Book Review: Fiction/The Fatwa Girl by Akbar Agha, Hachette India/2011, 224pp; Rs325 (Paperback)
Pakistan is principally a troubled nation with its improper democracy, dictatorial arm forces and sectarian divides based on narrow fundamental convictions. As a nation, it was neither formed in essential democratic liberal tradition nor even in later periods, could ably consolidate itself as a functional democracy. Hence the force of “fundamental convictions” got the maligning authority, which should have never been the case. Despite all these extreme odds and socio-economic disparities in Pakistan, it’s encouraging to see the sizable number of peoples struggling against the tyrannical ruling beliefs in the country. If cricket is the easiest bliss or escaping route for Pakistanis, literature is certainly their most profound way of expression where the actual suffering is being noticed and further even on minimal scale gives a sense of hope for something more transparent in the system which have been remained elusive throughout the decades.
In recent times, English writing in Pakistan has been on bloom, Fatima Bhutto, Muhammad Hanif, Mohsin Hamid,Kamila Shamshie,Jamil Ahmed are among the writers who have shown immense intelligence in political writing, equally both in the sphere of fiction and non-fiction. Now Akbar Agha’s The Fatwa Girl shows, why the sensibility creates good literature and even the deep starkness cannot hide the merits of positive thinking and action. Set in the elitist background of Karachi, the early chapters’ leads to the rampage of partition that left millions badly affected through the unimagined trauma they faced and later forced to carry in their mind and soul. In brief, author has made it clear, why the Mountbatten’s beautiful wife, Edwina was the cause of hurried and painful separation? This was caused by more intimate reasons as the lady Mountbatten’s character code was too permissive for a charming man like Nehru…few months’ wait could have ruined the family life of Mountbatten, so he decided to carry on history’s bluntest administrative interference that drawn the permanent line of hatredness among the most peace loving peoples.
Amina, the central character and her childhood love Omar are hailing from the thinking family background but not so much as there the gulf of Shia-Sunnism could be outpaced with rational bonds. Resultantly love remains at its own course, but only for a shortly engaged time. Rest emanates from here the sense of losses, emptiness but not even for a moment, partial alienation could be seen anywhere in their mind. That’s the real beauty of character construction, for which Akbar Agha’s deserves all accolade. Condition forced Amina to leave her liberal engagements in literature, acting etc for marrying the demonic feudal, Rafi. He typically represents the western educated Pakistani feudal that catches conflicts with every modern thought and pursues their own virulent agendas. Amina suffers through all the despotic acts from him but realization about her husband’s activeness as the mastermind of suicide bombers came from late, but the same moment activist consine made her mind to be the victim of black acts rather a gain seeker!
In the meantime, prostitute Gulbadan’s short entry into the life of Omar gives short interlude in mainframe albeit soon, the reformative mind of Omar leads Gulbadan get emancipated and finally out from the hell. The description of Swat and Karachi’s also reminds, there is no uniformity of fundamentalism in Pakistan. Millions are suffering the same or more pain from terrorism like the peoples outside of border, so there is need of a completely reckoning the various shades that exists and determines the whole issues. Common friend Sheila’s high profile gesture is not something unheard off in the top circle of Pakistani urban society but her humane characterization as the common pool for aligning the lives makes greater sense. She persuades Amina to meet Omar, now also a Foreign Service official after years and starts fresh but here she chooses an idealism that surpasses the easy comfort!
She became the Fatwa girl, not to kill anyone but to make things clear that hatredness could be an embedded and sinful part of fundamentalism but no religion including Islam allows this. Omar is the man with immense losses with the tragical departure of his only passion, Amina; where he genuinely stands like a human being. At the end, still thinking the message left for him by Amina “if there is one fatwa that should be heard from every mosque and church, every temple and synagogue, it should be this: Love one another as God has loved you”, Omar appears like the true bearer of peace. The growing political concern among the Pakistani authors are indeed a great development, it will sure impact positively on the overall scene in the nation. In India too, writers have to think for sharing more and more realities in their fiction writing instead getting derailed on the non-issues, better suited for commercial edge. The free flows of thoughts are always better than the closed world views…so, peace rather the Fatwa’s should be prioritised, either in Pakistan or anywhere!
Atul Kumar Thakur
New Delhi, February 03, 2012, Friday
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
Showing posts with label Hachette India/2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hachette India/2011. Show all posts
Friday, February 3, 2012
Tells of Wall Street and Beyond
Book Review: Memoir/SUIT: A Woman on Wall Street by Nina Godiawala, Hachette India/2011, 350pp; Rs395 (Paperback)
Atleast for few, capitalism is not less than a “civilisation”, long back economist Joseph Schumpeter described it and now it’s a sort of cult. This claims an accurate description of a system of relations that reorders not just relationships of wealth but culture, civic association and the most intimate transactions that characterise our personal lives. Nina Godiawala’s memoir SUIT: A Woman on Wall Street stood with better chances to suppress those bandwagon temptations and represents a case of antidote against the maddening commercial lures that furiously conditioned lives for good or bad gains.
Two things are most striking with her work, first her memoir is written in almost oblivion, as she hardly had the “celebrity “tagline while working on the book or even after that, and her unique way of interpreting the real events in fashion of fiction. Here she succeeds well and makes high senses of experimental lingual overtures, that straightforwardly demarks her from the trend chaser generation of American writers, which is terribly accustomed to produce nothing more than “trash”. Though not consciously, but she has also not desisted to assert her Indian origin by incessantly coming in sequences under the overt impression of values, that’s originally the hall mark of east. Memories are the safest assets for leaving the actual scene and yet found chances to visit it virtually-in generic evaluation; it can be placed like the “escapist route” and in broad terms, could be taken as the “last resort of cultural connects”!
Family of Nina, like the lakhs of other Indian immigrants in the western world justifies it through living in twin world, by faithful recourse or contradiction! From beginning to the end, family maintains its centrality in the book and every action of upwardly mobile young generation too never shows off any contradictory uncomfort with this most essential institution. However, she realistically denies forming the monolithic impression of family, where different world exists but without ever getting so much intensified to break it up in parts. Again, the values rule the inner nerves here that’s more often than not appears volatile and unpredictable. Here, intricate narration leaves the beautiful impact on readers’ mind and heart.
Nina’s father and grandmother are the part of that lasting generation which still adores tradition of their land and continues living with those infallible attributes of which they were once the actual bearer. But in sharp devoid, Nina’s mother had shown upholding the American life style more avidly than the basic tenets of her imaginary homeland. That compelled Nina and her sisters’ shuttling between these two familiar worlds and finally coming out with an impressive equilibrium, which can be regarded respectable in all terms. Metaphor of varied culinary preferences inside the family, from shrimp curry, Indian style sweets to sushi or cocktails depicts something more honest than merely a beguiling display of over enjoying close family gathering. Probably that adaptability assisted Nina to move from the suburban Houston for attending the top Ivy League elite management institution and making entry into top investment banks like JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley at the exotic world of Wall Street.
More than coming across the authoritarian wills and untimely sermons of Keynes or Proudhon on macroeconomic models, it seems nicer reading the real life experiences of Nina, first as an intern and later part of the high shot corporate division of global iconic banks to know, why the recession is unstoppable through the structured folly of giant global banks? She not let chances for forming any unnecessarily fancied conception about this high street of global finance, which is known alike for making and marring the aspirations and yet continuing its charming existence intact! But few successful careerists, like Nina have decency to express the inhumane inner realities that’s the mainstream functional style in any MNCs, either in finance or outside of it. She conquered the desired world and left when she could found easy days for her, which is indeed appreciable and shows something away from the recent trend of quitting high end job for making fortune in untapped areas, for tasting the unholy resources and functional designs of NGO networks.
This book is special because it has sharper focus on the state of workforce involved in global financial system instead stating the obvious about the complex financial instruments. The shapes of global financial crisis have endless models; an economist can’t have other pastime as closer as trying counting the flawed recovery, from the easily mixable alphabet and numbers. Since the grave, ofcourse not the great depression of 1929, economists have almost played the disappointing role in putting forth the timely and clear projection. Unfortunately, same or even more acute is state of affairs in the current phase where the high technological interface and globalisation have maximized the risk of bigger and unprecedented failures. Whose ominous outcomes were visible during the recession of 2007-08, when more than seven dozen financial institutions were shattered in western world and left emerging economies too under the heavy slowdown?
The open trade with bad financial instruments, wrong credit lending, inside trading and more negatively, the degraded peoples policies among the global corporations are the major constituents of never ending risk of financial crisis. Nina could shifted from banking to capital market and lately for her own skill venture, but how many can do it so easily and without getting desperate in midway? Thousands of finance persons are living less than pleasant life at Wall Street or outside under the badly constructed designs of financial firms. Family expectations keeps floating high and meeting them requires a habit of living in troubled state. This book has universal appeal with answers for many subtle concerns and would run for long among the true finance enthusiasts!
Atul Kumar Thakur
New Delhi, February 2nd, 2012, Thursday
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
Atleast for few, capitalism is not less than a “civilisation”, long back economist Joseph Schumpeter described it and now it’s a sort of cult. This claims an accurate description of a system of relations that reorders not just relationships of wealth but culture, civic association and the most intimate transactions that characterise our personal lives. Nina Godiawala’s memoir SUIT: A Woman on Wall Street stood with better chances to suppress those bandwagon temptations and represents a case of antidote against the maddening commercial lures that furiously conditioned lives for good or bad gains.
Two things are most striking with her work, first her memoir is written in almost oblivion, as she hardly had the “celebrity “tagline while working on the book or even after that, and her unique way of interpreting the real events in fashion of fiction. Here she succeeds well and makes high senses of experimental lingual overtures, that straightforwardly demarks her from the trend chaser generation of American writers, which is terribly accustomed to produce nothing more than “trash”. Though not consciously, but she has also not desisted to assert her Indian origin by incessantly coming in sequences under the overt impression of values, that’s originally the hall mark of east. Memories are the safest assets for leaving the actual scene and yet found chances to visit it virtually-in generic evaluation; it can be placed like the “escapist route” and in broad terms, could be taken as the “last resort of cultural connects”!
Family of Nina, like the lakhs of other Indian immigrants in the western world justifies it through living in twin world, by faithful recourse or contradiction! From beginning to the end, family maintains its centrality in the book and every action of upwardly mobile young generation too never shows off any contradictory uncomfort with this most essential institution. However, she realistically denies forming the monolithic impression of family, where different world exists but without ever getting so much intensified to break it up in parts. Again, the values rule the inner nerves here that’s more often than not appears volatile and unpredictable. Here, intricate narration leaves the beautiful impact on readers’ mind and heart.
Nina’s father and grandmother are the part of that lasting generation which still adores tradition of their land and continues living with those infallible attributes of which they were once the actual bearer. But in sharp devoid, Nina’s mother had shown upholding the American life style more avidly than the basic tenets of her imaginary homeland. That compelled Nina and her sisters’ shuttling between these two familiar worlds and finally coming out with an impressive equilibrium, which can be regarded respectable in all terms. Metaphor of varied culinary preferences inside the family, from shrimp curry, Indian style sweets to sushi or cocktails depicts something more honest than merely a beguiling display of over enjoying close family gathering. Probably that adaptability assisted Nina to move from the suburban Houston for attending the top Ivy League elite management institution and making entry into top investment banks like JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley at the exotic world of Wall Street.
More than coming across the authoritarian wills and untimely sermons of Keynes or Proudhon on macroeconomic models, it seems nicer reading the real life experiences of Nina, first as an intern and later part of the high shot corporate division of global iconic banks to know, why the recession is unstoppable through the structured folly of giant global banks? She not let chances for forming any unnecessarily fancied conception about this high street of global finance, which is known alike for making and marring the aspirations and yet continuing its charming existence intact! But few successful careerists, like Nina have decency to express the inhumane inner realities that’s the mainstream functional style in any MNCs, either in finance or outside of it. She conquered the desired world and left when she could found easy days for her, which is indeed appreciable and shows something away from the recent trend of quitting high end job for making fortune in untapped areas, for tasting the unholy resources and functional designs of NGO networks.
This book is special because it has sharper focus on the state of workforce involved in global financial system instead stating the obvious about the complex financial instruments. The shapes of global financial crisis have endless models; an economist can’t have other pastime as closer as trying counting the flawed recovery, from the easily mixable alphabet and numbers. Since the grave, ofcourse not the great depression of 1929, economists have almost played the disappointing role in putting forth the timely and clear projection. Unfortunately, same or even more acute is state of affairs in the current phase where the high technological interface and globalisation have maximized the risk of bigger and unprecedented failures. Whose ominous outcomes were visible during the recession of 2007-08, when more than seven dozen financial institutions were shattered in western world and left emerging economies too under the heavy slowdown?
The open trade with bad financial instruments, wrong credit lending, inside trading and more negatively, the degraded peoples policies among the global corporations are the major constituents of never ending risk of financial crisis. Nina could shifted from banking to capital market and lately for her own skill venture, but how many can do it so easily and without getting desperate in midway? Thousands of finance persons are living less than pleasant life at Wall Street or outside under the badly constructed designs of financial firms. Family expectations keeps floating high and meeting them requires a habit of living in troubled state. This book has universal appeal with answers for many subtle concerns and would run for long among the true finance enthusiasts!
Atul Kumar Thakur
New Delhi, February 2nd, 2012, Thursday
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
Friday, December 30, 2011
Jobs,was up to the mark?
Book Review: Biography/Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Hachette India/2011, 630 pp; Rs799 (Hardback)
The biography by Walter Isaacson on Steve Jobs is indeed a work of details. Departure of Steve was painful, including for those who never ever used any of APPLE products but have bearing with the innovation of control and perfect design for that Steve was popular and hyped. Steve spent fifty-five years on earth, of which fourty-two years of working life across the ladders and boards. Walter Isaacson’s biography carries almost all the mentionable things related to his personal life and unprecedented success in the world of technological innovation. For passive reading, this biography stands fine and fulfills the basic curiosity of readers who want to know the story of a successful man, who was once deserted by his own parents, brought up by foster parents but more caring than real one, a drop out, a humble starter from garage but rose to rank where sometime his company’s fortune in the American banks was ahead of U.S government!
It’s also true that a biography can’t be totally free from good or bad preoccupations. That intrinsic weakness also very much inflicts this book and Walter Isaacson, seems alienated from his author’s profile for persuading readers to acknowledge every functional characteristics of Steve’ as acts of virtue. That leaves extraneous and flawed impression, is probably not very distinct from the friendly American media which always projected Steve as evangelist and his products as symbol of successful life. Those all claims if accumulated and judged, would be come up as classis bunch of exaggeration, with little or no merits. In proper assessment, Steve could be recalled as an extraordinary technical mind with amazing quality of learning, copying and then its untemprable execution barring exception.
He learned lot about the electronic circuits from his father and later during internship in Hewitt-Packard at the age of thirteen which ahead proved fateful. The best thing was with him, he could catch workable ideas even from the trash. Instead spending time on listening stodgy lectures at university, he opted to search precious books and electronic equipments from second hand and grey markets, all those bonhomie played formidable role in his shaping which were humane and fallible, against the popular myths about him. Search for commandable ideas had remained his keen pastime, and his visit to India as teenager was one among the early assertions of those incessant quest. Much before he felt the influence of Gandhi on his leaning for peace and simplicity, he spent few months in Haridwar and other calm Himalayan townships for knowing the essence of frugality and ofcourse his efforts were not for knowing the core of Indian spiritualism. In this book, Walter Isaacson should have recalled Haridwar as north Indian town instead what written on the pages as “west India town”, besides he could stop hyperbole views regarding Steve’s over attachment to an unknown Yogi, about him there is even feeble trace among Indians!
In late 1970’s, an ordinary garage of his father was chosen by Steve and cofounder Wozoniak as the birthplace of APPLE. Idea of name was not generated from the namesake fruit, with Steve remained faithful throughout life but from APPLE Corp, for which, he had to fight a long battle which he succeeded to command at last. The major breakthrough came with APPLE, once it awarded collaboration with XEROX, and then this company was getting closer to produce world’s first personal computer without the hassled essentiality of complex operating system. The bright brains of APPLE stolen those noble concept and also the competent engineers from XEROX and further left the company off from computer manufacturing. Today, we all know XEROX as manufacturer of photocopy machine, hadn’t Steve dealt with them, today the technical scene would have much nobler and decent for XEROX and mass consumers. APPLE used those expertises for making its first computer, LISA; which was named after Steve’s daughter from his girl friend, whom he never treated properly except in the evening of life. APPLE’s next product, Macintosh in 1984 generated huge attention worldwide, but this time stolen expertise of Steve was unethically drained by Microsoft and since then, Operating System became synonymous with Windows and hostility in business between APPLE-Microsoft. Book gives subtler explanation of these events and how the Steve’s downfall started tinkling around 1986.
He had to leave apple this year, after falling in row with his once confident turned super rival, John Sculley. That was wrong happened with the founder of APPLE, but similar happened with his core team members as well by his decisions in past, so it’s better if his forced ousting understood as manifestation of existing subhuman work culture in APPLE and other corporate. He left the company after retaining only one share to attend the shareholders meeting. Henceforth, he relied on Nietzsche’s quotation “The spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers the world” and these lines were completely justified when Steve was back at APPLE in 1997 to revive its fortune. In the meantime, his original entrepreneurship grew up with his ventures, NeXT and Pixer; these ten years should be considered as peak of Steve’s genuine instinctive merit.
Once back at APPLE, he not only regained his lost position but he overachieved the command in second stint. In product innovation too, the last fifteen years were satisfactory for him; he came out with Ipod, Ibook, Iphone etc, which are one among the best gadgets if not the best itself. Steve was essentially a man for class, his product reveals it; he always disliked journeys through commercial flights though it’s also true he was a perfectionist who didn’t have any furniture in his room, because he couldn’t found a proper match. The good thing with him, he stood with high quality products, bad side remained his aversion to make APPLE products peoples friendly. This biography could be essential read for tech enthusiasts and also for those stands with business as creative profession. Steve’s consciousness was never determined through his material beingness, same he thought for his targeted consumers…he was up to the mark or not, rests on us to decide!
Atul Kumar Thakur
December 30, 2011, Friday, New Delhi
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
The biography by Walter Isaacson on Steve Jobs is indeed a work of details. Departure of Steve was painful, including for those who never ever used any of APPLE products but have bearing with the innovation of control and perfect design for that Steve was popular and hyped. Steve spent fifty-five years on earth, of which fourty-two years of working life across the ladders and boards. Walter Isaacson’s biography carries almost all the mentionable things related to his personal life and unprecedented success in the world of technological innovation. For passive reading, this biography stands fine and fulfills the basic curiosity of readers who want to know the story of a successful man, who was once deserted by his own parents, brought up by foster parents but more caring than real one, a drop out, a humble starter from garage but rose to rank where sometime his company’s fortune in the American banks was ahead of U.S government!
It’s also true that a biography can’t be totally free from good or bad preoccupations. That intrinsic weakness also very much inflicts this book and Walter Isaacson, seems alienated from his author’s profile for persuading readers to acknowledge every functional characteristics of Steve’ as acts of virtue. That leaves extraneous and flawed impression, is probably not very distinct from the friendly American media which always projected Steve as evangelist and his products as symbol of successful life. Those all claims if accumulated and judged, would be come up as classis bunch of exaggeration, with little or no merits. In proper assessment, Steve could be recalled as an extraordinary technical mind with amazing quality of learning, copying and then its untemprable execution barring exception.
He learned lot about the electronic circuits from his father and later during internship in Hewitt-Packard at the age of thirteen which ahead proved fateful. The best thing was with him, he could catch workable ideas even from the trash. Instead spending time on listening stodgy lectures at university, he opted to search precious books and electronic equipments from second hand and grey markets, all those bonhomie played formidable role in his shaping which were humane and fallible, against the popular myths about him. Search for commandable ideas had remained his keen pastime, and his visit to India as teenager was one among the early assertions of those incessant quest. Much before he felt the influence of Gandhi on his leaning for peace and simplicity, he spent few months in Haridwar and other calm Himalayan townships for knowing the essence of frugality and ofcourse his efforts were not for knowing the core of Indian spiritualism. In this book, Walter Isaacson should have recalled Haridwar as north Indian town instead what written on the pages as “west India town”, besides he could stop hyperbole views regarding Steve’s over attachment to an unknown Yogi, about him there is even feeble trace among Indians!
In late 1970’s, an ordinary garage of his father was chosen by Steve and cofounder Wozoniak as the birthplace of APPLE. Idea of name was not generated from the namesake fruit, with Steve remained faithful throughout life but from APPLE Corp, for which, he had to fight a long battle which he succeeded to command at last. The major breakthrough came with APPLE, once it awarded collaboration with XEROX, and then this company was getting closer to produce world’s first personal computer without the hassled essentiality of complex operating system. The bright brains of APPLE stolen those noble concept and also the competent engineers from XEROX and further left the company off from computer manufacturing. Today, we all know XEROX as manufacturer of photocopy machine, hadn’t Steve dealt with them, today the technical scene would have much nobler and decent for XEROX and mass consumers. APPLE used those expertises for making its first computer, LISA; which was named after Steve’s daughter from his girl friend, whom he never treated properly except in the evening of life. APPLE’s next product, Macintosh in 1984 generated huge attention worldwide, but this time stolen expertise of Steve was unethically drained by Microsoft and since then, Operating System became synonymous with Windows and hostility in business between APPLE-Microsoft. Book gives subtler explanation of these events and how the Steve’s downfall started tinkling around 1986.
He had to leave apple this year, after falling in row with his once confident turned super rival, John Sculley. That was wrong happened with the founder of APPLE, but similar happened with his core team members as well by his decisions in past, so it’s better if his forced ousting understood as manifestation of existing subhuman work culture in APPLE and other corporate. He left the company after retaining only one share to attend the shareholders meeting. Henceforth, he relied on Nietzsche’s quotation “The spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers the world” and these lines were completely justified when Steve was back at APPLE in 1997 to revive its fortune. In the meantime, his original entrepreneurship grew up with his ventures, NeXT and Pixer; these ten years should be considered as peak of Steve’s genuine instinctive merit.
Once back at APPLE, he not only regained his lost position but he overachieved the command in second stint. In product innovation too, the last fifteen years were satisfactory for him; he came out with Ipod, Ibook, Iphone etc, which are one among the best gadgets if not the best itself. Steve was essentially a man for class, his product reveals it; he always disliked journeys through commercial flights though it’s also true he was a perfectionist who didn’t have any furniture in his room, because he couldn’t found a proper match. The good thing with him, he stood with high quality products, bad side remained his aversion to make APPLE products peoples friendly. This biography could be essential read for tech enthusiasts and also for those stands with business as creative profession. Steve’s consciousness was never determined through his material beingness, same he thought for his targeted consumers…he was up to the mark or not, rests on us to decide!
Atul Kumar Thakur
December 30, 2011, Friday, New Delhi
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Lost American dreams!
Book Review: Current affairs/That used to be US by Thomas.L.Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, Hachette India/2011, 380 pp; Rs599 (Hardback)
World is still not noticing the fading shine of U.S, this is being realised and expressed only through the growing anxiety of insecure future among the mass people and policy makers of U.S. In its idea and shape, this book seems a prolonging exercise of similar mental state, in which Barack Obama saw Bangalore as “buffalo” and Indian youth amazingly competitive over the lazy generation of his own country. He feared, new generation lacks the very strong “U.S exceptionalism” that once made this nation a dreaming land full with unprecedented potential.
In the last six years, since Thomas Friedman had written the bestselling book “The world is flat”, one and half recession (one complete, other is in progress…) and two ultra damaging wars has badly trembled the strong core of nation-materialism. If co-author, Michael Mandelbaum is a man with academic temperament, Friedman stands opposite with his natural flamboyance that has been shaping over the years his hyperbole views in New York Times columns. Though, as a sensitive man, he could sense the shrinking confidence of mass countryman for plethora of innovation which is good for nothing and is in process to endanger the leadership edge of U.S at major global platform. So, book look over the issues of concern without falling in the trap of popular sensationalism which earlier was the case with Friedman. Honest revelations of ground realities are the basic things that readers would enjoy reading throughout the book but only with patient mind and their own labour in decoding casual intents of the authors!
Within the civilised state, U.S has a very short history that can leave the themes for constructive discourses…until few years back, it was not a matter of concern but the same is not true now. The last lines of this book crave for history where the thinking mind of U.S could trace the lost dreams and an unwounded America. The subtle details of the book suggest that the way U.S is moving will be unsustainable in the medium or long term. Hence, both the leadership and its followers must have to be ready for action with well thought models instead luring by structured solutions bound to be doomed.
For the sake of U.S, it’s good if the world is still unaware of the crude facts, how much its artificial supremacy is under the strain and its hard struggle for retrieving its old edge on policy matters. Modesty of observation from outside remains something which U.S has been thoroughly enjoying and still appears its withering away a distant reality. With erotic opulence, it may be likely that U.S would continue its unjustified lead at the decisive global platform for some more years. Another positive factor for U.S is the failure of political of political polarization from the emerging economies and old power blocks including Russia. So, even in deep troubled water, U.S can sail its boat with shrewd skills its conscious applications.
Hope simply can’t be forced to out from normal affairs through reasons are ample to believe that unflat world is still intact and full with the frills. Time has indeed moved up and so are the discourses. Nice to see, with this book a new humble Friedman which he was certainly not during the high time when his world was irrationally flat and friendly!
Atul Kumar Thakur
December10,2011,Saturday,New Delhi
Email:summertickets@gmail.com
World is still not noticing the fading shine of U.S, this is being realised and expressed only through the growing anxiety of insecure future among the mass people and policy makers of U.S. In its idea and shape, this book seems a prolonging exercise of similar mental state, in which Barack Obama saw Bangalore as “buffalo” and Indian youth amazingly competitive over the lazy generation of his own country. He feared, new generation lacks the very strong “U.S exceptionalism” that once made this nation a dreaming land full with unprecedented potential.
In the last six years, since Thomas Friedman had written the bestselling book “The world is flat”, one and half recession (one complete, other is in progress…) and two ultra damaging wars has badly trembled the strong core of nation-materialism. If co-author, Michael Mandelbaum is a man with academic temperament, Friedman stands opposite with his natural flamboyance that has been shaping over the years his hyperbole views in New York Times columns. Though, as a sensitive man, he could sense the shrinking confidence of mass countryman for plethora of innovation which is good for nothing and is in process to endanger the leadership edge of U.S at major global platform. So, book look over the issues of concern without falling in the trap of popular sensationalism which earlier was the case with Friedman. Honest revelations of ground realities are the basic things that readers would enjoy reading throughout the book but only with patient mind and their own labour in decoding casual intents of the authors!
Within the civilised state, U.S has a very short history that can leave the themes for constructive discourses…until few years back, it was not a matter of concern but the same is not true now. The last lines of this book crave for history where the thinking mind of U.S could trace the lost dreams and an unwounded America. The subtle details of the book suggest that the way U.S is moving will be unsustainable in the medium or long term. Hence, both the leadership and its followers must have to be ready for action with well thought models instead luring by structured solutions bound to be doomed.
For the sake of U.S, it’s good if the world is still unaware of the crude facts, how much its artificial supremacy is under the strain and its hard struggle for retrieving its old edge on policy matters. Modesty of observation from outside remains something which U.S has been thoroughly enjoying and still appears its withering away a distant reality. With erotic opulence, it may be likely that U.S would continue its unjustified lead at the decisive global platform for some more years. Another positive factor for U.S is the failure of political of political polarization from the emerging economies and old power blocks including Russia. So, even in deep troubled water, U.S can sail its boat with shrewd skills its conscious applications.
Hope simply can’t be forced to out from normal affairs through reasons are ample to believe that unflat world is still intact and full with the frills. Time has indeed moved up and so are the discourses. Nice to see, with this book a new humble Friedman which he was certainly not during the high time when his world was irrationally flat and friendly!
Atul Kumar Thakur
December10,2011,Saturday,New Delhi
Email:summertickets@gmail.com
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