Overload- Arthur Hailey

Anybody who have read Arthur Hailey comes away not only entertained, but also a mini expert. His books are as much about the system as they are about individuals. Hailey takes takes a public utility service- be it banks, airport,hotel, electric companies etc and fashions a thriller around its elements. You have a feeling that the whole system is the main character with the humans thrown in as fillers.

Overload is based on electricity companies. California's primary electric utility is running out of electric power, and unless new projects are commissioned the state would run out of energy. The power utility has identified new project sites, but they have a tough battle ahead of them, in the form of environmental groups and hostile regulatory bodies. This situation is valid all over the globe and has its relevance more so in countries like India and China whose economies are developing at a scorching pace- do they focus on development, or should they temper the pace by getting a little careful of the environment. Both points of view have their passionate followers with perfectly justified opinions, but as the Buddha says, we have to take the middle way out.

I am digressing, so here is the rest of the story. The opposition to the planned projects have not only come from established and respected NGOs, but also from shadier elements. Simultaneously, a string of potentially destructive explosions in power plans have wreaked havoc on the electricity grid. Hailey takes us deep into field of supply chain logistics of electricity companies, and gives out some surprising nuggets. What measures are in place, for example for sensitive areas like hospitals where patients depend on regular electric supply to keep life saving medical equipment like incubators and heart lung machines running? And for disabled people who stay at home, but depend on electricity to keep their life support equipment like respirators running smoothly? Hailey is a master for these things, details as well as the big picture. Things proceed at a fast pace, typical of a Hailey thriller and in the end....no wait, I am not going to spoil the ending. You have to read the book and find out

The Simoquin Prophecies-Samit Basu

This is how a spoof should be .You stay nearly as faithful to the original storyline without bringing in the original characters and you don't make silly attempts at humor.It has got to be subtle.

The Simoquin Prophecies is not for the uninitiated.Samit Basu has basically used the Lord Of the Rings as a base of his book.It has several colorful characters and situations resembling Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men,a Hogwarts type magical school with magicians and spell binders .Also included is the ramayana,mahabharata,Egyptyian sphinxes and pharaoahs ,genies from the arabian desert and singing sirens who lure sailors to their deaths , fighting monks who closely resemble those in the Shaolin temple along with a dollop of Celtic representation in the form of a mysterious cicle of half broken stone megaliths(no prizes for guessing what I am referring to).And guess what,you can see movies and have real time aerial reconaissance

After a hero is found to defeat the dark lord who will supposedly wake up after lying defeated for two hundred years,he is sent on various quests to equip himself for the final showdown.Another young man,gifted with extraordinary powers of whch he had little knowledge till recently embarks on a journey to uncover his identity, and in the process dicover dangerous secrets.Forget the plot,just go along with the flow.

The Glass Palace-Amitav Ghosh

That Amitav Ghosh is a master wordsmith no one should be left in any doubt after this novel. An extensively researched historical fiction spread over three generations and from the annexation of Burma by thr British to the WWII. As the king of Burma is exiled to Ratnagiri in India an orphan Rajkumar sees a young girl named Dolly among the royal servants. The whole novel is based on the lifetime quest of Rajkumar for Dolly.Breathtaking in its cast of caracters and places, it stretches from the dark dense teak forests of Burma to the palaces of Calcutta to the mango gardens of Ratnagiri.The poignant story of the long march of thousands of refugees through the malaria infested trails of upper Assam ahead of the Japanese and also the Indian National Army -and its heavy casualties,wretchedness of the refugees- is conjured up so realistically that you can almos see tthe long dragging lines. In other words a wordpicture .

According to the autor this novel has been a labour of love for him.Sweat and toil ,blood and tears.A trivia-while reaearching for the Burma part of the story the author was fired upon.So the blood part is also literal !!

Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts

One of the best books I 've ever read.Reading this reinforces the power of the human will to overcome any problem life throws up.This is esentially a fable of loyalty,friendship, love and acceptance of an alien culture.

Roberts is an escaped felon covicted of armed robbery in Australia.He lands in Bombay and engages a guide named Prabhkar.They soon became friends and when he is robbed of everything,Prabhkar offers him space in the slum where he stays.Going about under an assumed name he falls in with a group of Europeans and Indians at the Leopold's bar-Didier the hard drinking flamboyant French,Karla an enigmatic Swiss-German with a past,Ulla a German prostitute and a few others.In the slum he set up a free clinic and also becomes friends with a powerful don.After incurring the hostility of a powerful prostitute mistress,he spend time in one of the toughest Indian jails,starved,beaten and tortured within a inch of his life.Fluent in Hindi and Marathi,rare for a gora,he worked in various illegal activities like gold smuggling,passport counterfeiting and money laundering.He acted in bit pieces in Bollywood and accompanied the don to the jihad in Afganistan,smuggling guns and supplies.It costs the life of his benefactor and half dead and severly decimated group returned to India through Pakistan where they were wanted by the ISI.Coming back to Bombay,he witnesses the dead don's faction regainnig power in the factional fight.On top of all that ,he falls in and out of life.

For an ordinary mortal,this is the stuff of several lifetimes.But Linbaba or Lin ,the name by which he goes by in the underworld packs it into eight short years.Roberts is an instinctive storyteller.He has you hooked from the first page to the last and you would never know when time flies while reading it.And the most significant insight into Roberts' character is that his two earlier six hundred page manuscripts of the book were destroyed by prison guards.
This book is the basis of a Hollywood movie with the central role played by Johnny Depp.

Engaging India-Diplomacy,Democracy and the Bomb by Strobe Talbott

On May 11 ,1998 India firmly made its nuclear ambitions clear when it detonated nuclear devices in Pokhran.These detonations shook the world and their after affects are still being felt today.Shortly afterwards Pakistan also flexed its nuclear muscles at Chagai,thus making the Indian subcontinent with three confirmed NWS(nuclear weapon states including a member of P-5) the densest nuclear armed place in world.These tests upset the non proliferation regime applecart,isolated India in the comity of nations and also exposed flaws in American surveillance.The whole situaution required deft diplomacy and dialogue and that was what Strobe Talbott ,the Deputy Secretary of State under Clinton and Jaswant Singh,then foreign minister accomplished.These epic talks between the two estranged diplomacies,which were unprecedented in their scope and results spanned 21 meetings,14 countries and 3 continents.They resulted in the hugely sucessful visit to India by Clinton.To understand India's nuclear politics,the ways of international diplomacy and the future of Indo-American relations read this book.The tumultous events of Kargil war viewed at the American end,overthrow of Nawaz Sharif by Musharraf and also negotiations with the Pakistanis regarding their nuclear arsenal are also described.Some previously unconfirmed rumors about how the Americans pressurised Narashima Rao not to test in 1995 and how close the BJP led coalition was to ordering a test during their first rule of 13 days are also confirmed

Is New York Burning- Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins

This book is the latest effort by these two world famous writers.The first time I was exposed to Collins and Lapierre was when I read O Jerusalem. No other book I had read had been researched to such an extent .It was almost like I was witnessing the bloody struggle for the Holy Land simultaneously from the eyes of the principal actors. After that came Freedom at Midnight and City of Joy. But I guess these matters have to be addressed in subsequent posts.

Unlike most of the pair’s books, this one is a fiction. It also stands apart from their earlier collaborations in that it is set in the aftermath of 9/11 while the others are historical in nature. Set in the Presidential palace of Saddam Hussein just before the American invasion, in the lair of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and the teeming streets of New York, this book treats one scenario in the fight against terror-that of the dirty bomb. Unlike the traditional nukes which requires extremely specialized training for handling and arming, a dirty bomb can be easily fabricated. Wrap some conventional explosive around a bomb casing and explode it. The casing breaks, resulting in the release of radioactive material in the environment and causing pollution which affects all living beings.Simple, effective and deadly. And in a congested area like N.Y, humanitarian disaster.

The story starts from Saddam Handing over plans for a dirty bomb to a Lebanese terrorist to be used against US just before his capture.The terrorist with the aid of Laden acquires HEU(highly enriched uranium) from Pakistan.There is also an allusion to AQ Khan’s nuclear supermarket.This uranium is made into a bomb such that it can be exploded by calling a specific number known only to Laden and the designer.Smuggled into Rajasthan,the bomb arrives in NY in a container ship and is secreted in a safehouse by three jehadis recruited in Palestine.The Bush admin is shocked when the terrorists place their demands-if Israel does not stop settlers from occupying Palestinian lands,the millions of people in NY won’t have any chance.The deadline-5 days.

What follows is a gripping description of how security agencies across the spectrum ought to work when faced with grave national crisis.As usual the authors with their penchant for painstaking research have given a touch of authenticity to the book.Get hold of it if you can.Incidentally Collins passed away last year.The literary world will miss their collabaration