E.T. > Recent Status Updates

I remember reading about his escape from Aurangzeb's house-arrest in Class 3 in school. Such a joy then. Such a joy now ! Also Afzal Khan.
Also, love the साम-दाम-दंड-भेद and शठे शाठ्यं समाचरेत् employed instead of just bravado (something which I felt was the weakness of many our Hindu kings).
Finally, ppl who scorn Savarkar's "petitions" would do well to read about Shivaji and his zeal to put the nation above self.

Couple of observations so far :-
a) Chhatrapati Shivaji was pretty ruthless. Not a bigot, not a tyrant but extremely pragmatic and ruthless. Like the historian Jadunath Sarkar who himself was pretty matter-of-fact, this is without judgement.
b) It was the norm and not the exception for Muslim attackers, even those born in India, to desecrate Hindu temples. Not just loot, but desecrate - smash idols and humiliate.

At some point in life, the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint, or even remember it.
- Toni Morrison

I never excelled academically, and took some pride in “not fulfilling my potential,” in part because I was terrified that if I tried my hardest, the world would learn I didn’t actually have that much potential.

This book itself is actually this book’s autobiography.
Ppl are chasing the author to stop publication 😬
300 pages more to go. Wish they had succeeded !

Rather than "pseudo-science" passages being the problem, the real problem is that the motive and urgency for the crime dont make sense. So far at least.

Travelogue
(Pseudo) science
Fast-paced thriller
The challenge of separating nonsense from sense.
So far so good 😊
PS:- And helps that i hv a trip booked to Prague later in the year.

Boredom had never troubled him, said the elder brother. He had just not wanted to be alone.
He had always been alone, said Humboldt, but it was boredom that had terrified him to death.

This sad man didn't explore a thing, said Humboldt. Any more than a bird explores the air or a fish explores water.
Or a German explores humor, said Bonpland.

“And besides, life was so damn short, why gamble on it?”
“Because it was short.”

I will have to tear myself away from this book !

“That was the moment when he grasped that nobody wanted to use their minds. People wanted peace. They wanted to eat and sleep and have other people be nice to them. What they didn't want to do was think.”

Quite amazing - the tale and the telling both !

“…but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.”
:)

The ship has just sunk leaving 1 boy and 4 animals on a lifeboat - curious to see what the remaining 200+ pages contain :)

“As, in an infinite universe, any point may be taken as center, so, in the pageant of civilizations, each nation, like each soul, interprets the drama of history or life in terms of its own role and character.”

“Valmikis clean human excreta with their hands, including in Jain monasteries where the meditating inmates refuse to install flushes in the fear that flushing will kill germs, something that is unacceptable to their faith.”

“India’s very definition of comfort is a state that is inaccessible to the poor.”

"Gold and civilisation wax and wane together."

एक पुराना मौसम लौटा याद भरी पुरवाई भी
ऐसा तो कम ही होता है वो भी हों तनहाई भी

यादों की बौछारों से जब पलकें भीगने लगती हैं
कितनी सौंधी लगती है तब माज़ी की रुसवाई भी

“Her aim in like was to look as like a chandelier as possible.” :D
On a lady’s love for jewellery.

"Admittedly, you get your money's worth out of a weighing machine."
Galahad's diplomatic reply to a fat butler who asked whether he was indeed fat. ROFL.

“Friendliness, compassion, cheerfulness and gratitude.”

“In England, people go to port towns to gaze out to sea. In a good Italian port town, people go to the end of the breakwater and gaze inland.”
Oh Yes ! The top-do thing on the Amalfi coast is to get on a boat and gaze inland. Transcendental.

“in Europe a hundred miles is a long way and in the United States a hundred years is a long time.”

“Venice is boring for young people—no disco, no nightlife. It is only beautiful. Venice. It is a philosophy to live here . . . the philosophy of beauty.”
And the most beautiful place I have visited !

“Germans thrive on bureaucracy,” he jokes as we leave his small but efficient trackside office. “Even the toilet paper here comes in triplicate.”

The 2 countries given most space in this book :-
Italy and … Germany (now who could have guessed it 😛 *except yours truly)

“Nobody wants war, but everyone wants things they can’t have without war.”
-Bismarck