Angles and Demons

When a leading scientist at C.E.R.N is brutally murdered with the symbol

Try looking at the symbol upside down

branded across his chest, renowned symbologist Prof Robert Langdon is called in to investigate. It is hard to believe that a centuries old brotherhood is still in existence, deep underground. Illuminati, the enlightened was formed in the 16th century among the intellects of the era who were tortured and hindered by the Vatican, because their findings challenged the teachings of the Catholic church. Its most known member being Galileo.

When it's discovered that CERN's scientist's latest creation an 'antimatter' canister has been stolen, and is now ticking away like a time bomb somewhere deep inside the Vatican city, Langdon and Vittoria Vetta, a CERN scientist involved in the project rushes down to the Vatican to try and find the canister along with the missing cardinals that had gone missing just before the Vatican conclave.

The story is one filled with mystery, puzzles, riddles that need to be solved, clues and symbols, and intrigue. Dan Brown has done an excellent job at keeping the reader glued and in suspense with unexpected twists through to the end.

However the framework is pretty much the same as that of "The Da Vinci Code". Robert Langdon, a female accomplice, an ancient brotherhood, Vatican secrets, anagrams and ambigramm, solving puzzles for survival, brutal killings, the one person that is trusted in saving the day turning out to be the mastermind behind the brotherhood, and eventually a happy ending.

However it is understandable why Da Vinci Code made a bigger impact than Angles and Demons. With the story unfolding in one of the world's leading physics research institutions with particle physics terminology and concepts, it is easy for a lay person to lose interest in the story.

For those of you who prefer the big screen to the paperback, Angles and Demons the film is set to be released in the coming months. However as was the case with The Da Vinci code, I believe this will also be a disappointment. There is so much information and action packed in to each and every page of the 600+ page book, that it is next to impossible to cram it into a 2 hour audio-visual.

It's not about the bike

No it sure isn't. It's about courage, an unwavering determination and a fighting spirit.

Lance Armstrong grew up in a rugged town in Texas, without the love of a father or the comfort of a stable income. But he was surrounded by his mother's tireless caring which instilled in him the confidence and the fighting spirit that saw him through not just the record breaking 7 Tour de Frances' but also through the even more difficult cancer treatments.

I've spent my life racing my bike, from the back roads of Austin, Texas to the Champs-Elysees, and I always figured if I died an untimely death, it would be because some rancher in his Dodge 4x4 ran me head first into a ditch. Believe me, it could happen. Cyclists fight an ongoing war with guys in big trucks, and so many vehicles have hit me, so many times, in so many countries, I've lost count.

At the age of 25 Lance was the picture of health, and begining to look the picture of wealth. All troubles seemed to be behind him, but the feeling was short-lived for fate had other plans. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer which had already spread into his lungs, he was in stage 3, and there were only 3 stages.

I thought I knew what fear was, Until I heard the words 'You have cancer'. Real fear came with an unmistakable sensation: it was as though all my blood started flowing in the wrong direction. My previous fears, fear of not being liked, fear of being laughed at, fear of losing my money, suddenly seemed like small cowardices. Everything now stacked up differently: the anxieties of life- a flat tire, losing my career, a traffic jam- were reprioritized into need versus want, real problem as opposed to minor scare. A bumpy plane ride was a bumpy plane ride, it wasn't cancer.

Immediate surgery was needed followed by an intensive chemotherapy, but the tale took another twist, the cancer had spread to his brain, his chances were slim, as slim as 3%, this information was somehow withheld from him, and he believed he had a 20% chance, whereby he started researching the disease, trying to strategise how to beat it. The game plan!

Brain surgery was called for to remove the malignant tissue. Followed by months long Chemotherapy.

The question was, which would the chemo kill first: the cancer, or me? My life became one long IV drip, a sickening routine: If I wasn't in pain I was vomiting, and if I wasn't vomiting, I was thinking about what I had, and if I wasn't thinking about what I had, I was wondering when it was going to be over. That's chemo for you.

The sickness was in the details, in the nasty asides of the treatment. Cancer was a vague sense of unwellness, but chemo was an endless series of specific horrors, until I began to think the cure was as bad as or worse than, the disease. What a casual bystander associates with cancer- loss of hair, sickly pallor, a wasting away- are actually the side effects of the treatment. Chemo was a burning in my veins, a matter of being slowly eaten from the inside out by a destroying river of pollutants until I didn't have an eyelash to bat. Chemo was a continuous cough, hacking up black mysterious, tar like matter from deep in my chest. Chemo was a constant, doubling-over need to go to the bathroom.

Despite the odds stacked up against him, he made it. And the cancer made him a different man.

People think my comeback as a triumph, but in the begining, it was a disaster. When you have lived for an entire year terrified of dying, you feel like you deserve to spend the rest of your days on a permanent vacation. You can't, of course; you have to return to your family, your peers, and your profession. But a part of me didn't want my old life back

With the help of his friends and newly found wife, he fought the depression and did get back on the bike. His previous contract with the professional cycling team "Cofidis" was withdrawn while he was in hospital. They didn't beleive he was going to make any more money for them. As Lance puts it, "The rug was pulled from beneath my feet" ,and "they let me there to die"

They searched for months for a team who would be willing to risk signing in a weakened ex-biker, until a new organization, the US postal services team decided to sign him up. And he didn't let them down.

Lance Armstrong went on to win 7 Tour de la France Tournaments, considered one of the toughest sporting events in the world. He established the "Lance Armostrong Foundation" which continues to raise funds for cancer to date.

Mrs. Craddock by W Somerset Maugham

Bertha Ley is a beautiful, intelligent and well- refined young lady who falls madly in love with the handsome Edward Craddock, a farmer and a tenant of his father. The objections of her well-bred relatives’ only aids in driving this determined young woman to marry this man who she believes is the only man for her. But the honeymoon ends too soon and Bertha realizes that Edward can’t return her the romantic love she offers him. Edward is a dutiful and rather self-centred gentleman who respects everyone’s wishes in the same way as to those of his wife’s. He has no priority set towards his wife’s requests and sets out to drive two ladies to town while his wife is on sick bed after a still birth simply because Bertha’s request for him to stay at home with her came later than the ladies’ request of driving them to town.

Depressed and bored Bertha sets out to join her aunt in travelling to Rome on holiday only to return to Edward again and again, and find herself trapped in a loveless marriage that she didn’t wish for. Ironically the man who was initially loved only by Bertha but looked down upon by everyone else ends up being loved and highly admired by all but one…...Bertha.

Somerset Maugham takes us into the lives of a handful of characters very different to each other and when brought together inflicts pain and joy upon each other due to their differences in nature, and not because one person is morally better than the other.

Nice read.

The Elephant Man

Joseph Merrick was born with severe deformities in his body, which made him earn the nickname "The elephant man". After the death of his mother at an early age, he ended up in a sideshow attraction as a "freak", where he was discovered by Dr. Fredrick Treves (later knighted) as a 'priceless specimen' of human deformities.

Initially Dr. Treves made it a good opportunity for himself to have access to this anatomical marvel, and let Merrick stay in the isolated patient's room in the London hospital. However, gradually as Merrick started warming up towards Treves and the nurses, the human within started to emerge.

Merrick's life was far from 'normal'. Often people were freaked out at his sight, and not many would feel comfortable in his presence. He was often the subject of ridicule, and several opportunists made it a way of earning cash by taking people to see the 'freak'.

Inspite of all odds, Merrick went on to make a lot of friends at high places including the then Queen of England, Queen Victoria.

The film brings to life this unique character from history. Even though it was shot in 1980, the film is in black and white emphasising the rugged and colourless England in the late 1800's. John Hurt plays the main role (of course who the actor behind the heavy make-up is anyone's guess) while a young Anthony Hopkins plays the part of Dr. Treves, which I thought wasn't a remarkable performance (maybe I shouldn't compare with his later works).

But a good one to watch! Makes you wonder about the nature of humans.

Anna Karenina

The character of Anna Karenina in the 1967 screen version .

It appears that the story for "Anna Karenina" came out of an episode in which Leo Tolstoy arrived at a railway station shortly after a young woman had committed suicide. She had been the mistress of a neighboring landowner, and the incident stuck in his mind...

As Tolstoy biographer writes, "A dreadful lesson was brought home to him... He tried to imagine the existence of this poor woman who had given all for love, only to meet with such a trite, ugly death."

A couple of years later “Anna Karenina” came to life.

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
And thereby rolls out the colourful life of Anna, the most beautiful and charming of women, caught in a loveless marriage, finds herself swept off her feet by the dashing and playful Count Vronsky. Her yearning for happiness only brings more tragedy upon her as she is cast aside from the society and separated from her own son.

In the meantime ‘Kitty’, who was first led on by Vronsky but later ignored with the arrival of Anna, finds love in a very different “Levin” whose struggle for life, for labour, and the understanding of life and death brings another dimension of life to the story.

Tolstoy has masterfully interwoven these two stories without confusing or boring the reader, and has left any judgement (if any is needed) for the reader.

This is truly a masterpiece! It’s beautifully written! I haven’t read Tolstoy before and now I know why he’s regarded as a Great in the literary world.

The only thing that irritated me was the aristocratic life style (which of course has nothing to do with Tolstoy, for it’s the way the Russian societal structure works!). Maybe he was trying to portray its absurdity through the character of the down-to earth Levin.

It’s not at all possible to sum up the book in a few paragraphs, for the book itself was 850+ pages! But to put it in two words, an “Epic Masterpiece”.

The Adventure of English

Ever wondered why English is so complicated?

This is the fascinating story about how a tribal language in a remote corner of Europe came to be spread throughout the world; across Asia, Europe, Africa and America.

The story begins in the far north of what is now known as Netherland, and travels to England around 500 AD. From there on the language of English slowly takes form, but the journey is far from being smooth.


The constant invasions from foreign armies pushes the use of the language to its limits. Sometimes wiping out English speaking communities and sometimes supressing the use of the English language by the order of the foreign king.

Despite the hindrances the language of English survives, adapting to different conditions, borrowing words and expressions from the foreign invaders and thereby making it stronger and more flexible.

During the early Viking attacks, words like "ill" entered the English vocabulary creating a synonym for the existing "sick". During the Norman conquest thousands of French words took to English, but were mostly confined to the high society. Therefore the "cows" the farmers worked with became "Beef" at the rich man's table (Boef in French).

Throughout the ages English which has its roots in German had borrowed words in their thousands from Latin, French, Spanish, Gaelic and many more. Adding to its versatility as well as complexity.

After the renaissance (which is also a French word) and the developments during the industrial revolution Britian begins to form its empire across the world.......... and so does the language.

But the journey is far from over; not only does English travel to new countries and continents like Australia and America, where they take on a unique dialect of its own, but in the unsuspecting depths of India, one of the earliest relatives of the English language is discovered.......Sanskrit.


Some interesting words borrowed from the Dutch


This story is most fascinating, entertaining and sometimes astounding. Tracking the evolution of the English language through some of the most prominent times in history, and discovering the impacts it had on the language, from the Anglo Saxon tribes to Sheakspear, Wordsworth and Burns.

This work of magic was created and presented by Melvyn Bragg from the BBC. And is one of the most incredible documentries I've ever encountered. There is also a book in the same name also written by Bragg.

Home and the World

A scene from Satyajith Rai's make of the film, based on the book.

Yet another piece of magic by Rabindranath Tagore. The way Tagore understood the complexities of the traditional cultures and the mind frames of people living in his time is simply amazing. His ideas are ahead of his time and even our times.

I won't go into a review here because Ineshka has done some excellent work on this.

And for anyone interested Purnima has found an online resource on this as well.

A Million Little Pieces

An alcoholic at the age of 10, a drug addict at the age of 12 and a drug dealer at the age of 15, charged with offenses and crimes in 3 US states by the age of 18, James Frey was at the point of no return when he was dragged into rehabilitation aged just 23. This is the compelling memoir of James, the son gone wrong of loving parents.

Hallucinations..... Sleepless.... Seeing things, Hearing things...... Blacking out........ Throwing up blood...... Craving.....Craving for drugs...and alcohol... screaming....screaming for drugs....This was his state when the story starts at the rehabilitation centre. And it's no joy ride to recovery, if he ever gets there.

But still deep down inside him he discovers the strength....the strength to make a choice....to live or to die. He protests against the rehab staff, and refuses to follow their instructions simply because it doesn't make sense to him, despite the fact that every one seem to insist that following their rules is the only way out. Despite the instructions of the counsellers, he refuses to 'give himself to God, and have faith in Him'. James is adamant that it's not God who made the decision to take drugs, it's me who did it, so if anyone is going to make the decision to quit it, it's going to be me and only me!

During the rest of his time at the centre he surrounds himself with people who were at one point drug addicts, dealers, womanizers and criminals. But out of this bizzare combination springs some extraordinary friendships that brings out the human counterpart of these people who are despised by the general society.

A best-seller; this is a very powerful and moving story that brings insight to the dark side of life. It's got a considerable amount of foul language and graphic details which only adds to the reality of life.

Read this and you will never look at a drug addict the way you used to.




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I wil just quote a part from the early chapters of the book, but this is definetly not for the faint-hearted. Warren and the bald man here refers to his room mates at the time.

My heart is racing and it's racing irregularly and there is pain with every beat and there is pain with every irregular beat and the pain shoots through my left arm and the left side of my jaw. The liquid has stopped flowing through my body and out of my mouth, but the action of vomiting has not stopped. It feels as if my stomach and my throat are coming out or they are trying to come out. It feels as if my body is trying to rid itself of itself. It is trying to rid itself of me.

I can't do this anymore. I cannot continue to live this way. I am an alcoholic and I am a drug addict and I am a criminal. My body is falling apart and my mind fell apart a long time ago. I want to drink and I want to smoke Crack even though I know drinking and smoking Crack are killing me. I am alone. I have no one to talk to and no one to call. I hate myself. I hate myself so much that I can't look myself in the eye. I hate myself so much that suicide seems like a reasonable option. My family is ready to write me off, my friends are ready to write me off, I have destroyed every meaningful relationship I've ever had. I am vomiting for the seventh time today. The seventh f** time. I cannot continue to live this way. I cannot continue to live this way.

The gagging slows down and I start breathing. Warren is holding me steady and the bald man is staring at me. I raise my hand and I motion for Warren to step away and he stands and he steps away and I lean my head against the front of the toilet. I breathe. I take in as much air as I can. I know the air will slow my heart and calm me down, so I breathe. I take in much air as I can. Calm me down. Calm me down.
Warren speaks. The bald man stares.
"Are you all right?"
I nod.
"Do you need help?"
I shake my head.
"I'm going to get someone"
I speak,
"No"
"You need help"
"No"
"James, you need help"
I stand. I am unsteady.
"I decide what I need. Not you!"

I take a deep breath and I stumble to the sink and I turn on the water and I wash my face and I clean the vomit out of my mouth. When I finish, I turn off the water and I turn around. Warren is staring at me and the bald man is staring at me. I walk past them and I walk out of the bathroom. Warren follows me out and he heads to his area of the room.

"Let me at least give you a shirt"

I look at my shirt. It is white and brown and red. Covered with streaks of bile and patches of shit that I have never seen before and streams of blood.

"Here"

Warren tosses me a shirt. I catch it. It is a starched white Oxford. I look at it and I look at him. He speaks.

"It's the only clean shirt I've got left"

I look at the shirt. It is not a shirt I would wear. I laugh and I look back at Warren.

"Thank you"

He laughs.

"No problem"

Murder she wrote

I was reading a couple of Agatha Christie novels during last week. Her novels are among the best sellers of all time, second only to Shakespeare. She's known as "Queen of crime" for her something like 65 crime novels.

All her stories frame work is more or less the same. A death takes place, turns out to be a murder, some detectives or some amateurs get involved in investigating the crime. The most part of the story is on the investigation, the suspicion shifts from person to person, and makes the reader guess all sorts of possibilites and suspects, but at the end the murderer turns out to be either someone you never thought of suspecting, or someone you considered earlier but ruled out at one point. I'm sure I've read at least a dozen of her books and still I've never been able to make the correct guess!! (better luck next time!..maybe)

It's funny that even though the framework is the same for all stories, no two stories are alike, every story is very unique, so instead of getting bored after reading a couple of books, you get kind of addicted to her mysteries. Reading her book is like solving a puzzle or mystery, it keeps you guessing all throughout.

Most of her stories are based in UK, but there are quite a significant number of stories based in other countries like Egypt, Iraq etc. each one giving a touch of its culture.

Sir Richard Branson

Finished reading "Losing my virginity" the autobiography of Sir Richard Branson. WOW!!

Once you start reading the book you find it very difficult to put down, it's always very exciting, funny and very much out-of the box.

To sum it up, he was a normal boy performing quite badly at school, and looking for ways to make money and to improve things. Starting from scratch, he is now the owner of the Virgin group of companies which has over 200 companies under its wing. From Virgin airlines, Virgin rail, Virgin mobile, Virgin Vie (cosmetics) down to Virgin Cola (at present he's supposed to be working on "Virgin Galactic" - space travel !?!) . "Virgin" is considered to be the strongest brand name in use.

His approach to both business and life is very bold. His attempts to fly around the world in a balloon and cross the Atlantic in a speed boat etc. earned him a personality of his own.

The book is fun as fun can be, with a lot of business pranks and challenges to overcome. This is one book that I would recommend to anyone, whether you are business minded or not, it doesn't matter, it's all about guts and glory! Nothing much technical, no it doesn't talk much about balance sheets, the financial accounts and the technical stuff. As he himself mentions in the introduction, "Some people say that my vision for Virgin breaks all the rules and is too widely kaleidescopic; others say that Virgin is set to become one of the leading brand names of the next century; others analyse it down to the last degree and then write academic papers on it. As for me, I just pick up the phone and get on with it".

Mr. Bean is Back!

Mr. Bean is upto his old mischief again. And this time he has won a lottery ticket prize - a trip to the south of France, Cannes. All he has to do is get down from the train in Paris, take a taxi to the next train station and take the express train direct to Cannes. It's simple really!

But leave it to Mr. Bean to complicate life's most simple things and get himself in a real jumble! And knowing just one French word "Oui" meaning 'yes' doesn't help things at all!

The film was simply hillarious! It's a good one to just go have a good laugh at, because this just might be the last Mr. Bean movie to come out. Rowan Atkinson has mentioned that he had done all experiments with Mr Bean so that it might be the time to call it off.

Siddhartha

I read this book a couple of weeks back, but couldn't write anything about it. The book had been written by Herman Hesse who's a well respected German author, who once even won the Nobel prize for literature.

When I saw this book on display in the library I thought it to be a peice of fiction based on the life of Price Siddhartha before he left his palace in search of salvation, a work similar to that of Martin Wickramasinghe's "Bhavatharanaya". But it was not to be so. When I started reading it only did I discover that the Siddhartha referred to in the book is not the same prince Siddhartha who atained enlightenment and came to be known as Lord Buddha, but a different person, a Brahmin's son who lived in India during the time of Lord Buddha.

It's a fairly short story, and the story goes as this Siddhartha along with his friend goes in search of the meaning of existence. And just like the prince Siddhartha we know he goes onto learn different beliefs and practice rituals etc. under different teachers but realizes that they are not the liberation that he's looking for. After some time they both pay a visit to Lord Buddha, who they have been hearing so much about.

However, the story takes an unexpected turn here, and from this point onwards I think Hesse had got it all wrong.

Lord Buddha only appears in this book for a very short time, and at this point Siddhartha's friend decides to stay and become a Buddhist monk. However, the main character of the story Siddhartha decides to move on in search of self-realization. His argument is that there's no point in learning from someone else, but you have to realize the path by yourself alone. This point is not directly in contradiction with Buddhism, which says that you shouldn't believe in something just because someone says so or it's written in some book etc.. but analyse it and after due examination if it's intended to be good towards all others you may take it in. (From Kalama Sutta: but not the exact words, sorry about that) anyway, my point is that this doesn't necessarily mean that you should disregard what all others say.

Anyway, this Siddhartha goes on with life, searching for whatever he's searching for, and gets himself entangled with a courtesian, I think this woman named "kamala" is taken from the character of "Ambapali" in Buddhist texts. For later in the story this Kamala donates her mango grove to the Buddhist monks.

So, Siddhartha gets himself in a lot of different situations and finally one day suddenly ends up realizing that this life is meaningless! And goes in search of self-realization again.

The story I thought was pretty weird. The worst thing about it was that Hesse had to name this character as "Siddhartha". I kept wondering about that all throughout the story. Didn't make any sense at all. Perhaps he expected this character to be a close image of Lord Buddha himself. The introduction to the book was given by a scholar who had been studying Buddhism, and he had mentioned that "Hesse's understanding of Buddhism was not very accurate".

In my opinion, this is a book which is not worth reading, it only leaves you confused. Unless you are one of those people who just love to criticise others work!

Water

Today we watched the film "Water" directed by Deepa Mehta. I'm not going to go into details about it simply because I'm just too tired after playing cricket with Vishuddhi. Anyhow, the film is about child marriages in India, which is supposedly practiced even today. The film was mostly shot in Sri Lanka and casts a few of Sri Lankan actors like Iranganie Serasinghe and Buddhi Wickrama, and of course the main character Sarala.

The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement!

"Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another ........The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement!"
- Nelson Mandela, President of South Africa May 1994


Ok, So I finally finished reading "A long walk to freedom" last weekend. So I've got to write about it. But I have a feeling that it's going to be reeeaallly long. I'll try my best to keep it as short as possible but seriously how can you possibly summarize a very eventful 70+ years of history in a few paragraphs??

So with that said here goes.......

Rolihlahla (Literarily meaning "pulling the branch of a tree", Essentially meaning "troublemaker") was born to a tribal chief in a remote village (Qunu) in South Africa. He grew up running around with the village boys, and attending to goats and pigs. He was given the name "Nelson" by his school teacher.

At the age of nine after the death of his father, he was taken in by the Regent of the area. His school years were relatively calm and he fared well at education. Shortly afterwards the suggestion of marriage by the Regent made him and the Regent's own son, flee the town and arrive in Johannesburg.

Here he found some clerical work in a law firm, and completed his BA at the same time. Next he went on to study law at the University where he was the only black in the class. Despite the harrassment from his colleagues and the continuous discouragement from his lecturer (who used to tell him that blacks are not capable in studying subjects as law, and that he should go back to the farm), Mandela kept on his work.

Mandela teamed up with Oliver Tambo to start a law firm which provided legal services to blacks at a low cost. Oliver Tambo later went on to become one of the major pillars of the African National Organization (ANC) and was the president (in exile) of the organization while Mandela was in prison.

The situation in Black South Africa after 1948 was very grim. The minority white government (Dutch/ Afrikaners) was controlling the majority black africans. "Arpetheid" was taking form, first the "Petty Arpetheid" and next "Grand Arpetheid" brought in legislation that made discrimination "Legal ". The blacks had no voting power, and were not recognised as citizens of their own country. They were given ~ 13% of the land to live and to make a living out of. Blacks were not allowed in white cities. This displaced many people and Mandela's law office also had to be vacated. There were separate buses, public toilets, hospitals, beach areas etc for blacks. The education reforms brought limited the level of education a black person was entitled to. A boycott carried out by the ANC resulted in thousands of Children with no education at all.

Mandela joined the ANC and was actively working for the organization, gradually learning and making his way up. During this time, most of the leaders of the organization were banned from time to time, essentially confining them into living in a single city for years at a time, and preventing them from attending any meetings or even speaking to two people at a time. This was a strategy the Government took to curb the rising political movement against them.

The ANC's policy was non-violence, which followed along the path of Mahatma Gandhi, but unlike with the British this method didn't seem to be working with the Afrikaners, for they replied to peaceful, unarmed protests with violence and killings. Mandela's opinion of non-violence was that it was only a strategy, which wasn't going to work in this situation. Much as he didn't want to take up arms, he couldn't deny the fact that people were getting restless and soon a civil war could break out. The military wing of the ANC was Mandela's idea, which was first opposed by the others of the ANC, but later agreed upon.

During this time the ANC was banned, making any member of the organization a criminal overnight. Most leaders of the ANC went underground, and some fled the country. Mandela was in and out of prison before he was sentenced to life in prison for 'attempting to overthrow the government".

He spent most of his prison sentence in Robben Island in a cell which was so small that when he slept lengthwise on the stone floor, his head touched one wall, and the feet the other wall. The treatment of prisoners were brutal and gruesome. They were not given proper blankets, clothes or food, and was expected to do hard labour, despite being political prisoners. They were only allowed one letter from family every 6 months. But Mandela and his friends kept the fight going, demanding their rights to food and proper clothing and fighting every inch of the way. He kept his legal skills sharp by preparing legal cases for those prisoners who sought them, and reading books that were allowed in the prison. During later years he applied to study for a LLB degree at the University of London by remote correspondence. It was during this time that this book was mostly written, in secrecy of course, once a part of it was discovered by prison authorities and were burned, luckily a short-hand version of the book was already smuggled out of the jail to Oliver Tambo through a lawyer.

It's simply amazing how, despite all the hardships and mistreatments, these few extraordinary people kept up their spirit, determination and even their sense of humor, for in his book Mandela recalls many humorous incidents and tricks they played while in prison.

Mandela kept writing to the government and initiating negotiations and trying to correspond with the outside on the arpetheid issue. Finally, the tide turned and the international pressure and the internal chaos in the country pushed the Afrikaners government to reconsider arpetheid. With F.W De Klerk assuming work as the new president, in 1989 arpetheid was lifted, and political prisoners including Mandela was released.

It was another 4 years before the first democratic election was held in South Africa.

And the rest is history.............

The Da Vinci Code

I have read "The Da Vinci Code" several months back, and I have to say it's one of the most capturing books I've come across. I finished the book over the weekend, and I didn't do anything else those two days, sometimes I lost track of time and went on reading till late at night. It was that intriguing, and with all those mind boggling puzzles and riddles and codes, u find yourself trying to work them out right through to the end. And Dan Brown had taken good care to keep the reader on the edge of the seat at all times. Regardless of the 'fact Vs fiction' debate, the story is very well written such that it fits into the story of history like a missing piece of a puzzle which falls exactly into place!

However, I only got to watch the film last Sunday, it's more or less the same story, with minor adjustments here and there. The thing is that the book which takes at least two days to finish, was squeezed into a film which was about 2 and half hours. And it was simply a roller coaster ride.

I didn't find much difficulty in following the story since I already knew what's happening, but I'm sure for a person who hasn't read the book, it is too much. Too much information in too short time.

I got a book yesterday from the library on "The truth and fiction behind the Da Vinci code" didn't start reading it yet.

The Last King of Scotland

We went to see the film "The last king of Scotland" yesterday. The name can be pretty misleading since Scotland is not really the country in question in the film. In fact the country in question is thousands of miles away in another continent, Uganda.

Yep, we are talking about the troubled times of Uganda in the 70s where Idi Amin, the famous dictator was the president of the country. The association with Scotland I'm not entirely sure although in fact, Amin did call himself the king of Scotland, one of the many titles he bestowed upon himself.

Uganda gained independence from the British empire in 1962 and Milton Obote was the first prime minister. Even though Obote was supportive towards Amin, he was no saint either. Obote declared himself president and sent the existing president in to exile in Britain, and promoted Amin to become prime minister. Despite the support of Obote, Amin carried out a military coup in 1971 and seized power.

The film starts at this point, when a young Scottish doctor "Nicholas Garrigan" comes to Uganda in search of adventure and making a difference in a community which could do with some. The character is fictional, and it's through this character, that we, the veiwers get close to the real character Idi Amin.

Amin is drawn in by the young and adventurous character of Nicholas and soon makes him his personal physio. The young doctor is very much blind to the real happenings that take place in the political life of Amin, and later as he gradually begins to mature and understand the brutality that lies beneath the charming and funny outward appearance of Amin, it's too late.

The film depicts the brutality and inhumane character of Amin during whose time as president in Uganda, much violence and killing was carried out. The death toll is not known accurately, it is estimated that around 500,000 Ugandans including other ethnicities like Indians were killed by him. (estimates according to Amnesty International)

Even though there are allegations and popular beliefs that he was a cannibal, I couldn't find any hard and fast facts proving it. However, in the film also a couple of times, the subject is brought up in a vague fashion.

The film is pretty good but I wouldn't rate it as one of the best I've seen, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the actors or the story. It's just that I was keen in seeing the life story of Amin, but the film is not about that, it's just a window on his life as president. But at the end of the film even that brief story leaves u shaken.

Crime and Punishment

Been trying to figure out this messy optics problem for 3 days now, finally I think I just broke the code, so it shouldn't be too hard from now on. Just to take a break thought of writing about the last book I read, "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

The book has been a revolution in literature at the time. The story develops around a young and talented university student in St. Petersburg (in former USSR) who, finding himself in extreme financial trouble, is pushed into desperate means of finding money. I.e. committing the crime of murdering a money lender to rob her off her money.

The crime leads to a life long battle with his conscience, which seems to be a much cruel punishment than if he had gone to prison. The story deals with the psychology of the criminal, at times regretting what he did and yet again justifying his actions, by some lame excuse.

The beauty of the story lies in the way the author unfolds the events. It makes the reader feel like he/she is part of the story. It is said that during the time the book was first published, readers often found themselves depressed for days after reading it.

It is also ironic that Dosteyevsky wrote the book during a time he himself was in financial ruin, this together with the experiences he had during the time he had been in prison, may have contributed to the success of the book.

The pursuit of happyness

Yesterday we went to see the new movie "The pursuit of happyness" (that's happyness with a 'y').

The movie is based on the true story of Chris Gardner, a homeless man with no steady income, raising a five year old son single handedly and struggling to make ends meet. But his determination at creating a better life for his son (which he didn't get from his father) keeps him fighting for life. The film is a 'from rags to riches' story filled with heart touching scenes and a lot of inspiration.

The real Chris Gardner walks across the screen at the closing episode of the movie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_gardner

Will Smith who plays the character of Chris Gardner in the movie, on the Oprah Winfrey show commented about how he felt when he met the real Chris Gardner, he compared it to the time when he met Nelson Mandela, "(when u come face to face with such a person) you get this overwhelming feeling, of how small you are, but at the same time, how big you can be"