Harris Books and Literature Blog

  Something funny happened last Saturday at Panampilly Nagar Central Park , Kochi. There was a readers' gathering for silent reading planned by Kochi Book Reading Club at 4.30 PM. The group started one month ago and this was supposed to be the 4th meetup. But on the same day, Kochi Reads , a new similar group had planned its first gathering at 4 PM at the same venue. People who saw the announcements by the two groups turned up and started the silent reading session. Those who saw the Kochi Book Reading Club announcement thought the gathering was connected to that group. Similarly, those who saw the Kochi Reads announcement thought it was that group. So, two different groups gathered at the same place and sat together silently engrossed in their own books without knowing there were two separate groups. Anyway, it doesn't make much difference because the activity - each getting lost in the book in their hands - doesn't get affected by the book club's name. However, I wis...

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...