Back in Black!

Back in black
I hit the sack
I've been too long I'm glad to be back
Yes, I'm let loose
From the noose
That's kept me hanging about
I've been looking at the sky
'Cause it's gettin' me high
Forget the hearse 'cause I never die
I got nine lives
Cat's eyes
Abusin' every one of them and running wild
'Cause I'm back

Couldn’t think of a better song to announce my return to the world of blogging! My world since the last post has changed way too much, and hopefully for the better! I finally cracked my nemesis for the first time, the CAT exam! More on that later at any rate. I no longer am in Pune, but am back in Bangalore, a new apartment to boot(one which I am being asked to leave as well)…I can’t resist paraphrasing the line from MIB II, New suit, new shades, new shoes, new tie with the new attitude. The days in Bangalore have certainly become longer, both with work and studying, leaving no time to do much else. Some good books I have read since the last time I blogged:
1) Freedom at Midnight – The story of independence of India as seen from the British point of view, Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre’s book is one which reads like an epic tale, of the struggle, Mahatma Gandhi as he was viewed by the other side, the deep divisions that the British saw among the Indians at the time between Nehru and Jinnah, the description of the power of the fast, these all led me to appreciate the odds that one man fought against a British system that existed for centuries.
2)Bonfire of the Vanities – A novel by Tom Wolfe, a book on New York at what he describes as the height of its power, the point at which it was the center of the world, like London in the 19th century was described by Charles Dickens, how the city had its own soul, omnipresent, and pressuring individuals from all directions.
3)Competetive Advantage of Nations – Book by Michael Porter. He extends his structural analysis of companies and the five forces model to analyze how nations should pursue a strategy. He gives the determinants for competitive advantage among nations, and uses case studies of the printing industry, the software industry among others to show for example, why the software industry was successful in US, the printing industry in Germany and so on. He also discusses what strategy a firm should follow in order to be a truly global company operating in many different countries.
4)Les Miserables – I reread this as part of a nostalgic experience from a long time ago, this being among my favourite books with the colourful characters of Valjean, the Bishop of D--, Javert, Thernadier, Pontmercy. The vivid descriptions of Paris after the Napoleonic wars, are so complete that historians refer to this book to find out about early 19th century France. As the title suggests this book is about the downtrodden, how the vicious cycle of poverty keeps them enslaved. However, the book is mainly about the evil of good, as it describes the struggle by Javert as he tries to reconcile the laws of society vs the good that a man can do. It raises several questions such as, is there a higher law that operates above the laws of men, and if so, which should we follow. Is it the letter of the law that we should follow or the spirit of the law. These questions are still valid to a large extent today, as discussions of what is right and what is wrong are debated daily today without borders across nations.
5)Star Trek novels – I probably have read close to 100 star trek novels over the course of the last two months, mainly being from the original series and the next generation. The novels might not be of the best quality, but it was more the characters which brought these novels to life. Star Trek was one of the serials I grew up with and Kirk and Picard were quite fascinating characters from those worlds, and William Shatner’s introduction to Star Trek, “Space... the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before” did fire a lot of imagination as well.