Book Review: Interpreter of Maladies

This is a collection of nine stories. These are mostly about lives of Indians living abroad. I was impressed by two stories but was not excited by others the same way, so I will summarize what I liked.

‘A Temporary Matter’ is story of a couple in distress. Their child is born dead. Wife cannot come to terms with husband because he was not present at the sad moment. She has planned to go separate and is preparing the communication around it. Their apartment is served with a notice of power cut. In the darkness, the couple begins to talk again, and they share the secrets between them each night. At last, wife says she is prepared to leave and husband breaks open the secret of his presence at the sad time of their lives together and of holding their dead baby. Their relationship gets renewed.

‘Interpreter of Maladies’ is story of an Indian family living abroad, on a trip back in India for a vacation. They go on to visit the Konarak temple along with the assistance of a guide. The couple learns that their guide has another odd job of an interpreter between a doctor and patients. The guide generates interests in them and he too is drawn to Mrs. Das. And that lets her share a secret with the guide. For one of her children, her husband is not the biological parent but no one knows about it. She seeks Guide’s help with matter. Guide asks whether it is pain or guilt troubling her. But the circumstances bring the tour to an end and the secret remains a secret.

This is the debut work of Indian American author Jhumpa Lahiri and won her Pulitzer Prize in the year 2000. Her others works are ‘The Namesake’, ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ and ‘The Lowland’ which was nominated for ‘Man Booker Prize’ during 2013.

A joyful walk on the Golden Gate Bridge

It has been a packed work week for me at California (I am on a short visit) as I was rushing through many of the tasks at office. Whola! Weekend was equally joyful. We, a group of colleagues first drove to Lake Tahoe on Saturday. This lake has a length of 35 km, but yet it is not part of ‘The Great Five Lakes’ of North America but it is next in line, at the sixth place. 

Large fresh water body also serves as a weekend getaway for those who would like to swim, fish, or indulge in water sports. In winter, one can go skiing and snowboarding too in the mountains. Well, I am not much into adventures, I was happy walking on the shore, and getting lost (not physically) in the nature.

On a sunny Sunday, what better alternative is there than taking a walk on the Golden Gate Bridge? It has never failed to thrill the visitors since it was built seven decades ago. If you share the fascination towards man-built large structures like big dams or bridges, this one puts you on the cloud. 













This bridge used to be the longest suspension bridge, but many engineers all over the world took inspiration from this once called "the bridge that couldn't be built" and went on to produce even longer structures. But yet, Golden Gate Bridge remains “the most photographed bridge in the world”. We too joined that crowd and took photographs.

One of the persons behind the idea of building this bridge was Joseph Strauss, an engineer by profession and a poet by passion. Result was this bridge along with structural soundness got its elegant looks. It took no time to become a national icon. Except the seismic retrofits, the bridge is doing fine in handling traffic of more than 100,000 cars running over it on daily basis.

Sounds interesting? If you have not already walked over it, you can do it here. Virtually! http://www.airpano.ru/files/San-Francisco-Golden-Gate-USA/2-2

Electronics manufacturing in India finally would become a reality

Though many players wanted to do it – large scale electronics manufacturing in India, they could not make progress. Now I have no doubt of it becoming a reality after reading this news piece - Adani to announce JV worth $5 billion with iPhone maker Foxconn (Link: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/48343913.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst)

Adani has money and the Govt. connections. Foxconn being a contract manufacturer for Apple’s products has the technical know-how and access to market. A domestic market already exists in India. Now all pieces come together.

Read into the news, you will know that India is the target market for half of their intended production, while the rest would be exported to Middle-east, Africa and Russia. It makes perfect business sense and India would earn foreign exchange on the planned export of those 200 million phones (when it becomes a reality). Some of the money we spend on oil, which goes to Middle-east comes back to India, not just through remittances but as wage earnings for those cell phones being made in India.

A Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China

The joint-venture intends to invest $5B through two plants – one to be based in Karnataka and another in Gujarat. Real estate investors – this is time to build insider connections and go hit the market. It would pay-off nicely in the times to come.

While the new investments create jobs here, this has potential to improve the macro economy of India. After oil and gold, it is electronics which is a big item in our imports list. All our hundred crore+ people cannot to do without phones. They will replace it every few years too. And many of them have expensive smartphones in their pockets. So when the new factory starts producing those phones, it would reduce our import bills. And they are planning to sell outside too – that increases exports. Reducing imports and increasing exports at the same time can turn India from a trade deficit country into a trade surplus country. Phew! When more details are available, I would run the numbers and share it with you.

This would take few years to become a reality. But the future looks more certain.

Book Review: Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

David Lurie is a Professor in a University at Cape Town, South Africa. He is married twice, divorced twice. He lives alone. His sexual desire is not calmed down. It was fine when he was buying it. But he takes the risk of seducing a student of his. When the young girl (Melanie) comes to know that old David is not interested in committed relationship, she breaks it. News spreads and a scandal breaks out. David accepts his faults before an inquiry committee, resigns from the job and leaves the place to visit his daughter, Lucy.

Lucy lives in the countryside, runs a farm with the help of Petrus, a local Negro. She earns a living by selling the farm produce. When George comes down, he finds life calm and quiet there. He helps his daughter in small things and thinks of beginning to write an academic book he had in mind. But a disaster strikes his family. Three strangers attack the house, loot the valuables, put George on fire, rapes his daughter, shoot the dogs and escape in George’s car.

Both George and Lucy recover physically but are completely shaken psychologically. There is not much to do for the white westerners in a foreign land outnumbered by the locals with their own set of regulations. When the incident had happened, Petrus who guarded the farm was away. It creates a suspicion in George. Petrus comes back soon after. Petrus throws a party on the farm for his relatives and there in the party, George identifies one of the three attackers. He checks with Petrus and learns that he is a relative of Petrus but nothing can be done. Laws do not help to put the young wrongdoers behind bars. They (George & Lucy) either have to leave the place or tolerate their misdoings. And maintain the silence.

Lucy advises to George to leave the place as he is not unable to come to terms. What George did to a young student, in a way happens to his own daughter. Both incidents were disgraceful. On the way back, he goes on to visit the parents of Melanie (the student he had affair with). But the development in the life of his daughter brings him back to Lucy soon.

Lucy has become pregnant. Petrus offers to marry her but George disapproves. Efforts of George to convince his daughter to move away fail again. He finds another place to live by near to his daughter and begins to assist a white veterinary doctor who treats injured animals. There George giving up the effort to lengthen a dog’s life by another week reflects his changed mindset.

This novel was published 1999 and won the Booker Prize for the author, South African novelist, J.M. Coetzee.  In 2003, author was awarded Nobel Prize for his contributions to literature.

TED talk: The power of time off

Stefan Sagmeister, a designer who closes his studio for a yearlong sabbatical every seven years advises us to do the same on TED talk, to take time-off to become better productive in our routine life. I strongly recommend watching this video.

I am taking out a concept of his for a discussion. He says, a typical person spends first 25 years of his or her life learning, next 40 years working and then begins the retired life. He advises to push out the retirement age by 5 years to use them as sabbatical in between the working years. See the image.

Those sabbaticals help us in understanding the life better and we don’t have to wait till retirement to do what we loved. At least we will get to know how the life after retirement will be. Of course, we need to make practical arrangements to ensure that our employer or customers are not troubled with our disappearance.

Top: Years spent in a typical life. Bottom: As proposed by Stefan S. (Source: TED talk)

I attempted to work out a personalized map out of this concept. I am already 38 and wanted to retire at 60 (or earlier if I become financially independent). If I push out the retirement years by 2 years, I get 24 months (or 104 weeks) to distribute during my next 24 working years. That would mean one month sabbatical a year or 2 month time-off every 2^nd year or any such combinations suited to my needs. I think two weeks of my disappearance every six months would not put my job in jeopardy and employer would agree to it.

What should be the duration of time-off depends on what we want to during that retirement on trial. If we like pilgrimage, we don’t have to miss the next ‘Kumbh mela’ and why stop at char-dham yatra when there is so much to explore? If we are nature enthusiasts, how about taking part in the next tiger census? Those few weeks would be far enriching than a casual wild safari. If you loved your parents, how about giving that time for their unfulfilled wishes? If you are a man of written words, how about visiting a lit-fest, come back energized and write a novel? It could be an awful read for others but it is still your first book. If you are a movie buff, how about creating those short movies to load it on YouTube?

Retirement life is not to please others but to get a sense of satisfaction of living happily. Our bank balance comes down during these mock-retirement periods but the stocks of memories go up. At least it lets us tick off few from the check-list incase if we are not to live till old age by destiny.

Being crazy may be the quickest route to our inner self but we need to back it up with the rationality of a plan. Writing this blog post had made my thoughts more clear, family and passion would get more of time in the form of extended vacation or mini-retirement.