Harris Books and Literature Blog

In Why I Am a Hindu by Shashi Tharoor, the author sort of answers the question in the title in the first chapter itself. In other words, if you are looking for a brief answer to the question 'Why I Am a Hindu' posed in the title, you only need to read this part of the book. The remainder of the book constitutes a comprehensive commentary on Hinduism, which may also be considered an elaboration of his abovementioned answer in the initial chapter. His answer could be summarized in the below words which appear in a later part of the book. Buy on Amazon “I too, as a Hindu, can say, when people tell me ‘ Garv se kaho ki tum Hindu ho ’, that I am proud to be a Hindu, but in what is it that we are to take pride? I take pride in the openness, the diversity, the range, the lofty metaphysical aspirations of the Vedanta; of the various ways in which Hinduism is practised, eclectically, and of its extraordinary acceptance of differences. Unfortunately, as I have noted, the votaries of Hin...

‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ is a memoir by Viktor E Frankl, a Jewish Austrian psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor. It summarizes his observations of people, including himself, suffering in Hitler’s concentration camps and what psychological impacts the bitter experiences there had on them. He keenly studies the transformations of the minds of prisoners and classifies their mental and spiritual states over time into different stages with the help of his professional knowledge. He even explains how bizarre it turns out with certain prisoners finding it hard to cope with a free life when they manage to be free after many years of captivity in the camps, as torment had become their norm. Buy from Amazon He emphasizes that men (read men and women) need a purpose to life, something to live for, even if it’s something imaginary, to overcome the hardships of such environments and survive through the torture and agony. He says those who succumb to the suffering are doomed while those who find...

  ( Buy on Amazon ) I haven't liked much of whatever I have read of M T Vasudevan Nair’s fiction so far, except Naalukettu , especially because of its ending, and one of his short stories. And every time I read one of his books, I sincerely hope I would like it. However, it's only now that I’ve found a novel by him I can honestly say I love and admire. This book Manju (Mist) is different from most of his other works; the story doesn't take place in Kerala but in an exotic Nainital, and perhaps this is his only novel with a female protagonist. It’s not a novel, but a novella with sixty-odd pages and is sweet like a little melancholic poem. Vimala is a boarding school resident teacher in Nainital who stays in the school quarters even during the summer vacation when all the students and staff leave for home. She hardly visits her family. It's the end of winter and the start of the tourist season where Vimala sometimes talks to the boy known as 'Buddhu' who operate...

  Buy on Amazon The book  Kochikkar  (Kochiites) by Bony Thomas is an enquiry into the lives, customs, religious practices, traditions, languages, beliefs, and stories of tens of ethno-religious communities inhabiting Cochin (Kochi), which by the earlier definition comprises the twin neighbourhoods of Fort Cochin and Mattancherry occupying an area of four and a half square kilometers. Despite having been born and growing up here, I only had a superficial understanding of these diverse communities, partly because I lacked the curiosity and inquisitiveness of an outsider. The pages of this book helped me have a deeper look into their lives. For instance, though I knew the area where Konkanis lived, I used to be puzzled why they had at least three temples within an area of a radius of merely fifty metres. Now I do know; though I see all Konkanis as one, they are themselves divided into sub communities based on caste and live their separate lives, which is practically invisib...

Buy from Amazon A maniac sadistic criminal, who goes by the alias Wolf, is on the loose, but hiding in the dark. He is set out on a personal project of blowing up some bridges and city centres in places like Washington, DC; London; Paris; and Tel Aviv. He would inform authorities in advance of the time each incident would occur and that it could be avoided if they paid a hefty ransom and released some political prisoners. Alex Cross moves from country to country chasing Wolf. The story starts with the bombing of an entire mobile-home park in Sunrise Valley, Nevada. It is mostly a free-flowing story. Of course, it has its twists and turns, yet not that thrilling. There is an element of suspense from the beginning to the end concerning who Wolf is and many speculations and investigations to uncover his identity. However, there is hardly anything intriguing enough that tempts you to move from chapter to chapter. I couldn’t help comparing it throughout the read with some other thrillers ...

"You considered neither 'faggot' nor 'homo' nor 'queer' as slurs because you were none of these things. You were simply a handsome man who enjoyed beautiful boys" - The Seven Moon of Maali Almeida , Shehan Karunatilaka Buy from Amazon I feel this quote is simple yet stunningly beautiful (not for its homosexuality content) because it points to the meaninglessness of naming and defining things and how far names and definitions could be away from the truth. It mocks compartmentalizations and isms and rips straitjackets. Your emotions and the essence of your existence are dynamic and fluctuating every moment as the universe itself (And concerning 'moment' I'm yet to know if it is a second or a millisecond or a femtosecond or even smaller). By the time you call someone gay, their mind might have slipped into some other shade of sexuality or even one of the million subtle nuances of being gay itself. Language fails and is inadequate as it cannot ...