yes, there is a hope...

"The Tibetan book of the Dead" is translation work of Prof. Robert Thurman. This book is translation of "The Great Book of Natural Liberation through understanding in-between" or “The Bardo Thodol” in Tibetan. This is the translation of the original composition by Padma Sambhav. There are many translations of this great text. However as per the preface of The Dalai Lama, this one by the author is more realistic.  The book explains the phenomena of dying and is related to body of literature popular in Tibet which is similar in theme, and is kind of a manual for people who are facing the death of self or of dear ones. Death is one of the most mystic and researched topic in the world. There is no absolute truth, no explanation which can tell us to what happens after one person dies. This book attempts to tackle and explain the phenomenon with help of Tibetan Buddhism. So the book basically explains the in-between state, which refers to whole process between the death a...

  Why The Poor Don’t Kill Us  The Psychology of Indians  by Manu Joseph, published by Aleph Book Company in 2025. Before I put my own words in the blog, lets read the author's note which states,  “This book is about how Indians behave, narrowly by a mystery – why is there peace between the classes in one of the most unequal regions on earth?” Manu Joseph ( Here ) is an Indian writer, journalist and editor of Open magazine. Previously, he has written fictions and has long and illustrious literary career. As a reporter, he has covered many stories across the India and world. This book basically sums up his observations on such assignments and othwerwise and its analysis.   The author has divided this book into 18 chapters and in chapter 1, he deals with " Who is Poor ". Basically in India, we cannot have a definition what the world over is accepted and how it is governed by pure pragmatism where he gives some anecdote relating to his experience as reporter wh...

THE LUMUMBA PLOT  The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination  The race of one-upmanship between USA and USSR during the cold war era was heating up. The competing blocks fought for the supremacy in all aspects of life and at any cost. The roles of their agencies CIA and KGB was very crucial and is well documented in the now declassified files.  This book is written by Stuart A Reid who is executive editor of Foreign Affairs magazine and is now associated ith CFR.  It revolves around the Democratic Republic of Congo which was also known as Zaire for some time. The central African country is one of the largest country in the world criss-crossed by River Congo. The country was a  personal estate of King Leopold of Belgium before becoming the  colony of Belgium.  After a brief struggle, the country got its Independence on 30 June 1960 but due to absense of administrative machinery and institutions to support the sudden withdrawal of Belgian...

Every book for that matter offers others perspective about either fictional, or on worldly matters. Readers may agree or disagree with the content, opinion or even factual matrix presented by the author. Every reviewer over a period of time must have felt that it is difficult to reveiw few books because you become a participant in the writers journey and lose objectivity. Objectivity infact is not necessarily to be imposed on each and every aspect. Few reads are catharactic, few are enlightening and few are to be lived.   One such book which I completed recently is "Blaze : A Son's Trial by Fire" written by Nidhi Poddar and Sushil Poddar.   The book publised in 2021 by Rupa Books and is available in English, Hindi and Marathi edition.  It is worth mentioning that I've known the authors forehand before I've read the book so the book came as a shocker on knowing what they have gone through.  Its intriguing how people hide the emotions, the tumult they undergo and...

  Alexander the Great : The Man who didn't knew where to Stop. The book Alexander the Great written by Jacob Abbott and published by Fineprints Classic is a biography of one of the greatest military general and ruler in the recorded human history. In this book the author has tried to give a chronological introduction of Alexander. The book is written in descriptive style where major life events of Alexander have been touched upon.  Born in BC-356 to the King Philip of Macedon his mother was Olympias and she also belonged to Epirus empire. The uniqueness of the location of macedonia was that it was situated between Asia and Erurope. The Asiatic side was occupied by Persian , Assyrians and the Medes while the Europeans side was dominated by Greek and Romans. Both these sides were completely different in approach and organisations. The Asiatic side was wealthy, luxury driven while Eureopean side was full of energy, genius and force. Persians have huge army, horses, tents, fi...

OM SHANI SHANISCHARAYA NAMAH: The Greatness of Saturn by Robert E. Svaboda Robert Svaboda was a researcher who spent considerable time in India exploring Vedic literature, Yoga and Ayurveda. He came in touch with Swami Vimalananda and was inspired to translate the Shani Mahatmya which was previously published in Gujarati and Marathi. The book is divided into 3 parts namely:  Purvakarma : stage where one prepares oneself for experience  Pradhankarma : the experience  Paschatkarma: stage at which rejuvenation and integration occurs. You get the feel of the book from introduction itself as it introduces unique concept of Living wisdom. A living story is born when living wisdom incarnates in the subtle matter of a human consciousness. Real music, real verse, real stories have an innate power to teach, to heal and to inducs mystical experiences.  It then delves into knowledge as commodity of commerce and the symbols of internal reality which he states are dead from inside...

There are few books which don't need a review or comments but you desire everyone to read and digest them.  "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl was published by Rider publication in 1946. It was originally published as "From Death Camp to Existentialism".  The book is personal experience of the author who was a Jewish psychologist and sent to concentration camp during the Second World War by Nazis. The book is divided into 2 parts namely Experiences in Concentration Camp and Logotherapy, which has been propagated by the author as a new theory. He mentions 3 stages of the Prisoner's mental reaction on being admitted to the camp. The first phase: the period following his admission in the camp which is marked by shock. The second stage is when he is assimilated in the routine of the camp and it becomes his whole life marked by apathy, the main symptom of the second phase was a necessary mechanism of self-defence and the period following release f...

  The Courage to be Disliked       How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness  Written by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga,  published by Penguin is less of a self-help book and more of psychological analysis of our mind’s decision making process. The book introduces Alfred Adler, a psychology academician and thinker who forms a trio along with two other towering pillars of psychology namely Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. The bookwhich is in question-answer format, is discussion between a philosopher who had stern belief that the world is simple and happiness is achievable by everyone and his pupil who finds the world as chaotic and concepts of happiness as absurd. The book is divided into 5 chapters titled on the nights spent on discussions between the philosopher and pupil. In the first night, the discussion on Trauma and happiness is the key topic where philosopher states that everyone can be happy and trauma can be skipped. ...

OUTLIVE The Science and Art of Longevity by Dr. Peter Attia, Bill Gifford Penguin Random House, UK, 2023 The author is a practising medical professional who is not satisfied with the traditional medicinal appoach which he has described as Medicine 2.0 and propagated Medicine 3.0 apporach to humankind. The book is divided into 3 parts where part 1 deals with the introduction of the longevity history of the human race and need to intoduce Medicine 3.0 for the age of chronic diseases. Part 2 deals with the centenarians and attempts to find a causality between those who live 100+ years and their lifestyle along with discussion on the 3 main causes which he calls as "Horsemen diseases" and how they are impacting us. Part 3 basically discusses means and strategies to avoid aging as well as horsemen diseases.  The book is result of years of knowledge gathered by the writer in dealing with patients and his pursuit to find one of the oldest and trickiest question ie. how to approach l...

      Being Mortal : Atul Gawande  Medicine and What Matters in the End A guide of death and what happens before. There is emergence of literature which is discussing the prior death experiences which was not much talked about previously. Paul Kalanithi's "When breath becomes Air" was recommended to me by an oncologist but haven't followed that genre for long.  I picked up  Being Mortal : Atul Gawande published by Penguin Books  recently and this was my first book of Dr. Gawande's literature who has mostly written on medicine and its interaction with humans. The book talks about the need to talk about detah and how medical profession is failing to keep up with the idea of dignified death and harps upon artficial life elongation instead of focussing on quality of life. The author banks upon his own experiences as a physician based in USA and near experiences of his father who himself was a doctor and develops cancer after 7 decades of healthy lif...

Calcutta : Maa Asche                You can be nostalgic about the city anytime. While having tea missing your Lal cha, Sandesh craving at evenings or malai toast at Faltu or Kalakand of Kaka Tea. Come Puja (Pujo to be precise) and you miss that Pujo fever in the air with mind retrieving the memories cherished in the city for years and seems like “aaj hi Calcutta chala jaata hu.” To add the WhatsApp statuses of friends and Insta reels of Pujo Pandals of Chetla Agrani and Shreebhumi extract a piece of heart from you.                Come Pujo and we see Kolkata transforming itself with whole city lit with best of lighting right from Airport to Howrah Bridge with sea of humans in between which means famous Pujo Pandal is in vicinity. The Deshapriya Park Pujo unveiled world’s biggest Thakur (idol in Bangla) in 2015 till 2022 the Pujo has constantly enriched itslef with latest being getting the recogn...