V.S. Naipaul does not like Hemingway, Austen, Joyce, Forster, Dickens, James...

Sir V.S. Naipaul gives delightful copy when he speaks of other writers. This newsitem from the BBC tells us of the writers he dislikes: Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Henry James ("the worst writer in the world") it also tells us the names of those he likes: H.G.Wells, Mark Twain, Harold Pinter.
He also speaks of how he never got the recognition he deserved in England ("England has not appreciated or acknowledged the work I have done." )
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And this is a link to the interview given to Farrukh Dhondy for The Literary Review. Interesting to note that he admires the Indian writer of English origin Ruskin Bond.

Another Hollywood movie on the math genius Srinivasa Ramanujan.

In 1991 Robert Kanigel's biography of the Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar titled The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan was published. It became immensely popular in India and most readers who like science writing picked up a copy. I am one of those who did so. So it is thrilling to read that producer Edward R Pressman has acquired the movie rights to this book. He and screenwriter-director Matthew Brown are about to start work on the film soon. This news comes just a few days after we came to know that the Indian director Dev Benegal and British thespian and Cambridge graduate Stephen Fry are collaborating on a film on the Ramanujan-Hardy freindship. Film lovers, math lovers and Indophiles will eagerly await the release of these two films. Ramanujan had done more in his brief life than most mathematicians can do in a life ten times as long. It is good that Hollywood has finally discovered him. Do the references to him in Matt Damon's Good Will Hunting have something to do with this?
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The article in sify.com through which I came to know of this new film.
My blog entry on the Benegal-Fry collaboration.
I liked this site on Ramanujan.

The first conviction and imprisonment for female foeticide in India

After five years of litigation a court has sentenced a doctor in Palwal, Haryana to jail for having disclosed the sex of an unborn baby and offering to destroy it. In 2001 a government team had sent a decoy customer to the clinic of Dr. Anil Sabhani's clinic. They had taken an audio recording of the doctor's disclosure of the foetus' sex and his offering to destroy it. Dr. Rekha Mishra and Dr. Paul Mendiratta who form part of the government team told NDTV that they were under pressure from various quarters to drop the case. Hats off to them for persevering. May their tribe increase. The unborn Indian girl child needs friends like Mishra and Mendiratta.

My mind goes back to some incidents I have seen or heard about:

When I was a pre-teen living in a colony of Army officers in Alwar, Rajasthan I remember a middle aged Lieutenant and his family. His age and that of his family members indicated that he had been promoted from the ranks. If I am not wrong when we reached Alwar he and his wife had three daughters. We left Alwar for Shillong three and a half years later. At that time they had seven daughters and no son. Those were the days when we did not have ultrasound machines. I wonder whether he continued trying for the son he wanted so badly .

I remember hearing about another case where a wife was given some medication to destroy a seven month old foetus in her womb. When the dead child was delivered it turned out to be a boy. The ultrasound machine had erred. They had been told that the foetus was female. The poor lady lost her sanity as she had been under immense pressure from her husband and in-laws to deliver a male child after two daughters, or else.

I remember congratulating an acquaintance when he told me that his wife had given birth to a baby girl. He looked at me in a strange sort of way. "You shouldn't have done that," said a friend "he is going through a lot of trauma as he hasn't got a son."

A friend told me that her father was mocked when he distributed sweets when she was born and also when her sisters were born. I went through the same experience when my nieces were born and I distributed sweets. Many were unable to understand why I was distributing sweets but I must say that there were many who were very happy that I did so.

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The NDTV link.

Unknown Iraqi woman's blog nominated for Samuel Johnson prize.

Baghdad Burning . A girl blog from Iraq has been nominated for the Samuel Johnson prize. The $52,000 Samuel Johnson prize, established by BBC Four in December 1998, is the world's richest literary prize for non-fiction. This unknown lady writes under the name of Riverbend. She started the blog on August 17, 2003. According to the blog she had worked as a computer programmer but had to give up her job as it became unsafe for women to venture out of their houses. Her blog is on the longlist of 168 entries. This includes Alan Bennett's Untold Stories. Her blog has been categorised under biography and memoir. Let us see whether this blog through which she tells us of her fear and anger through 'three years of occupation and bloodshed' wins the coveted award. I am sure that U.S. Army officials must be reading her blog with intensity. Nothing like knowing what the other side thinks. What if the internet had been around the way it is today during the Vietnam War era?
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About the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.

Stanislaw Lem, eminent writer of sci-fi, is no more.

"We don't want to conquer space at all. We want to expand Earth endlessly. We don't want other worlds; we want a mirror." - Dr. Snaut, a character in Lem's most famous novel Solaris.
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Stanislaw Lem. Born Sept 12 1921. Died March 27 2006, aged 84. Lem was born in a town named Lwow which was in Poland at that time. It is presently in Ukraine and is known as Lviv. He wanted to become a doctor like his father but his medical studies were interrupted by the German invasion of 1941.He became a garage mechanic who specialised in sabotaging German Army vehicles in such way that it would take some time for the faults to be discovered.He resumed his medical studies in 1944.

He wrote his debut novel Czlowiek z Marsa (A Man from Mars) in 1946. It was published in several episodes in a magazine. In 1946 he took admission at the Jagiellonian University to study medicine. In 1948 he started writing his novel starts writing his first novel Szpital Przemienienia (Hospital of the Transfiguration). He tasted literary success for the first time through his first published work Astronauci (The Astronauts, 1951). In 1953 he married M.D. Barbara Lesniak, a radiologist. His novel Czas nieutracony (Time not lost) was a well written account of life in Poland under the Nazis. It was through his work Solaris (1961) that his genius was discovered. This was translated into English in 1970.

Two movie versions were made of this book. One by the Russian genius Andrei Tarkovsky(1972) and the other by Stephen Soderbergh (2002). Soderbergh described Solaris as a combination of “2001” and “Last Tango in Paris.” Lem himself was amused by the "childish" manner in which American film critics grade films as if they were checking term papers of American school kids. On December 8th 2002 he had written that "the book was not dedicated to erotic problems of people in outer space... " He had concluded his article with these words "...as Solaris' author I shall allow myself to repeat that I only wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that certainly exists, in a mighty manner perhaps, but cannot be reduced to human concepts, ideas or images. This is why the book was entitled Solaris and not Love in Outer Space."

Lem's books were translated into forty languages and sold over 27 million copies. All his works were not translated into English.According to philosopher and science writer Douglas Hofstadter, Lem used the vehicle of well written fiction to convey deep philosophical truths. Lem was able to fool the authorities with his fiction. What they thought to be simple and innocent fiction was in fact highly subversive writing.
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Links
Click here to read his obituary in TimesOnline .
Stanislaw Lem's official site .
Biographical information from kirjasto.
Link to imdb entry on Solyaris (Tarkovsky).
Link to imdb entry on Solaris (Soderbergh).

Buying a rainforest in order to protect it

When I read this newsitem in The Times of India I felt very pleased. I also felt that somebody had stolen my idea. Honest, I did. I had been thinking that if citizens of affluent countries can buy 'green shares' in the wildlife sanctuaries of India we would be able to pump in a lot of money into conservation efforts and keep a lot of our flora and fauna safe. That is exactly what Johan Eliasch, a British businessman, has done. He has gone ahead and bought 400,000 acres of land in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. He has invited scientists to come and study the biodiversity in his 'garden'. There will be critics of such schemes. But if the governments of countries such as Brazil are strict such sales will definitely create more and more green areas on the globe. This idea should be tried out in India. It can be done on a modest scale. Any young Indian with an ecological bent of mind would love to donate a small amount, say Rs. 1000, if she/he knows that the money will be well spent. Click here to read more about Johan Eliasch's green venture. May his tribe increase.
p.s. A few minutes after posting this blog entry I happened to read this news article in BBC News about a citizens' initiative which has saved a lake in Bangalore.

Thus Spake Albert Einstein

Happened to see these quotes of Albert Einstein. I don't think I can comprehend his physics but his quotes are something which every person can understand and enjoy. Here are a few from the many I read plus a link (I must admit that the link is for me, so that I can click and enjoy his words whenever I want):

* A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.


* Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius-and a lot of courage-to move in the opposite direction.


* Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

And here is the link.

Kesarbai Kerkar's songs on Holi

Today is Rangpanchami, the fifth day of Holi. In the evening I accidentally picked up a CD of the songs of Kesarbai Kerkar (1892-1977) titled living music from the past Kesarbai Kerkar from my collection of CDs. This CD has been brought out by underscore records . The music was originally on 78 rpm gramophone records. I remember reading about this online music shop in Outlook magazine and Kesarbai's CD was the first, and so far only, album I have bought from this site. So as the songs started playing I realised to my delight that the fifth and sixth tracks were on the festival of colours, i.e. Holi. These tracks are Aab To Khel le Phag (Kafi Hori) and Kaheko Daari Gulalre Brijraj Aaj Kanhaiya (Raag Bhairavi). With each track lasting more than 11 minutes it was almost half an hour of sheer listening pleasure. An unplanned treat. The very best.
p.s. Do visit the site of underscore records and take a look at the music they are offering.

Dev Benegal and Stephen Fry on Hardy and Ramanujan

Dev Benegal and Stephen Fry are collaborating on a film on Srinivasa Ramanujan and GH Hardy's friendship. I felt thrilled when I read this news in the Hindustan Times. A google search led me to Dev Benegal's blog which was also quiet thrilling. Am sure lovers of good cinema won't be the only ones who will enjoy this Dev Benegal - Stephen Fry jugalbandhi on the Hardy - Ramanujan jugalbandhi. Most of us have read about the incident where Hardy visits an ailing Ramanujan at Putnam and tells him that the number of the taxi he travelled in, 1729, was a rather uninteresting number. It was as if Hardy had asked for it. Ramanujan's reply is part of science folklore today. "No," he had replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways." Mathematicians are a strange breed are they not? And more so if they are explorers in the field of pure mathematics. Cinema has been rather unfair to Ramanujan. The success of films on John Nash and films like Good Will Hunting means that there is an audience for films on those who live in the rather esoteric world of mathematics. But then in the final analysis some people make good films and some don't. I pray that this one is a good film. Am sure that it will be.

Exam Stress and Children

I feel very sad when I hear of schoolchildren committing suicide due to exam stress. Something is awfully wrong if a young person has to take her/his life because of some silly exam. Parents and teachers must introspect. I happened to see the following quotation in a much thumbed copy of The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Quotations which I had bought more than ten years ago: "Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer." - Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832). The words of this British clergyman and writer do make a lot of sense. Every school and college teacher and parent must memorise these words. It will do a lot of good. No exam is worth a life.