Book Review - Angels & Demons (Dan Brown)

Thrill & suspense, Action & emotion, Science and Religion, God and Satan, Art and History. Any one of the mentioned, if well written could make a book super success. What if all of it is woven into a superbly written story of an attack on the world's most sacred shrine and a race against time to avert the complete decimation of world's most prominent religious symbol 'The Vatican City'. This points to the worthy predecessor to one of the most read novels 'The Da Vinci Code', only much better than that.



This is an un-putdown-able story which provides enough twists and turns to swing the grey matter in your head and fast paced enough to keep your eyes glued to the text. Although this book might not have received any literary accolades but the book is definitely high on IQ and establishes Dan Brown as one of intelligent writers of current times. This fast paced thriller still manages to not even touch upon but strongly put forward a broader issue. The issue of faith and its place in the world taken over by science, the place of God's miracles in the midst of science's miracles and that of the morality of the actions of science. Brown contends that Science provides power but doesn't provide the caution to exercise it, the right and wrong use of it, that's the job of religion, to make the world aware of the mindless progress and preserving the collective conscience of the society.



This story revives one of the most dangerous men ever to have walked on the face of this earth, The Illuminati, enemies of the church, vanished years ago but resurfacing to annihilate the core of Christianity. The killing spree starts with killing of a CERN scientist who has Illuminati branded on his chest. This calls for a Harward Professor and Illuminati Scholar Robert Langdon who along with Scientist's daughter Vittoria Vetra finds out that CERN's antimatter has been stolen and smuggled in the Vatican and would decimate it in twenty four hours. Thus the race begins against time where Robert has to solve four puzzles to find the location of four monuments spread across Rome to save four cardinals who would be killed before midnight, exactly when Vatican would be blown apart. In his quest to save Vatican, Robert is accompanied by Vittoria, CERN physicist and wildlife specialist and unconditionally supported by late Pope's Chamberlain Carmelango Ventresca. The story twists and turns and reaches a points which looks much like a climax only to provide the biggest jolt towards the end of it. In the meantime, Brown reveals the complete architecture of Vatican city and dynamics of the electoral process of the Pope. Brown mixes fact and fiction so skillfully, it is difficult to separate the two but at the same time provides enough researched facts to substantiate the reading experience.



Dan Brown this time has thrown in enough likable characters in this novel. Robert Langdon introduced in this book moved on to become protagonist of Da Vinci Code and was a great success. A Harward symbology Professor, excessively sharp and smart, intelligent enough to solve any puzzle in the world, have an exceptional knowledge of art and history but vulnerable enough to fall in love with Vittoria. What else do you want from a hero. Vittoria, on the other hand is tough and independent physicist who despite her father's death, was strong enough to fight the battle to save the Vatican from the harm her creation was going to cause. Above all the most likable character of this novel would be Carmelengo, the late pope's Chamberlain. He is shown as sensible, firm, truthful and the man who could save the Vatican from the crisis they are in. He is the one who stands up from religion's side in the debate of science over religion and makes his point across, he is the one who leads the battle of God versus Satan and makes sure if they loose, they do it with dignity. Carmelengo's character is very powerful and very difficult to write, any mistake would have ruined the message he was there to deliver, But Brown has managed it well and projected it so strongly that it becomes the soul of the story.



All in all, this book deserves five out of five stars and one additional star for the powerful climax. Readers who have read this after Da vinci Code would defeinitely be waiting for The Solomon Key.

Book Review - The Associate (John Grisham)

What do you expect from a John Grisham Novel? Complex maneuvering of law, legal procedures, scams behind some of the most common elections, all to the most minute details but still easy enough for a layman to understand and gripping enough to keep you glued to the book till you have finished it. Would you expect from him the same story of fresh associate being abused by long working hours, poor quality work and all the stuff that rookie writers produce after leaving either an investment bank or a wall street law firm after couple of years of abuse, basically to convince themselves and the rest of the world that they have made a right choice. This time grisham comes with same stuff with the only difference that the associate had an skeleton in his closet and was blackmailed to get the secrets of the firm he was working for. This could still make the story spellbinding and in the beginning gave some indications that this could very well be like The Firm, in which the protagonist was sharp enough to get himself out of the trouble with some really intelligent and brave tactics. Not this time though. The Protagonist Kyle did not appear to have enough intelligence and daring to come out of the predicament himself. Grisham this time has been unable to pull through any twist and turns in the tale, nor did he at any moment managed to surprise the reader. The readers would have expected unusual end from a really high IQ writer but the end comes out to be the most unfulfilling part of the book and gives an impression that what happens was the most obvious act in this situation and point out the absurdity of the whole story.

Another weak point of the story was the likability of the characters. These kind of story demands a likable protagonist, to which reader could relate and have some sympathy. Grisham has produced this kind of characters in the past whenever required, be it The Firm, The Partner or the recent The Appeal, but Kyle of The Associate is not the one, with his skewed relationship with the girlfriend, high accomplishments but lack of intelligence could not make any impact on the reader. The only character likable enough was Kyle's friend Baxter, an alcoholic who renounces alcohol and in his ascetic life is out to make up with everyone whom he has hurt, but his character is not as important to be developed further.

The verdict on this could be two stars over five. You could read this book on long train journey if nothing else is available but don't get disappointed if you meet a dead end of your anticipation in the end.

Common Man

The Common man is back again and with a bang this time. Yes, i am insinuating to the victory of the so called 'Champion of the common man's cause party' in the recently concluded elections. But before we delve into the dynamics of this fantastic win (which we probably never do because as of now this blog keeps a fair distance from politics), i would like to know actually whom do they talk about when they say a 'Common Man'.

I had always been perplexed by this question for so many years that i was about to accept the fact that i would die without meeting this always elusive common man, then like Mahatma Buddha i got the wisdom sitting under the tree, i got the answer! Now it feels like, i had probably overheard someone talking behind the tree, but at that time i felt i got the salvation, it was the moment of catharsis for me, the ultimate goal of my life. Now i would be able to decipher umpteen speeches, articles, news item that i couldn't understand in my ignoramus days. Boy, i was happy, no i was ecstatic. I call this phase of my life 'Being Stupid' (to borrow a phrase from pursuit of happiness) and I'll tell you why.

The answer was "Anyone who is not VIP or a VVIP or a VVV.. IP is a common man". At that time it seemed quite easy, all i had to do was just filter out the VIP onwards and everyone you are left with is a common man. So, i did the exercise and reached the conclusion that barring from some top honchos of government, political class and business, everyone else is a common man including me. This of course was a disturbing thought, probably the whole definition of the common man is flawed, but how could that be? That was the wisdom i got sitting under the tree. I was hopelessly confused at that time, but now i am sure the above proclaimed hypotheses about the common man is wrong. For a man to be common he should have a definite number of qualities that everyone has and those should be different than the VIPs but i can quote the examples of at least ten people who are unlike any human on the face of this earth, yet fall into the definition of common man.

Lets talk about my college maths teacher Mr. Moorthy. It was a general consensus that he had set foot on this earth landing straight from Mars at the time when dinosaurs ruled the earth and since then he has been doing nothing else but teaching without ever looking who are the students, oblivious to the fact that dinosaurs have long been extinct and some fishes from the ocean who had joined the class millions of years ago have now evolved into creatures who called themselves humans. He used to come to the class, never bothered for attendance register or even to see if there's a soul in the class, talked to the blackboard for forty minutes, doing derivations he had done at least a million times and left without any reaction from the class, i bet he used to teach the empty class on Sundays as well. None of us had seen his full face from the front, we did however see side view of it when sometimes he looked in the direction of the window and said a very loud "Quite!!", assuming that someone is making a noise or asking a question . That was the only communication he had with class or if it was for someone outside the window or a some signal to his superiors on mars, i couldn't tell.

Okay, it's a bit of exaggeration but only a bit. He did come from Mars millions of years ago, maybe Mars had life at that time if it doesn't have it now.

My points however remains that every man on the this earth is unique and cannot be categorized for the sake of convenient speeches by politicians. There's is nothing like 'common good' which always cause a harm to someone. What i would like to see is the government coming up with the policies on which I could ask - What is there for me in this?

That's all for now, i would be back again with more so called "Common Man" who are not so common.

The whole drama around election

This is blog that is posted once in a year if not less frequently, so the topic that's discussed should be equally rare, shouldn't it be. I think elections that happen once in every five years are worth discussing here. Except this time it doesn't look like we 'll have to wait that long for the elections to happen again. Over the years, the equations have definitely changed, some time it looks like this is a cycle when people start getting fed up with the leading parties and choose smaller fishes which are even worse and then come back to Congress or BJP.



Talking about Congress, i would say congress has done rather well in the last five years. The Share market touched twenty two thousand from a meagre six thousand during the last government's term, although it came crashing down to eight thousand back again but that is the effect of world financial crisis on which government doesn't have any control. On the contrary, the current government has done well in handling the global situation and hasn't allowed it to become a crisis in India, we're still facing a slowdown and not a crisis with our financial institutions quite strong when the same are bleeding around the world.



Congress has always portrayed itself as a defender of a common man but have they really done something for the so called common man, it's really hard to say and i would rather not comment on that. But according to the general perception Congress is good enough to run the country. What if the non tolerance has grown throughout the country under the vociferous encouragement of local politicians who want to gain some political grounds from sectarian tactics whether it be cast or region or the colour of their skin, and the silent encouragement of the central government who doesn't want to loose any more local votes. What if this silent encouragement has sprung leaders like thakares, baisalas and mayavatis who would be glad to butcher the country into pieces to get a handful of votes and some inches of proximity to power.



The list of What ifs is long, so lets talk about something else. How about the probables for Prime Ministers. Below i think are the candidates for Prime Ministership.



Manmohan Singh: The prospect of him becoming the PM again doesn't excite me much. The old guy needs a break and a well deserved one. Don't make him work till the time he goes to the grave. I think he has performed his part, played his role to the consummate perfection and should be allowed to retire from a long and rewarding career. He would be always remembered as the man who laid the foundation of India as a financial superpower, if the future leadership managed to do something meaningful with India.



Mayawati: She's young, she's dynamic, she's vibrant, she's people's leader. So what's exactly wrong about her ? She's the antitheses of decency, her public image is that of a greedy, abysmally corrupt, opportunist and sectarian politician who doesn't know how to live in a civilised society. Her image is bad enough for Uttar Pradesh and no decent Indian could bear that image being portrayed for India on the world stage. She has taken the caste based politics to its pinnacle by installing her statues around the Uttar Pradesh. If she becomes the Prime Minister, there will be lot of people like me who'll loose their mind.



Sonia Gandhi: I think most of the converts (in her favour) over the last 5 years won't mind her becoming the Prime Minister. She has proved a lot over the last five years, denouncing the most respected post in India and choosing a deserving candidate, holding the strings of the government from outside and leading the coalition to the five years of successful term. She has created a image of a tough woman for her who has sense to do something meaningful with the responsibility without being a power freak.



Lal Krishna Advani: He has been there for more than fifty years, trying very hard for the party, has been there around the leadership but could only make it to the top when Vajpayi left. Gives a feeling that after this all hard work, perseverance and patience, he should get the ultimate reward, but he's too old and too hardliner on hindutva to make it to the top. I think he has to be satisfied with what he has achieved so far.

Rahul Gandhi: He's my man for the job. Yes, i know he's naive, he's inexperienced, he's almost clean and innocent yet after 5 years in politics. But the good thing about him is his unwillingness, his lack of personal ambition. he has seen power from so close that it doesn't mean anything to him. Power is responsibility to him rather than any ambition. This lack of ambition will allow him to do the things which wouldn't just be vote puller. He's not exactly a dynamic leader, not a crowd puller for sure but if you listen to his speeches, you would get an idea that he's not as stupid as he's made out to be. He talks about the problems we are facing rather than presenting the rosy picture laced with rhetoric that others do. Anyways, if not this time, it's always next time to him. Also, it seems like Congress and mother Sonia wants him to gain some more experience, some more acceptability before embarking upon the job which eventually has to come to him, so why hurry.

Narendra Modi: He has been given so much credit for being a very strong leader who has been quite supportive of business and industries, his fame grew a lot after he cajoledTata to setup the Nano shop in Gujrat. He has the support of industry as well as from inside BJP. Despite all this the Gujrat riot ghost will haunt him for life. He has been a mass murderer who has made a horrible use of the limited power of a Chief Minister, imagine him with the power of a Prime Minister which could corrupt him to unimaginable level. Power is dangerous thing which dislocate the heads of the most stables, Modi is already a power freak. In my openion he is a perilous choice for the PM for the country and for himself.

Sharad Pawar(?): With the elections around and lack of confidence in major parties, the sidelined regional leaders like Sharad Pawar start daydreaming about the top post in indian politics. Well, at least they don't harm anyone doing that and in the process amuse themselves.

About Myself

I am Amit Srivastava, must have heard the name. No? you haven't. I thought this is such a common name you must have come across this before. Anyways, i am quite a versatile person, and don many hats viz. that of an intellectual thinker pondering the meaning of life to that of an adventurer risking his life to achieve an adrenaline rush, and almost everything in between. What? you dont believe it? OK don't. This is my blog and i can write anything. Let me give you an example of my ponderous thinking, lets not write it here, just keep reading this blog you'll get the idea. Besides above i am a Software Developer working for a global investment bank Lehman Brothers, now you know that technology and finance are two of many things that lie in the spectrum of my versatility when i say 'everything in between'. That's it for now. Catch you later with more ponderous stuff.