history through speeches. One of my favourite books in this genre is “Penguin book of modern indian speeches” (I am yet to finish it though). This one is also good nevertheless. Some of these also feature in the penguin book.

This book is very well edited i should say. The editors interview can be found here. What i loved the most about the book is the political nature of most of the speeches. Some of them will give you goosebumps :)

• The first speech that took me by surprise totally was Syed Ahmed Khan’s 1888 speech titled “One country, two nations” .. It makes such a thrilling read! .. In parts of this speech he makes radical statements like “….. we do not want to become subjects of the Hindus instead of the subjects of the ‘People of the book’ .As far as we can we should remain faithful to the English Government” .It makes you sit back and wonder about how (politically speaking) the situation has remained the same even after over 124 years of the speech! In today’s India Hindu-Muslim question is as delicate as ever. Reference: The recent ruckus over religion based reservations
• The next speech is Mushtaq Hussain’s 1906 speech about the Muslim League. Here again are some startling lines. Some of which go like .. “… our own prosperity is bound up with, and depends upon our loyalty to British rule in India” . I’ve never read muslim league stuff before.. guess its time now ;)
• Speeches by Gandhi .. Tilak .. Vivekananda .. Lord Curzon .. Nehru etc follow
• Veer Savarkar’s “Dangerous cult of absolute non-violence” again is a riveting speech. I have started reading another book by savarkar recently and i am not surprised with his anti-gandhi tones in this speech now ;)
• Mohammad Iqbal’s 1930 speech proposing an Independent Muslim India also makes for a very interesting read.
• This is followed by M.Singaravelu’s speech called “The death of God” which has strong atheist overtones
• Shyama Prasad Mukherjee’s speech on Calcutta killings makes you clench your fist .. whichever side of the argument you are on. There is something about the right wing speeches in this book.. both Hindu and Muslim right.. they are all very powerful. Wonder how it was to the actual listeners back then! His other speech on the special status given to Kashmir also is equally captivating
• Then comes Jinnah’s speech which Advani quoted when he went to Pakistan only to meet with a lot of brickbats from the Sangh Parivar.
• Godse’s speech about killing Gandhi is famous by now. Kripalani’s speech against the Hindu code bill also exposes the hypocricy of the congress back then which some call pseudo secularism today. Even today we do not have a uniform civil code!
• Jayaprakash Narayan’s “Importance of NGOs” speech was very new to me and i enjoyed it thoroughly. He speaks of “snatching the initiative from the hands of politicians, from the Parliament and the Legislatures and giving it back to the people” .. Interesting!
• Indira Gandhi’s emergency speech in 1975 has the best one liner i have heard in a long time. “The president has proclaimed the emergency. This is nothing to panic about” !!!
• Speeches by J R D Tata, Satyajit Ray, Rajiv Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, P V N Rao etc follow
• Another BJP-Right wing speech which will catch you attention is L K Advani’s “Why Ayodhya is a setback”. I remember reading about this in his autobiography.
• The book ends with some more recent speeches by Sonia Gandhi, Vajpayee,Advani, Amartya Sen . The last speech is on Buddha by Gopal Krishna Gandhi

I read a library copy of this book. I dont mind buying it again once i make enough money :P .. But i somehow feel the book has mainly political speeches with strong religious overtones :P .. atleast those are the ones that strike you hard after your finish reading the book and look back at it :)

 

Pure Awesomeness!

This post is about my reading of E.F.Schumacher’s “A Guide for the perplexed”. I first spoke about this book in this post here. Back then i thought it was a difficult read… But i have taken this one course this term and my reading speed has improved exponentially .. so much so that i am able to finish difficult books with ease when the lecture is going on :P . Anyway .. over to the book.

The book talks about many things like the importance of religion, the limitations of conventional science, the folly of faith vs reason debates so on so forth. I will try and jot down some lines that appealed to me the most.

He starts the book by talking about different levels of being.. what is it that differentiates Man, Animal, Plant and Mineral. He says physics and chemistry more often than not deal with the lowest level of being i.e, tat of matter. And he brings about the limitations of such an approach by saying:

“To say that life is nothing but a property of certain peculiar combination of atoms is like saying that Shakeshpeare’s Hamlet is nothing but a property of a peculiar combination of letters“

He then goes on to talk about Science being used for Manipulation first of nature then of people. He traces this from the thoughts of Descartes and Francies Bacon. He says this concentration of scientific interest on manipulation alone has three dangers.

In the absence of sustained study of such “unscientific” questions as “What is the meaning and purpose of man’s existence?” “What is good and what is evil?” and “what are man’s absolute rights and duties” , a civilisation will necessarily and inescapably sink ever more deeper into anguish, despair and lack of freedom.

Faith, instead of being taken as a guide leading the intellect to an understanding of the higher levels, is seen as opposing adn rejecting the intellect and therefore is itself rejected. Thus all roads to recovery are barred.

The higher powers of man, no longer being brought into play to produce the knowledge of wisdom, atrophy and even disappear altogether

Agree on all three dangers! Especially the second one. I myself am a victim to that. I have always failed to understand the place of “faith” in modern day life. It is only my post-mba confusions and questions about life and the readings thereof that made me read a lot and understand the issue better.

The book then talks about four fields of knowledge. It is a wonderful philosophical journey as it makes you think a lot. The four fields of knowledge put simply are about :

(1) What is going on inside me? (2) What is going on inside others? (3) What do i look like in the eyes of others (4) What do i observe in the world around me?

Very very interesting chapters these. Though initially i felt that they are difficult to comprehend. Upon re-reading i feel that they cant be put in any simpler terms than this.He talks about how all the four fields of knowledge are important and how each one of them adds to the completeness of knowledge.In the later parts of the discussion on these fields of knowledge he also brings in the contrast of a conventional proof based scientific approach by talking about the difference between “What we can know” and “What actually exists”.

The best part of the book for me personally starts from page 124-150. It starts with a very critical analysis of Darwin’s theory of evolution. On this he says,

“It is one of the great paradoxes of our age that people claiming the proud title of “scientist” dare to offer such undisciplined and reckless speculations as contributions to scientific knowledge- and that they get away with it”

I had read some criticisms of Darwin’s approach before, but this one in this book is very convincing. I remember i first read about Darwin in school in a hindi textbook and from then on my world view did change ;) . My world view both inner and outer did seem to have changed in the past one year and this book definitely has played its role in that process. So Darwin-Schumacher 1-1 ! :)

He makes some pretty strong statements here in these pages. I can only form an opinion after reading some of the books that schumacher suggested in these chapters.

Evolutionism is not science; it is science fiction, even a kind of hoax. It is a hoax that has succeeded all too well and has imprisoned modern man in what looks like an irreconciliable conflict between “science” and “religion”. It has destroyed all faiths that pull mankind up and has substited a faith that pulls mankind down

Umm.. it is easy to dismiss such statements as extreme theological discourse.. but schumacher’s arguments are not just blind criticisms. Like i said i am convinced that what he says is not mere namesake criticisms. I will need to read more to understand it better. So a small study on evolutionism is next in queue then perhaps :) Infact schumacher goes to the extent of saying that this alone can cause the collapse of the modern western civilisation which today is the modern world civilisation. Like we all know all civilisations to date have died unlike a few which learnt to adapt, so this may very well be the cause for the future downfall of the modern world.

“It is impossible for any civilisation to survive without a faith in meanings and values transcending the utilitarianism of comfort and survival- in other words, without a religious faith”

In the concluding parts of the books he says something which is fast becoming my line of thought as well on the various eco-friendly things we do in the world today. I think it is time we realised that all this is a part of undoing the damage and not really contributing to the solution.

“Everywhere in the modern world there are now experiments New life styles and voluntary simplicity; the arrogance of material scientism is in the decline, and it is sometimes tolerated even in polite society to mention God. Admittedly, some of this change of mind stems not initially from spiritual insight, but from materialistic fear aroused by the environmental crisis, the fuel crisis, the threat of a food crisis and the indications of a coming health crisis. In the face of these -and many other- threats, most people still  try to believe in the “technological fix”. If we could develop fusion energy, they say, our fuel problems would be solved; if we would perfect the processes of turning oil into edible proteins, the world’s food problem would be solved; and the development of new drugs will surely avert any threat of a health crisis.. and so on.

All the same, the faith in modern man’s omnipotence is wearing thin. Even if all the “new” problems were solved by technological fixes, the state of futility, disorder and corruption would remain. It existed before the present crises became acute, and it will not go away by itself”

This is again brilliant! I think energy consumption and resource evaporation is just a part of the problem with our modern day world and by just shifting to renewable means etc we will not really wipe out the problem. We may only wipe out only a part of the problem that too with a lot of ifs and buts. The bigger problem is something else. Like he says elsewhere again,

“The modern experiment to live without religion has failed”

I think i will agree with this line. I myself am a victim to this in more than one ways ..so i can very much understand where the author is coming from. The best lines ofcourse are reserved to the last paragraph of the book.

“Can we rely on it that a “turning around” will be accomplished by enough people quickly enough to save the modern world? This question is often asked, but whatever answer is given to it will mislead. The answer “Yes” would lead to complacency; the answer “No” to despair. It is desirable to leave these perplexities behind us and get down to work”

A guide to the perplexed indeed! I would treasure this book in my collection forever and i don’t say that about every book i read! :)

 

A great sport and some great men

‘Cricket and Underdogs‘ has been my favourite topic from quite some time now. So when i read this review on cricinfo about the book “Out of the blue” by Akash Chopra i was more than elated. I purchased the book from indiaplaza almost immediately after reading the review. I am very satisfied with the product i should say :P

So this is the story of Rajasthan’s Ranji Trophy 2010-11 win. What made the win special was that they had never won it before.. they were piled up last in the plate league (ranji trophy has plate division and elite division) .. which means i think they were rank 27 of 27 teams :P .. they had never come close to winning after a runner-up finish 36 yrs ago in 1974 season.. it is the classic underdog story narrated wonderfully well by akash chopra. This year’s ranji trophy also seems to have another underdog story in the making ;) ..

What makes the book special is the stories.. classic underdog triumphs.. each one of them! :) .. I will try and write down some stories.. just like in the cricinfo review :P .. May be this one needs a spoiler alert? :P

• Akash Chopra’s own story of how he was unceremoniously kicked out of Delhi Ranji team because he had hit a bad patch despite being one of the highest run getters in season before that has all ingredients of a suspense thriller .. you never know whether he is in or out of the team and the reasons thereof :P  He gets a call “Out of the Blue” to be a part of the Rajasthan ranji team 2010-11.. and that is how the book starts :) . His autobiographical take on what a player undergoes when he faces the axe makes you wonder about how ruthless we all are as “fans” :P
• The story of Hrishikesh Kanitkar also is quite similar to the one above. Kanitkar is axed from the Maharashtra side after he hits 4 back2back half centuries in five matches .. citing “perceived lack of fitness” as the reason without conducting any tests whatsoever. He then moves on to Madhyapradesh team and finally to Rajashtan team in 2010-11.
• The story of the paceman Pankaj Singh is no less inspiring. He moves from a village near Lucknow to lucknow to allahabad to kolkata to chennai and finally to jaipur .. all in pursuit of a stable cricket career. In the midst of this pursuit there are innumerable rejections from various cricket teams and cricket associations across states. He joins in a college in hope of finding a job in army as he decides to forget the idea of playing cricket forever .. so on so forth. Very inspiring. He later turns out to be one of the biggest success stories in Rajashtan’s rise in Ranji.
• It also has the story of another paceman who was called a “Good for nothing” by Greg Chappel :P He goes on to have a god level 7.3-2-10-8 stat in his debut match against Hyderabad in the by now famous 21 all-out match
• The story of another bowler in the team who used to practice bowling action on the railway platform much to the ridicule of people  around him is hilarious and touchy at the same time. And why did he have to do all this?? .. because of financial compulsions at home which meant that he can’t quit his job in railways!
• There is this other story about a player who had to play cricket because it was the only way for him to feed his family. This story particularly will make you shed a tear or two as the player in question goes through instances of multiple deaths in family in a span of months.. including the death of a two month old baby girl. It made me sit back and wonder about how many times.. i carelessly pass a comment or two on many cricketers little wondering the circumstances behind the failure. Like this player.. who had to pack bags to play a first class match within hours after his daughter’s burial ! .. I think sometimes we just view at cricketers as if they are devices of entertainment little wondering about their human side! :( .. Infact this story also talks about a planB of this player which was to enroll in correspondence course to clear CFA! .. Cricket – Plan A.. CFA- Plan B! .. He also takes up a job in Indian Postal Department somewhere in the story! .. Reality can’t get any bitter than it is in this story .. Hatsoff to him for having survived through all this. Every problem in your own life would seem inconsequential and insignificant when you get to know of such stories
• The book then moves on to another interesting story .. that of someone who had to write CAT in pursuit of an alternate career as he had to face too many rejections from cricket associations! .. He scores a decent 84% which could have definitely got him a decent MBA degree :P
• The story of another cricketer who lost both his parents before his teens is no less inspiring. So much is his love for his mother that he inscribes his mother’s name on every single piece of apparel and gear he uses while playing representative cricket! ..
• Akash chopra then converts the book into a player’s diary by giving a commentary of all that happened on-pitch and off-pitch in the path to the Ranji trophy win .. includes the scorecards and detailed descriptions about matches with Maharashtra, Goa, Tamilnadu, Tripura, Jharkhand etc etc

All in all a super awesome book! Must read for all cricket fans.. Go buy the book :P .. If you stay in and around my place of residence .. then borrow :P .

UNDERDOG ZINDABAD!!!!

 

Tolerance Chillies Idlis and Others

So a prof here had asked us to read Amartya Sen’s “Development as freedom” as a part of some course. I read through the book the other day .. conveniently skipping those parts of the books which seemed too scholarly or economistly to me…  thus defeating the purpose of the professor :P

I found this part of the book i.e., chapter10 on “culture and human rights” interesting. I think a lot of this is also seen in Sen’s “Our culture their culture” speech in 1995-96. This is about tolerance – interaction of cultures – globalisation etc. As always i quote paragraphs from the chapter it is up to reader to imagine the context :P

The Book

He says..

“The threat to native cultures in the globalizing world of today is to a considerable extent, inescapable. The one solution that is not available is that of stopping globalisation of trade and economies, since the forces of economic exchange and division of labor are hard to resist in a competitive world fueled by massive technological evolution that gives modern technology an economically competitive edge“

Totally agree! The more i read about the history of industrial revolution and technology in general .. the more i am convinced about how monstrous it is and how powerful it is. O technology! I bow down before thee! :P

“When an economic adjustment takes place, few tears are shed for the superseded methods of production and for the overtaken technology. There many be some nostalgia for specialised and elegant objects (such as an ancient steam engine or an old-fashioned clock), but in general old and discarded machinery is not particularly wanted. In the case of culture, however, lost traditions may be greatly missed. The demise of old ways of living can cause anguish, and a deep sense of loss“

I like this distinction between losing old machines and losing old traditions and customs. I think lost culture-traditions are far more closer to the heart than a lost typewriter. There was this fb pic that was floating around saying that “if you are born in the 80s then you are the last casette generation”. True.. but does that really make you feel sentimental? I don’t think so. But does the mention of lost knowledge systems of India make you feel sicker .. I think yes. When a very learned prof says .. “Europe had great philosophers in that age like aristotle, plato , socrates. India also had some during those times .. like.. aryabhatta.. no not him.. umm.. errr” .. You know something is wrong with your country :P. So i think lost culture is a bigger problem.

Sen says “…cultural nationalism or chauvinism can be seriously debilitating as an approach  to living”

Agree. But i think it is also important for people to be assertive about their roots/origins.

On that he says..

“Ways of life can be preserved if the society decides to do just that, and it is a question of balancing the costs of such preservation with the value that the society attaches to the objects and the lifestyles preserved” …

“What is crucial for a rational asessment of such choice is the ability of the people to participate in  public discussions on the subject”

Will the power wielding elite give so much freedom for the populace? Did anyone ever give so much freedom to the public? More importantly is it possible to have time bound resolutions on such things?

Chilly – Sine and others

He then goes on to say that .. “there are more interrelations and more cross-cultural influences in the world than is typically acknowledged by those alarmed by the prospect of cultural subversion”

“Chili may be a central part of Indian cooking as we understand it, but it is also a fact that chili was unknown to India until the portugese brought it there only a few centuries ago”

On a similar note .. I remember reading on IE long back about Idli’s Indonesian links. I was able to dig out that article from my 2007 gmail chat logs :P .. quoting from that article:

“Hindu kings from Indonesia, a country where fermenting is quite common, often came to India between the 8th and the 12th centuries, looking for brides. The cooks with them, suggested Achaya, brought the technique that changed the character of this breakfast delight”

“Among many foreign ingredients that are now indistinguishably Indian include the tomato, the potato, the chilli and the cabbage”

I remember in 2007 i wanted to buy Achaya’s book and didn’t buy .. I think now i should! (As i was typing i realised 5yrs is way too long a wait for any book on the to-read list..so i bought one of his books on flipkart ;) ).That apart.. i also find this other book interesting “Curry: A Tale Of Cooks And Conquerors” .. Added to the to-read list.

So i also did some more research on vegetables inspired by the article and i found this table. Very funny it is. I cross-checked some of the vegetables..and it is really inspiring to know how much we have globalised :P .. So protectionism doesn’t really make sense.. Ofcourse like Gandhi said (refer below) we shouldn’t be blown off our feet ;).

And Sen doesn’t stop there.. (Yes.. i am still on track.. this post was about Sen’s book ;) ) . He says..

“The image of regional self-sufficiency in cultural matters is deeply misleading, and the value of keeping traditions pure and upolluted is hard to sustain”

“..some chauvinists in India have complained about the use of “Western” terminology in school curriculum, for example in modern mathematics. But the interrelations in the world of mathematics make it hard to know what is “Western” and what is not. To illustrate consider the term “sine” used in trigonometry, which came to India straight through the British, and yet in its genesis there is a remarkable Indian component”

“Aryabhata, an Indian mathematician and astronomer who lived in the fifth and early sixth centuries, discussed the concept of “sine,” and called it Jyanardha, or “half-chord,” in Sanskrit. From there the term migrated in an interesting way, as Howard Eves describes in An Introduction to the History of Mathematics: Aryabhata called it ardha-jya (“half-chord”) and jya-ardha (“chord-half”), and then abbreviated the term by simply using jya (“chord”). From jya the Arabs phonetically derived jiba, which, following Arabic practice of omitting vowels, was written as jb. Now jiba, aside from its technical significance, is a meaningless word in Arabic. Later writers who came across jb as an abbreviation for the meaningless word Jiba substituted Jaib instead, which contains the same letters, and is a good Arabic word meaning “cove” or “bay.” Still later, Gherardo of Cremona (ca. 1150), when he made his translations from the Arabic, replaced the Arabian jaib by its Latin equivalent, sinus [meaning a cove or a bay], from whence came our present word sine

“We must not lose our ability to understand one another and to enjoy the cultural products of different countries in the passionate advocacy of conservation and purity”

No words :P .. But i think he chose a convenient example ;) .. nevertheless this is a fun fact :D

He then also talks about traditions of skepticism and tolerance in the east. He talks about how the only firmly agnostic religion in the world i.e., Budhism is of Asian origin and about how strong athiestic arguments were there in the Indian Carvaka/Lokayata school of thought and how even Ramayana had some arguments on the folly of religious beliefs.

All in all a very entertaining 22 pages these! :)

Gandhi’s words on this actually are amazing i think and hits the target bang on..

“I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the culture of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.“

Like i had vented out my frustration on this topic sometime back :P .. i think a lot of us in Modern day India are now okie with being blown off feet by the culture of other lands.. infact i know some who have a contempt for the culture of this land .. that is what irritates me :P.. Else i am in total agreement with all that Sen says ;)

 

New year post

So 2012 has come in. Like most of my new years i spent the moment by having a nice 12hr sleep. Jan 1st morning i managed to finish Nsekuye Bizimana’s “White paradise Hell for africa?” and Amartya Sen’s “Development as freedom”. I know it is not really the best way to celebrate new year but suits me well ;). This post is about the Africa book :).

Rwanda and white paradise

Nsekuye bizimana’s book is set in the 1970s-80s. It is about his experiences in europe. He starts the book by giving a context of his upbringing in Rwanda, the culture of rwanda and africa at large and how his world changed once he moved to Europe for studies. He talks at length about how rwandans of his times were under the assumption that everything the “white”man does is inherently superior to their own ways. He goes to europe under the assumption that he would see a paradise up there and slowly realises that the industrial nations also have problems of their own and it is not like they are intellectually superior to the so called primitives in africa. He then makes a thorough critique about the one-size-fits-all approach followed by the power elite across africa in terms of imposing its ways much against the wishes of the indigenous populace.

A lot of the observations he makes are very relevant to our times. Especially Urban India vs Rural India perhaps. Some of his views are very naive and some include sweeping statements.. but that apart i thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. I will try and jot down some points that impressed me the most in the book. Btw this not to say that i am free of biases or prejudices .. it is just about my reflections on the author’s reflections :P

Modern Medicine: He talks about how the traditional african medicine was a preventive technique while the modern medicine he encountered first in Europe was a curative technique. The emphasis on making money by curing instead of teaching people how to prevent disease is a charectaristic of today’s medicine as we know it. I think this remains the central conflict in India as well.

Suicide: He also talks about how he seldom heard about suicide in Rwanda while it was very frequent in Germany. He finds it strange that the poor don’t commit suicide while the rich do. Well, i couldn’t find too many correlations on the wiki suicide statstics page.

But from my own experience i can say that in my world i hear of suicides only when someone fails to clear a competitive exam or when someone fails to survive in a competitive institute or when someone feels cheated in a relationship or finds the work too stressful. All these are mainly modern in nature.. this is not to say that traditional societies didnt see suicides. But i think the more individualist you become the less social support you get and hence when you feel lonely there is little respite.

Stress:He then goes on to talk about the higher levels of stress in modern day industrial life. I found a very very interesting article on the internet on this topic.. Stress, the bane of modern life… it is written in the french context but has got some very interesting observations for the rest of modern industrial world as well.

African Wildlife:

“For many Germans, Africa is simply a park with lots of forests and animals” .

“My fellow countrymen and I really did see these large African animals for the first time in the Frankfurt zoo”.

“It is also no exaggeration to say that 90% of the people of Rwanda, and of other African countries, have never seen a lion, leopard, tiger, elephant etc at all”.

“It is actually paradoxical that almost every European has seen African wild animals, whereas hardly any African has”.

Interesting stuff really, we always have our own prejudices about other cultures and societies and barely spare a thought about the realities. This instance is a telling reminder of that. Africa is not a zoo! :D

On Dogs:

“Our friend also could not explain the fact that German women discriminated against him just because he was black, but that the same women did not mind taking their dogs onto their laps and stroking them everywhere the whole time. He also found it very illogical and paradoxical that German dogs not only ate better than African children, but than the whole of African population“

Racism was widely prevalent in Europe, America and Southafrica uptil the 90s i think. Not to say that it is totally eliminated now. That said, even India had and continues to have its own flaours of untouchability. So may be every culture has its achilles heel.

Elsewhere, in the book he says that industrial societies have led to more and more lonely people who in turn look for solace in their pets i.e., dogs mainly. I found this article on a psychology website on this topic.. looking at that i can only say that things haven’t gotten any better now ;).

Alcohol, a national epidemic: He says the “problem” of alcohol is widespread across all industrial countries.He also says that initially a lot of his friends thought people drank because they had a lot of money and then later realised a lot of people drink alcohol on credit. He gives some stats about how alcohol consumption per person has increased four-fold in europe from 1950-82. To quote him verbatim here.. he says..

“Technical progress has made life easier for the whites in some respects, but it’s also created some problems. Many people cannot cope with these problems, and the reaction is to reach for the bottle“

Well, possible!. But i think some more research needs to be done on these patterns ;). I found this article on the net interesting about the history of alcohol consumption. I think again drawing from my own experience i can say that alcohol consumption among urban indian youth today is a lot more fashionable and commonplace than it was a decade ago perhaps. If you are in a B-school perhaps you can relate to this more ;). The percapita alcohol consumption map on wiki also may reveal some patterns. Historically speaking drinking alcohol is as old as the sun and moon perhaps .. but its excesses are much more evident today than before perhaps.So that is that :)

Loneliness: There is this one line by a character called Ursula which the author quotes multiple times in the book. That actually captures the realities of modern life..

“You see those crowds of people-Berlin has two million inhabitants-can you imagine how painful it is to feel alone in such a crowd? One feels like one to two million, in other words like nothing”

He says that many people in the modern world are “dead inside” from a long time and that “they are only moving body masses” .

He also says that

“One feels lonely when everybody is aware that you are sad, but still nobody approaches you to ask what the matter is. One feels lonely when one realises that one has to cope with these problems alone anyway“.

Depressing lines! .. But very true. I have been on both sides of this many times in my life already!

He also talks about how “lonely hearts” ads were unheard of in traditional africa while the newspapers in europe were full of them.His friends then put up some ads and get many serious replies. In some of these conversations they had, the people in tear and desperation tell them about how they had everything but “love” and “security”

Crisis in family: He talks about how in modern industrial societies.. the concept of extended families is slowly vanishing and everyone is living in smaller and smaller sets. He also talks about elder generation germans who question “Why bother having children? We look after them with heart and soul when they’re young and when they grow up they leave us“. I know many such families in “my India” today! :(

Work and loneliness: “A man who can think only of his career loves his work more than his wife or children.When he comes home, he is often so tired that he does not feel like talking to his wife, and instead, switches on the television and drinks his daily ration of alcohol. They live together and, at the same time, seperately. One hears of “loneliness together”“

Big Cities and Brutality: In this section he speaks of the “missing feeling of togetherness” in big cities. I am sure a lot of us who have been in big cities can relate to this.

Other themes explored include “Consumptions vs Happiness” “Sexual frustration” “Damage to environment” “Consumption of drugs” etc.A bit of history about Rwanda is also thrown in. He also talks at length about the right way to develop africa according to him. He talks about two african leaders and Mahatma gandhi for inspiration on this note. I particularly liked the stuff about Mwalimu Nyerere – Tanzania’s “Father of the nation”. Despite his failed economic policies i think Nyerere’s speeches are definitely very enlightening. The book also discusses at length about various issues like Urban-rural migration, Tension between the haves and have-nots etc.

All in all it is a  must-read for anyone interested in knowing more about the effects of colonisation on cultures. I also have added a couple of books my Frantz Fanon to the “Africa” folder in my to-read directory based on multiple references to his works in this book ;). Wiki says that he is “leading anti-colonial thinker of the 20th century” .. Umm.. not bad ;)