Gem in the Lotus

I am currently reading 'Gem in the Lotus' by Abraham Eraly. The book details the history of ancient India upto the Mauryan Empire. Without commenting on content (with which, I confess, I do have some reservations) I want to applaud the masterful manner in which he has dealt with the subject matter. He has succinctly and in pristine English traced the socio-cultural history and ethos of the Indian sub-continent. His skill in and mastery over language and the depth and scope of the detailed coverage leave the reader astounded.
Here are two examples:
IN THE BEGINNING THERE was no India. All the landmass of the earth then lay huddled together in protocontinents in the lap of the idling primeval sea. Around 170 million years ago this cluster of continents began to break up and drift apart, because of the movements of the crustal plates jacketing the semi-molten interior of the earth, a geological process called plate tectonics. In the process, some 100 million years ago, a huge and roughly triangular chunk of land broke off from the eastern flank of Africa above Madagascar, and, pivoting slightly anticlockwise, began a millennially slow, 4000-odd-kilometre-long slide north-eastward across the ancient Tethys Sea, bearing stark, crystalline massif like a granite sail. Eventually, after about a forty-million-year-long ocean journey, it docked into the soft underbelly of the sprawling Asian landmass, to become the land that would be known many aeons later as India.

The Ganga-Yamuna-Brahmaputra river systems hang from the neck of the Himalayas like the strands of an askew necklace, their broad estuary a braided pendant.

Hereis Eraly on the Brahmanas
The Brahmanas are priestly fancy gone berserk. These works, instead of clarifying Vedic practices , often make them more obscure, by their “ pedantic and cruel pursuit of detail,” and over-elaborate, involutes and ponderous narrative style. As Macdonnell says in a harsh but essentially valid comment, the Brahmanas “form an aggregate of shallow and pedantic discussion, full of sacerdotal conceits, and fanciful, or even abused, identifications.”

Gnana: The Only Route?

Some of my thoughts would show that I am inclined towards Advaitha. This is not to say that I am insensible to the efficacy of "Karma: and "Bkakthi" as routes to salvation. They are.

Different, yet the same!

It is only when we interact with people that we understand the innumerable differences that exist between them as also the essential similarities of our lives and ambitions. Right from the quotidian details of day to day living to the deep rooted and passionately pursued goals of a life well lived, we are different and yet the same! Does this sound paradoxical?

I am at Gurgaon

I am now in Gurgaon on an assignment. As a staunch Chennai guy, I am unable to help commenting that for all its Hitech culture and High raise buildings, GurGaon is still dusty and full of polution. The poverty and grime go hand in hand. When you enter the Air Conditioned Ivory towers of the IT and BPO companies, you are totally protected. But when you come out it's the heat and Dust again.The new metro and other infrastructure work may bring some relief. But that will happen only by 2010.

We pass by the Qutub on our way from the guest house in Saket.

So here's a snap.