Nirvana!

The first time I heard about RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) was during my engineering college days, mostly during a quiz competition if my memory serves me right. Like most, I too had a romanticized view of intelligence agencies and espionage, mostly because of our exposure to Ian Fleming novels, James Bond and espionage movies. This view continued for long until a few years ago when I read 'Spycatcher' by James Wright, a former MI5 officer. The moles within, inter-agency rivalry, bureaucratic shackles, political interference, were all laid bare by Wirght in that book. I naturally searched more about our own RAW, MI, IB and all I got were newspaper reports which mostly talked about the intelligence failures leading to 1962 debacle, Kargil war, Samba Spy ring, Rabinder Singh case and likewise. It was then I wondered how does our intelligence apparatus really work and who are the people to run it on a daily basis.  These doubts remained as almost nothing is freely avail...

Ramayana is not just a part of our ‘itihasa’ but a part of our civilizational conscience. Though it is said that there are numerous versions of Valmiki’s Ramayan, people in different regions of this land have broadly accepted one of the three versions viz., Original Valmiki’s epic, Kamban’s version and Tulsidas’s retelling. Despite these numerous versions having differences in sub-plots and interpretation of incidents, none of them alter the purport of the epic or tweak around with what Valmiki conveyed in the original. Scion of Ikshvaku by Amish Tripathi is one such retelling which interprets the Ramayana through the lens of the present worldview and without harming the base intent of the original. One of the problems parents and elders today face in narrating our ‘itihasa’ to children is that, the children would have heard or seen a version through various mediums which reduces their interest or hearing or reading it again. The challenge remains to retain the interest of th...

Front Cover. Anyone interested in defence or army is drawn towards the book A soldier guards our border. He/She fights day and night for us, so that we may sleep at peace. A soldier is our hero. One might have heard such words of admiration and gratitude towards our soldiers umpteen times at several fora. While the sentiment behind these words are welcome, restricting ourselves to these eulogizing phrases never allows us to know the normal human being in a soldier, their emotions, their family lives, the trepidation they undergo, about their kith and kin.  Here is another masterpiece by Brig. Subaiah Ganapathi Bhagwath aptly titled ' Antarangada Mrudanga ' which lays bare a soldiers life stripped of the usual rhapsodies and one which gives us an opportunity to know the soldiers life from within. Best aspect of 'Antarangada Mrudanga' is that it conveys the message not through lengthy personal accounts but through short incidents that is easy to remember a...

'Selma' is a great effort and a must watch, atleast once, to know a little more about the plight of the African-American community in the US, then called as 'Negroes'. However, I feel it could have easily become one of the greatest narratives in raising social consciousness. Seems the film missed that opportunity. Not to belittle the team's efforts or to debunk the movie outright, but in the end 'Selma' comes out more as a good documentary than as a movie that depicts the struggle of the African Americans to secure their voting rights.  Compare this with the brilliant narration and screenplay of 'Lincoln' which focusses on his efforts during last four months to get the 13th Amendment(abolition of slavery) to the US Constitution passed. The viewer was not just treated with brilliant acting and script, even the trepidations, emotions, his mental agony all came out brilliantly in the screenplay. We got a view into who Lincoln was and what went...

“ Freedom is not free, everyday soldiers give their lives so that we can live ours. ” 15 years ago, in the summer months of 1999, the Pakistan army with aid from terrorist groups had launched a military attack across the Line of Control (LoC) in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and had threatened India’s territorial integrity. The Pakistani military establishment had become frustrated with India’s success in containing the militancy in J&K to within manageable limits and could not bear to see its strategy of ‘bleeding India through a thousand cuts’ evaporating into thin air. Its military aim was also to sever the Srinagar-Leh National Highway (NH) 1A and to isolate Kargil district and cut India’s lifeline to Leh and possibly occupy it. It is said that another aim was to infiltrate into the Kashmir Valley over the Amarnath Mountains and the Doda regions and physically occupy some territory on the Indian side of the LoC in Kargil district to use as a bargainin...

Whenever we read about the defence forces, army in particular, we get extreme accounts of valor and sacrifice or that of failure and corruption. But a normal army man's humane life gets lost somewhere in between. This Kannada book titled 'G annu Hidida Kaiyalli Pennu' (Pen in the hands which held a gun) by Brigadier SG Bhagwat is a pathbreaking account of life in the army in all its hues which never make it to the media.  Though Brigadier Bhagwat picks instances from his own life in the army in no way the book can be called as a biography. His lucid narration makes sure that the reader focuses on the event rather than the author himself. But the experience he gains from the events he narrates is also from which we get to learn. Amazing isn't it? Some of his experiences makes you proud of the army, some tell the pitfalls in the institution and our system, while few others incidents just make you smile.  Brigadier Bhagwat's narration of his unit...

What makes Narendra Modi the man he is? What is that we can learn from him? If there is one character of Modi that we can inculcate in ourselves, what is that?  Modi gave a 90 mins interview to ETV network. Most us already know his plans for the country and his views on issues tormenting the citizens. So, leaving aside most part of this interview, I consider this 5min part as the most significant, atleast for me, as it tells me who is Modi and what made him the man he is today! Sample this. Modi says, "जीवन में कभी भी कुछ बनने की सपने नहीं देखने चाहिए, कुछ करने के सपने देखने चाहिए और उन सपने को पूरा करने के लिए जीवन जुटा देना चाहिए |" Gives us the direction in which we need to steer ourselves. Next he says,"मुझे बचपन में राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ के द्वारा देश के लिए जीने का संस्कार मिले हैं | 'डिसिप्लिन' से जीने के संस्कार मिले हैं | कठोर परिश्रम करने के संस्कार मिले हैं | खुद के लिए नहीं औरो के लिए सोचने के संस्कार मिले हैं और इसकेलिए मैं राष्...