The Caliph's House

A very interesting book I finished reading recently was Tahir Shah's "The Caliph's House". A personal account of a family's transplant from a first world country to Morocco albeit into an erstwhile Caliph's bungalow. A dilapidated bungalow that was past its prime is bought by Tahir and his wife Rachana and the book is the story of their year long struggle in getting it transformed into a livable paradise straight from the Arabian Nights.

It is so difficult to fathom how every culture reacts differently to circumstances and Tahir captures that so succinctly in his book. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I liked the story telling style of Tahir. His personal biography is pretty interesting too, a writer of Anglo-Afghan-Indian ancestry with Sufi traditions thrown in, he has written many other books too. I definitely want to read the others including the one he wrote while he lived in India for a while. That's the time he met Rachana in Bombay I guess.

References:
Tahir Shah
Caliph's House Review by New York Times
Buy the book at Amazon

The God Delusion

I recently finished reading Richard Dawkins' book 'The God Delusion'. I bought the book, at my local Costco after reading the back cover, which lead me to believe that the book would provide a set of logical explanations and conclusively prove that God does not exist. After finishing the book this is my take on it.

Even though it tends to succeed in certain areas of the argument, I found the writing style to be pretty drab, meandering about, sometimes even rambling with no focus. It felt more like an attempt at a research paper with references being thrown all over the place, just to add credibility to the arguments. Yet at the end of it, I was thinking, is that all ? Is that all your argument is against the existence of God ?

I definitely loved the parts where he goes after organized religion....a pet peeve of mine too. About how religious orders and religious minutemen usurp the original intent of organized religion to be a provider of a social net for people to believe in and gain collective strength. That has long been lost in a maze of rituals and blind faith, bordering on fanaticism. Be it the Abrahamic faiths or the other major religions in the world, almost every one of them is guilty of such faulty principles, even though the original creators probably never had such intent in mind.

Yogi's Rating : 3 stars.

References:
Wikipedia
www.amazon.com

Nat King Cole

Watching a movie... Nat King Cole was playing in the background... had to post this

When I fall in love it will be forever
Or I’ll never fall in love
In a restless world like this is
Love is ended before it’s begun
And too many moonlight kisses
Seem to cool in the warmth of the sun
When I give my heart it will be completely
Or I’ll never give my heart
And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too
Is when I fall in love with you.
And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too
Is when I fall in love with you.

On my desktop

On my desktop currently...

Technical
1) Documenting Software Architectures: Views and Beyond
by Paul Clements, Felix Bachmann, Len Bass, David Garlan, James Ivers, Reed Little, Robert Nord, Judith Stafford
Great book for creating architectural documents. UML based views and approaches to capturing architectural patterns in docs.

2) The Timeless Way of Building (Hardcover) by Christopher Alexander
Rereading this. Classic work. A bible for both classic architects and software architects.

Fiction
1) Life of Pi (Paperback) by Yann Martel
A book about an Indian kid traveling by ship. Interesting read so far.

2)The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream by Paulo Coelho
A fairy tale of sorts... I was impressed by some portions of it, but it sounded too goody two shoes, kids fairy tale like, for my taste.

Non Fiction
1) Thus Spake Zarathustra (Paperback) by Friedrich Nietzsche
This is hardcore fringe western philosophy. ..please don't blame me if you don't like it..please read a chapter on amazon before buying it. I mean he claims that God is dead and that we are living in the age of the super man. I had read the first volume, so when I got a deal for the three volumes for 5 bucks, I went for it.

2) The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias
A classic investment book, been constantly updated for the last 25 years now. Some of the ideas are pretty common sense based, but some gems worth knowing about. Only useful for the US markets though...a lot of material only about here and not useful if you are interested in world wide fund management strategies.

Rene Descartes

I remember reading Descartes in engineering school, wasn't crazy about him then. But I found a great online source for all classic books and have been reading some of them again.

I think, therefore I am is an awesome concept. I think the myth of the Matrix can be debunked by this one principle of philosophy.


I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that “I,” that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body, and is even more easily known that the latter, and is such, that although the latter were not, it would still continue to be all that it is.
After this I inquired in general into what is essential to the truth and certainty of a proposition; for since I had discovered one which I knew to be true, I thought that I must likewise be able to discover the ground of this certitude. And as I observed that in the words I think, hence I am, there is nothing at all which gives me assurance of their truth beyond this, that I see very clearly that in order to think it is necessary to exist, I concluded that I might take, as a general rule, the principle, that all the things which we very clearly and distinctly conceive are true, only observing, however, that there is some difficulty in rightly determining the objects which we distinctly conceive.

The world is flat.

Just ordered The world is Flat and The Lexus and the Olive Tree. If you read the New York Times you'll know who Thomas Friedmann is. Will post my thoughts once I start reading them.
He also wrote a series of articles while travelling around the globe after September 11, 2001. One of his stops was Bangalore, India and he wrote an intersting series of columns about how the two India's are trying to outpace themselves to catch up with the world. The India of the farmer and the India of the techie.

Engaging India

Just finished reading Engaging India by Strobe Talbott. After reading this book, I will never ever complain or crib that the United States always sides with Pakistan in this little street fight we call 'Indo-Pak Tensions'. Strobe categorically talks about how the pakistanis use every trick in the book to extract benefits from the US. He compares them to a New York mugger who instead of holding you up with a gun to your head, holds it up to his own and threatens to shoot himself if you don't dish out money. Yew...that should hurt the pakistani political ego.(Mind you, I am not anti anything, I am just anti political establishment that runs Pakistan. I have pakistani friends who are great guys). Very well written, shows how the american perspective of India has been changing over the past decade or so.