I did not know about a genre called speculative alternate history till I read “Roma Eterna”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0380814889/jksobservat-20. Books like “Da Vinci Code”:https://varnam.org/archives/000340.html do present alternate history which gets supressed. But Silverberg takes it one step furthur.
The question asked is: What if the Roman empire never died ? What would happen if it had lived for thousands of years. How would that affect the history as we know now. The book is a collection of ten short stories set in different periods of time till about the year 2000 AD.
Some generous assumptions are made. The Exodus under Moses is mentioned as a failed movement. As a result, the Hebrews never make it to Egypt and Christianity is never born.
The first tale “With Caesar in the Underworld” takes us into the underbelly of Rome itself, which is quite different from the polished culture that it presented to the outside world. The Emperor is dying and his eldest son is to take his place after his death. A Greek ambassador who comes with a alliance for the eldest prince is taken on a tour of the underground Roma by the youngest Prince and his friend. There is a sudden twist of events and someone unexpected takes over the throne.
In the second tale, “A Hero of the Empire”, a Roman who has fallen from grace with the Emperor is banished to Arabia in 7th century AD. There while roaming in Mecca, he meets a person named Mahmud, who wants to banish all idol worshippers and unite the feuding tribes under the name of his God called “Allah”. The Greeks had established a trading post in Mecca and Mahmud asks the Roman to join him in defeating the Greeks. But the Roman thinks that Mahmud is a much bigger danger and gets him killed, thus preventing Islam from taking root.
The final story “To the promised land” is about a Hebew named Moshe, set in near 2000 AD, who is going to lead an Exodus of his people. This story of Exodus is not about crossing the Red Sea, but by traveling out of the Earth using a spaceship.
Between the stories I mentioned, you see how the Western Empire with Rome as the capital and the Eastern Greek empire with Constantinople as the capital collide. At some point the Greeks take over Rome and later the Romans take it back. There are stories of money spent in futile wars in Mexico and massacre of the entire Royal family by Consuls.
Most of the stories are excellent and have been written with brilliant imagination. The characters are well established and you get to know their fears and ambitions very well. The vivid descriptions of the ancient cities really take you back in time. But the book is not a quick read. Each of the stories take their own time to establish the era and people. So you have to be patient. On the whole, a good read.
Thanks to “InstaPundit”:http://www.instapundit.com/ for “recommending this book”:http://www.instapundit.com/archives/015337.php.

Another of “Wendy’s Children”:http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/column.asp?cid=239156 has come up with a new book “KISS OF THE YOGINI”:http://www.the-tls.co.uk/this_week/story.aspx?story_id=2107312: “Tantric sex” in its South Asian context, by David Gordon White. Rajiv Malhotra writes about this new interpretation of Tantra in an e-mail
bq. White’s book’s core thesis is that tantra was intended as South Asian decadent sexuality, with NO spiritual purpose, and that this decadence was the result of sociological suffering of Indian subaltern (lower castes) in classical times.
bq. However, he offers no textual basis to prove this (and he is the one who should have the burden of proof, not his critics). Since his thesis on tantra claims to demolish centuries of writings by Kashmir Shaivites and other thinkers from within the tradition, he asserts (without proof) that scholars like Abhinavgupta did not know or did not want to know the real tantra which White claims to have uncovered in his book.
bq. So once again, the natives are not to be trusted in their own interpretations, including their eminent thinkers who have been studied by westerners for centuries. Bottom line: tantra has nothing to do with being a spiritual quest at all.
bq. Coming from one of Wendy’s Children, this is not a surprise, but it raises other issues. A Kashmir Shaivism and tantra scholar who finds this book disgusting in methodology, conclusion and demeaning tone, tells me privately that he does not believe that the pandits in India under whose feet White did his research since 20 years ago have any clue that this is how their firangi scholar (who once respected them with gifts and namaskars) has twisted their translations.
bq. My main purpose in writing this short piece is to focus on Wendy’s use of the book review for political purposes:
Continue reading “Kiss of the Yogini” →

Saw the movie “Troy”:http://troymovie.warnerbros.com/ last night. This movie is a lesson to all young men and women who fall in love. The lesson is that if the young woman happens to be the wife of another person, who is the king of another country, then there will be a war and everyone will be killed except the two people who fell in love and started the war. The other lesson is that you will have to wear a skirt, even if you are Brad Pitt.
The movie is what the industry likes to call, “A Major Motion Picture”, which means, lot of extras get killed. Brad Pitt stars as Achilles and it was believable. The rest of characters, Paris, Helen, Agamemnon were not properly defined. I am comparing this against the Gladiator, where even Commodus as a well defined person. Here you get to know Achilles very well (he walks naked, sleeps naked even when there is war going on) and no one else.
“Troy’s Fallen”:http://www.archaeology.org/online/reviews/troy/index.html is the movie review from Archaeology Magazine, which points out many archaeological mistakes as well as changes from the orignal.
bq. Clearly Homer had the story of the Trojan War wrong and it had to be rewritten, to judge by changes (I can’t say improvements) this movie makes. Homer says it took ten years, but here it is three weeks with the famous quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles taking place on day one. Hektor kills Menelaos and Ajax on day two of the war (Homer’s having Menelaos surviving the war and returning to live happily in Sparta with Helen is awkward, and the suicide of Ajax isn’t really needed for this movie). On the night of day two, the Trojans unleash their secret weapon: Great Balls of Fire! Day three, Hektor is such a good guy that after he kills Patroklos, the young protege of Achilles, he suggests everybody knock off for the rest of the day. By the end of day four, Achilles kills Hektor and Priam can come and beg for his son’s body. Where Homer took more than nine years, the film gets it all done in just four days. For the grand finale, the filmmakers aren’t satisfied with just the horse and the sack of Troy. In the epics, Achilles is dead and gone by the time the wooden horse is built, but here he is still alive so he can search for his love interest, Briseis. Attacked by Agamemnon, Briseis kills him (never mind the ancient tale of Agamemnon returning to Greece to be killed by his unfaithful wife Clytemnestra and then be avenged by his children Orestes and Electra). Paris then shoots Achilles with arrows (five or six, I lost count) before scampering off with his love interest, Helen, to live the simple life somewhere–maybe subsisting on nuts and twigs on the slopes of Mount Ida. That’s right! Helen and Paris get to run away! Homer had it wrong!

Bob Woodward has a new book, “Plan of Attack”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/074325547X/jksobservat-20 on the events preceeding the Iraq Invasion
bq. Plan of Attack is the definitive account of a turning point in history as President George W. Bush, his war council, and allies launch a preemptive attack on Iraq, toppling Saddam Hussein and taking over the country. From in-depth interviews and documents, Bob Woodward provides an authoritative narrative of the Administration’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering over two years and examines the causes and consequences of the most controversial war since Vietnam.
CBS 60 Minutes had an interview with “Bob Woodward”:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/15/60minutes/main612067.shtml today. Here are some snippets
bq. Getso a point where in July, the end of July 2002, they need $700 million, a large amount of money for all these tasks. And the president approves it. But Congress doesn’t know and it is done. They get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the Afghan War, which Congress has approved. ?

The Buddha taught many meditation techniques that were already known. In terms of technique what was his contribution ?
bq. What is called yoga today is actually a later development. Patanjali lived about 500 years after the time of the Buddha, and naturally his _Yoga Sutra_ shows the influence of the Buddha’s teachings. Of course yogic practices were known in India even before the Buddha, and he himself experimented with them before achieving enlightenment. All these practices, however were limited to _sila_ and _samadhi_, concentration up to the level of the eighth _jhana_, the eighth stage of absorption, which is still within the field of sensory experience. The Buddha found the ninth _jhana_, and that is Vipassana, the development of insight that will take the meditator to the ultimate goal beyond all sensory experience.
[excerpt from “Vipassana Meditation”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060637242/jksobservat-20]

Jivha had a blog entry on the “Top Thirteen Rules for Bollywood, 2004 Edition”:http://www.jivha.com/blog/archives/001065.html. Here are some of mine
# Even a poor villager goes to Switzerland to sing songs. We don’t know how he gets the money, maybe by selling one of his kidneys.
# In song sequences, every hero and heroine has a crowd of extras repeating the same steps behind them. 50 years and Bollywood has not found a different way to picturize film songs.
# Every film has a song which is set on stage which is surrounded by crowds of people, who just wave their arms in air. Where do these arm waving people work ?
# If want to look macho and your name is Bobby Deol or Sunil Shetty, then you should wear Rayban glasses even if it is midnight.
# If it is an Amitabh Bachchan movie, there has to be atleast one song where he dances with a bunch of scantily clad girls old enough to be his granddaughter.
# There has to be atleast one song containing the word “Maahive” and “Soniye”.
# Humor is Johnny Lever shouting.

Harvard symologist Robert Langdon is invited by the curator of the Louvre for a meeting and just before that he is murdered. The curator leaves a cryptographic message with his dead body which Langdon decodes with the help of Sophie Neveu, a gifted French cryptologist. The dead curator was a member of the Priory of Sion, a secret society which had as its members Issac Newton, Boticelli, Victor Hugo and Da Vinci.
Leonardo Da Vinci was aware of a historical secret which the Vatican was trying to protect. He managed to convey what he believed in, through his paitings, especially, the Last Supper. Langdon and Neveu discover all these secrets and find the secret that the Priory was trying to protect.
The ride this novel takes you is absolutely thrilling and most probably you will finish this in one sitting. It proposes an alternative history about Jesus Christ and it is slowly revealed in clues scattered in the work of Da Vinci. Besides this there are many mysterious characters and surprises scattered all over making this a page turner. You cannot write anything more without having to reveal the story. So read the book.

They should have stopped the award function at 8 PM, called the entire cast and crew of The Lord of Rings on stage and handed over all the statues to them. That way we all could have slept a bit early. But they deserve each and every award they won. I was rooting for Johnny Depp for best actor award but Sean Penn took it away. But the movie I was rooting for, Finding Nemo, won for best animated film.
It is great to watch local news now. There is a chopper showing us views of all the parties that are going on. Also there is a major traffic jam caused by limousines, which is also being covered live.

Singapore Airlines now has On Demand Movies. A stream of a movie is started
exclusively for you, and so you don’t have to wait till the next round of movies start.
Here is a brief review of the movies I saw on the flight to India

Runaway Jury: John Grisham’s novel dealt with a trial against the tobacco companies. In the
movie, it has been changed to a Gun Control lawsuit. The movie has an
impressive line up of stars — Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, John Cusack and Rachel Weisz.
The movie is pretty good, but I will still say, read the book.

Jhankar Beats: Rahul Bose movies are usually different like Mrs and Mr Iyer, and this one is no exception.
The theme is not anything new, a band struggling to win a music competition
called Jhankar Beats. The story is about the personal lives of the family
lives of the band members as they go through troubles in lives and work. I managed to watch the movie till the end

My Boss’s Daughter: This movie is produced by Ashton Kutcher and stars himself and Tara Reid.
Kutcher works in a Publishing firm run by an uptight boss, who fires people for making bad coffee.
Ashton, gets recruited for watching the boss house, while both the boss
and the daughter are away. That is soon followed by a set of visitors
to the house and it is a funny ride after that. Maybe it was the altitude,
but I was laughing all way till the end.

Here are some book reviews by fellow bloggers
* “Wings of Fire”:http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2004/01/08/wings_of_fire.html by “Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam”:http://www.abdulkalam.com/ (Review by “VS Babu”:http://vsbabu.org/mt/)
* “Interpreter of Maladies”:http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2004/01/06/intepreter_of_maladies.html by “Jhumpa Lahiri”:http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/users/sawweb/sawnet/books/jhumpa_lahiri.html (Review by “VS Babu”:http://vsbabu.org/mt/)
* “Pakistan: Eye of the Storm”:http://www.nirajweb.net/mt/niraj/archives/002216.html by Owen Bennett-Jones (Review by “Niraj”:http://www.nirajweb.net/mt/niraj/)