TO GET:
Life A Users Manual by Georges Perec (perhaps the greatest 20th century novel)
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers (captures Oxford high-table small-talk wonderfully)
An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears (also Oxford but in the 1660s)
Death of a Salesperson by Robert Barnard (who is at his best in short stories like these)
The Haj by Leon Uris (great to read on a trip to Israel)
Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk (in-depth characters plus a whole philosophy)
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee (applied biochemistry in the kitchen)
Food by Waverley Root (his magnum opus, a wonderful history of everything delicious)
The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth (the Great California Novel, entirely in 14-line sonnets)
The Age of Faith by Will Durant (volume 4 of his series covers the years 325--1300)
Efronia by Stina Katchadourian (diaries and letters of a remarkable Armenian woman)
The Man Who Knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel (biographies of Ramanujan and Hardy)
Hackers by Steven Levy (incredibly well written tale of our times)
The Abominable Man by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (one of their brilliantly Swedish detective novels)
AdamSmith—Wealth of Nations
Aldous Huxley--Point Counter Point and Brave New World
Revenue Stamp: An Autobiography by Amrita Pritam
Marriage and Morals -- by Bertrand Russell Russell
DOKTOR ZHIVAGO by Boris (Leonidovich) Pasternak
Inside India Today by Dilip Hiro
Lady Chatterley's Lover -- by D.H. Lawrence
Sons and Lovers (Signet Classics (Paperback)) -- by D.H. Lawrence
GERMINAL by Emile Zola
The Rainbow (Modern Library Classics) -- by D.H. Lawrence, Keith Cushman (Introduction)
Women in Love (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by D. H. Lawrence
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Trans. Edward Fitzgerald Omar Khayyam
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1-3: Volumes 1, 2, 3 -- by Edward Gibbon
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Pygmalion and Major Barbara (Bantam Classics) by George Bernard Shaw
Man and Superman (Penguin Classics) by George Bernard Shaw, et al
Middlemarch (Penguin Classics) by George Eliot, Rosemary Ashton
The Mill on the Floss (Penguin Classics) by George Eliot, A. S. Byatt
Silas Marner (Bantam Classics) by George Eliot
1984 by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Prison Diary by Jayaprakash Narayan, Amritlal B. Shah
An autobiography; Glimpses of world history; The discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru
The Age of Reason: A Novel (Vintage International) by Jean-Paul Sartre
The Seven Lamps of Architecture by John Ruskin
KAMALA DAS’S MY STORY
Das Kapital, New Edition by Karl Marx
Mother India by Katherine Mayo
Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins, Dominique Lapierre
War and Peace (Penguin Classics) by Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina (Modern Library Classics) by Leo Tolstoy
"Roses in December" Mr. M C Chagla
My Own Boswell by HIDAYATULLAH
The Men Who Killed Gandhi by Malgonkar, Manohar
Nelson Rolihlahla MANDELA:. The Struggle Is My Life
She Stoops to Conquer (Dover Thrift Editions) by Oliver Goldsmith
The Importance of Being Earnest (Dover Thrift Editions) by Oscar Wilde
My Music My Life by Ravi Shankar
Piloo Mody--- Zulfi, My Friend
Kanthapura and The Serpent and the Rope by Raja Rao
Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses, The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie
Complete Adventures of Feluda Volume 1 by Satyajit Ray
Our Films Their Films by Satyajit Ray
Sri Aurobindo's the life divine
Sunny days: An autobiography by Sunil Manohar Gavaskar
The Waste Land (Norton Critical Editions) by T. S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler
Future Shock by Alvin Toffler
Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Power at the Edge of the 21st Century by Alvin Toffler
In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies
Inscrutable American-----Amitav ghosh
UNCOMMON WISDOM by Fritjof Capra
The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal by Desmond Morris
Man watching: A Field Guide to Human Behavior by Desmond Morris
The Naked Woman: A Study of the Female Body by Desmond Morris
A Suitable Boy: Novel, A by Vikram Seth
A Wounded Civilization: VS Naipaul
An Area of Darkness : VS Naipaul
If I am Assassinated by ZA Bhutto
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
This is a beautiful love letter which I came across in "Message in a bottle"
--------
My Dearest Catherine,
I miss you my darling as I always do, but today is especially hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together. I cam almost feel you beside me as I write this letter, and I can smell the scent of wildflowers that always reminds me of you. But at this moment, these things give me no pleasure. Your visits have been coming less often, and I feel sometimes as if the greatest part of who I am is slowly slipping away.
I am trying, though. At night when I am alone, I call for you, and whenever my ache seems to be the greatest, you still seem to find a may to return to me. Last night, in my dreams, I saw you on the pier near Wrightsville Beach. The wind was blowing through your hair, and your eyes held the fading sun light. I am struck as I see you leaning against the rail. You are beautiful, I think I see you, a vision that I can never find in anyone else. I slowly begin to walk toward you, and when you finally turn to me, I notice that others have been watching you as well. "Do you know her?" they ask me in jealous whispers, and as you smile at me, I simply answer back with the truth. "Better than my own heart."
I stop when I reach you and take you in my arms. I long for this moment more than any other. It is what I live for, and when you return my embrace, I give myself over to this moment, at peace once again.
I raise my head and gently touch your cheek and you tilt your head and close your eyes. My hands are hard and your skin is soft, and I wonder for a moment if you'll pull back, but of course you don't. You never have, and it is at times like this that I know what my purpose is in life.
I am here to love you, to hold you in my arms, to protect you. I am here to learn from you and to receive your love in return. I am here because there is no other place to be.
But then, as always, the mist starts to form as we stand close to one another. It is a distant fog that rises from the horizon, and I find that I grow fearful as it approaches. It slowly creeps in, enveloping the world around us, fencing us in as if to prevent escape. Like a rolling cloud, it blankets everything, closing, until there is nothing left but the two of us.
I feel my throat begin to close and my eyes well-up with tears because I know it is time for you to go. The look you give me at that moment haunts me. I feel your sadness and my own loneliness, and the ache in my heart that had been silent for only a short time grows stronger as you release me. And then you spread your arms and step back into the fog because it is your place and not mine. I long to go with you, but your only response is to shake your head because we both know that is impossible.
And I watch with breaking heart as you slowly fade away. I find myself straining to remember everything about this moment, everything about you. But soon, always too soon, your image vanishes and the fog rolls back to its faraway place and I am alone on the pier and I do not care what others think as I bow my head and cry and cry and cry.
Garrett
--------
My Dearest Catherine,
I miss you my darling as I always do, but today is especially hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together. I cam almost feel you beside me as I write this letter, and I can smell the scent of wildflowers that always reminds me of you. But at this moment, these things give me no pleasure. Your visits have been coming less often, and I feel sometimes as if the greatest part of who I am is slowly slipping away.
I am trying, though. At night when I am alone, I call for you, and whenever my ache seems to be the greatest, you still seem to find a may to return to me. Last night, in my dreams, I saw you on the pier near Wrightsville Beach. The wind was blowing through your hair, and your eyes held the fading sun light. I am struck as I see you leaning against the rail. You are beautiful, I think I see you, a vision that I can never find in anyone else. I slowly begin to walk toward you, and when you finally turn to me, I notice that others have been watching you as well. "Do you know her?" they ask me in jealous whispers, and as you smile at me, I simply answer back with the truth. "Better than my own heart."
I stop when I reach you and take you in my arms. I long for this moment more than any other. It is what I live for, and when you return my embrace, I give myself over to this moment, at peace once again.
I raise my head and gently touch your cheek and you tilt your head and close your eyes. My hands are hard and your skin is soft, and I wonder for a moment if you'll pull back, but of course you don't. You never have, and it is at times like this that I know what my purpose is in life.
I am here to love you, to hold you in my arms, to protect you. I am here to learn from you and to receive your love in return. I am here because there is no other place to be.
But then, as always, the mist starts to form as we stand close to one another. It is a distant fog that rises from the horizon, and I find that I grow fearful as it approaches. It slowly creeps in, enveloping the world around us, fencing us in as if to prevent escape. Like a rolling cloud, it blankets everything, closing, until there is nothing left but the two of us.
I feel my throat begin to close and my eyes well-up with tears because I know it is time for you to go. The look you give me at that moment haunts me. I feel your sadness and my own loneliness, and the ache in my heart that had been silent for only a short time grows stronger as you release me. And then you spread your arms and step back into the fog because it is your place and not mine. I long to go with you, but your only response is to shake your head because we both know that is impossible.
And I watch with breaking heart as you slowly fade away. I find myself straining to remember everything about this moment, everything about you. But soon, always too soon, your image vanishes and the fog rolls back to its faraway place and I am alone on the pier and I do not care what others think as I bow my head and cry and cry and cry.
Garrett
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Far away in the moon light
An over-whelming sight
Dim and dark mountains spread
their grace; Her beauty unshred
I sit back in my chair at nine
With her and a glass of wine,
Beind the shadow of fire-light
With my lucite pen to write
Flowers shed their fragrance
Birds flocking to their nests
I long for the right word quests
I opt this time for pleasance
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~nirvana
An over-whelming sight
Dim and dark mountains spread
their grace; Her beauty unshred
I sit back in my chair at nine
With her and a glass of wine,
Beind the shadow of fire-light
With my lucite pen to write
Flowers shed their fragrance
Birds flocking to their nests
I long for the right word quests
I opt this time for pleasance
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~nirvana
Friday, September 02, 2005
Dear Friend
I wish I call you,For the times that last,
And relish the moments we had in the past;
I wish I knock at your door
And say Hi to you and the other four
Running this rat race for living,
Of late I realised is no winning
I wish I steal time for us,
For our friendship is endless
Today I met the other four
But learnt that you're no more
I wish I knock at your door!
I wish!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~nirvana
I wish I call you,For the times that last,
And relish the moments we had in the past;
I wish I knock at your door
And say Hi to you and the other four
Running this rat race for living,
Of late I realised is no winning
I wish I steal time for us,
For our friendship is endless
Today I met the other four
But learnt that you're no more
I wish I knock at your door!
I wish!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~nirvana
Thursday, September 01, 2005
The Moon swings back to elope
A charm of Humming birds Fly, quick
In the air above,as high as hope
When I listen to their Sound of Music
I sit beside the lake
My gaze transfixed in the fire
Ever young is the ripe flake
When my heart pounds with desire
Have seen many-a-few,
Whose words are a honey dew;
My heart wanders for her love
I need a metaphor for my dove
Alone leaves me my mate
In the woods of desire
All day I eagerly wait
And sigh my breath in the mire
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~nirvana
A charm of Humming birds Fly, quick
In the air above,as high as hope
When I listen to their Sound of Music
I sit beside the lake
My gaze transfixed in the fire
Ever young is the ripe flake
When my heart pounds with desire
Have seen many-a-few,
Whose words are a honey dew;
My heart wanders for her love
I need a metaphor for my dove
Alone leaves me my mate
In the woods of desire
All day I eagerly wait
And sigh my breath in the mire
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~nirvana
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