The Great Arc

The Great Arc

Author: John Keay
Publisher: Harper Collins
Pages: 172

“The Great Arc – The dramatic tale of how India was mapped and Everest was named” is a good book based on a wonderful engineering feat in the 19^th century. The book gives details and anecdotes of the survey team which set about mapping India and calculating the heights of lofty Himalayan peaks. The Great Trigonometrical Survey started in the year 1800 from Madras, went south to Kanyakumari and then off they went up to Dehradun in Uttaranchal under the leadership of William Lambton and after his demise, under George Everest (pronounced ‘eve-rest’) who later became the surveyor general of India. The survey ended in 1843, and by the time the costs in terms of man power and material far exceeded that of any war made by the East India company till then. The survey corrected the maps extant at that time and several errors were brought to public notice for the first time. The width of the south Indian peninsula was lesser than previously thought. Hence, it is also said that this survey caused the East India Company the loss of more land than conceded in any war.

The survey proceeded by triangulation in which three observation points are chosen suitably, the distance (base line) between two points are measured as accurately as possible and the angle between these points obtained using great precision theodolite. It is said that the error in distance was very minute (3 inches along 7.19 miles). Such inch-perfect calculations was further complicated by the fact that the angles of such a triangle described on the curvy earth surface don’t add up to 180 degrees. Corrections for all these factors were also taken into account. The first base line was taken from Marina Beach in Madras to the grand stand in the Madras Race Course. Thus Madras (now Chennai) is called the Greenwich of India. No wonder the Indian Standard Time is actually the local time in Madras.

Till the heights of Himalayan peaks were ascertained, the tallest mountain in the world was considered to be Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador (20,565 ft, which does not include it even in the first 100). This was firmly refuted by Indian surveyors and several peaks were found to be taller than this. George Everest had never seen nor measured the height of the famous mountain which would bear his name. But he was strict on naming any peak with its local appellation and hence the names Kanchenjunga, Nandadevi, Nanga Parbat, Dhaulagiri etc. But the greatest mountain didn’t have a local name and the Nepali government, which had the jurisdiction over the site refused to cooperate with the survey. This prompted Andrew Scott Waugh, who became the Surveyor General after the retirement of Everest, to name the peak in honour of his worthy superior. Waugh’s proposal makes interesting reading.

“We have for some years known that this mountain is higher than any hitherto measured in India and most probably, it is the highest in the whole world. I was taught by my respected chief and predecessor Colonel Sir George Everest to assign to every geographical object its true local or native appellation. I have always scrupulously adhrered to this rule as I have in fact to all other principles laid down by that eminent geodesist. But, here is a mountain, most probably the highest in the world, without any local name that we can discover, whose native appellation, if it has any, will not very likely be ascertained before we are allowed to penetrate into Nepal and to approach close to this stupendous snowy mass. In the meantime, the privilege as well as the duty devolves on me to assign to this lofty pinnacle of our globe a name whereby it may be known among geographers and become a household word among civilized nations. In virtue of this privilege, in testimony of my affectionate respect for a revered chief, in conformity with what I believe to be the wish of all the members of the scientific department over which I have the honour to preside, and to perpetuate the memory of that illustrious master of accurate geographical research, I have determined to name this noble peak of the Himalayas, Mount Everest.The coordinates of Mt Everest are 27 d 59 m 16.7 s N, 86 d, 58 m, 5.9 s E.

Overall rating: 3 Star

Empires of the Indus

Empires of the Indus

Author: Alice Albinia
Publisher: John Murray Publishers
Pages: 314

Empires of the Indus is the story of a journey from the confluence of the river Indus in the Arabian Sea to its source in Tibet through three nations (India, Pakistan and Afghanistan) and an occupied territory (Tibet). Along the journey, the historical details of the territory as well as ethnic minorities (to whom the author appears to have a special affinity) is also narrated in a compact and easy way. The travel was done in 2005 when the author was only 29. In a sense, this may be said to be an epic journey by a solitary female journalist travelling through often lawless regions and where women are generally considered inferior. May be because of the misogynist sentiments harboured by the inhabitants, all doors will be spontaneously opened for a daring and charming white woman! These people who cover their own womenfolk in purdah would do anything for a lady who dares to ask for what she needs! We find people eager to accompany her as guides in urban Karachi, hilly Swat valley where the writ of Taliban runs supreme, in Kargil and in occupied Tibet where the source of the river is finally found.

The journey begins from the delta of Indus near Karachi. The author makes friends with the sewage cleaners of Karachi, the Sheedis (descendants of negro slaves brought along with Arab Muslim invasionists in 8^th century), the Mohana boat people, Kalash tribals and Tibetans. The sources and references indicate that the material is well researched and scientifically chosen. There is an interesting anecdote in which the Sheedis of Pakistan believe that Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore in the late 18^th century was also a Sheedi. This confirms a lingering doubt a tourist might have after visiting Darya Daulat Ganj (Tipu’s summer palace in Srirangapatna near Mysore) where portraits of the Sultan are exhibited even though against Islamic law which prevents the portrayal of a living being. The sultan is shown as an unusually black person when compared to the other Muslim nobles in his court. I had wondered about this after visiting the site in 2009, and now in the backdrop of the Sheedi theory, perhaps it is now clear.

The author, being one of the ahl-al-kitab (people of the book) gets free access to Islamic holy places. She says, “Early Islam was influenced by the holy scriptures – and prophets – of Judaism and Christianity, and the ahl-al-kitab have advantages in Muslim polities. As believers in one God they might go to paradise; if they are women they can marry Muslims; they can certainly go to each other’s worship-places”.

Regarding Jinnah, several pages are dedicated. “He (Jinnah) had not packed away a single silk sock from his mansion in Bombay or his colonial bungalow in Delhi (fondly imagining weekend retreats to India with his equally naïve sister Fatima). Until the very last moment he seems to have had in mind a vague cohabitation of dominion states; he even seems to have convinced himself that the nation he had won for Muslims would be a realm where religion didn’t matter. ‘You are free’ he said three days before independence in a speech that has become the mantra of Pakistan’s embattled secularists (and conversely is excluded from editions of Jinnah’s speeches by the pious), ‘you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques….you may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state”. And what a hue and cry was raised against L K Advani’s speech terming Jinnah as a secularist!

The book also shows in details the hate propaganda circulating sometimes officially in India and Pakistan against each other. She quotes a social studies text book in Pakistan which says, “Muslims and Hindus are completely different in their way of life, eating habits and dress. We worship in mosques. Our mosques are open, spacious, clean and well-lit. Hindus worship inside their temples. These temples are extremely narrow, enclosed and dark”. See the venom in these words! Children are taught in an official text book that “we” worship in mosques! No wonder Pakistan has become and most dangerous country in the world with all forms of religious terrrorism in every nook and corner of the country where even the Army headquarters is not safe.

The unnatural sexual preferences of a large section of the society in the deeply religious areas of Pakistan are also noted in passing. It seems that Islam’s much fabled separation of the sexes was purchased at the cost of sodomy. Even emperors were no different – Emperor Babur’s mother had to virtually push him into the room of his newly wed bride from the clutches of a slave boy who was his lover. Similar was the case of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, who was portrayed as kissing the feet of the sleeping Ayaz, his negro slave-lover. In fact, the romance between Mahmud and Ayaz became an iconic theme in Persian culture!

However, the book loses relevance at some points where the author has relied solely on facts based hearsay. In page 270, it is shown that, “How completely it (the river Indus) exists at one remove from the Indian mainstream was illustrated clearly when L K Advani, India’s right-wing Home minister, visited Ladakh in the late 1990s. ‘What is the river here?’ he asked his hosts, who told him that it was the Senge Tsampo – using the local Tibetan name for the river; the Sindhu, they added, using the Sanskrit appellation. ‘The what?’ Advani asked; then somebody explained: the Indus”. It really requires a substantially large pinch of salt to accept this story about a man who had spent the prime of his youth on the shores of the same river and the same province which bears its name ‘Sindh’.

Altogether, a good work, eminently readable and touches on some aspects of the cultural psyche which still connects us to river which gave us our name.

Overall rating: 3 Star

Antony and Cleopatra

This is one of the tragical pieces of William Shakespeare composed in 1606 based on historical records. A review is obviously not intended.

Some scenes are really masterful, particularly the last few. The suicides of Antony and Cleopatra bring forth the contradictions and worldly pressures experienced by the lovers. Antony paid the price of ignoring his call of duty and immersing in the pleasure of Egypt. He was defeated in the Battle of Actium by Octavius Caesar and had to commit suicide as no room was granted to him by the victorious Caesar.

India As Seen By Early Muslim Chroniclers

Author: Syed Osman Sher
Publisher: Regency Publications
Pages: 296

A good collection of remembrances of India from the stand point of Muslim chroniclers spaced about a millenia from 8^th to 18^th centuries. The list include royal personages like Babur and Jehangir and also traders and itinerant travellers like Ibn Batuta. We get a glimpse of early India through the eyes of the most hostile historiographers who viewed with disdain the people, religion, customs and traditions of India. The author notes on an almost regretful tone that, “the Muslim chroniclers, and for that matter any Muslim mind, could not compromise with the existence of the vast array of gods in various forms and shades as worshipped by the Indian religious mentality, as also about the absence of the Day of Accountability. In no case or circumstance, the created one can acquire that quality which has bestowed on the Creator the unique position of Godhead. Once God acquires human qualities and human needs, how can he be worthy of worship by fellow humans? Islam, therefore, neither deifies humans nor humanizes God”. Obviously, the medieval Muslim mind could not transgress this narrow limit set by religion. Muslims believe that creation of man took place only 7000 years ago. Al Beruni says in Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh that “the opinion of the Hindus is that the world is very old, and that no age has been devoid of the human race, and that from that event 100 thousand thousand years have passed. And yet for all that they make no mention of Adam, whose creation took place only 7000 years ago. Hence it is evident that these events are not true at all, and are nothing but pure invention, and simple imagination”.

The pages are nothing but more and more professions of ignorance, intolerance and foolhardiness. Timur notes in his Autobiography on the requirement of conquering India as “By the order of God and the Prophet, it is incumbent upon me to make war upon these infidels and polytheists”, and also, “my object in the invasion of Hindustan is to lead an expedition against the infidels that, according to the law of Muhammad (upon whom and his family be the blessing and peace of God) we may convert to the true faith the people of that country, and purify the land itself from the filth of infidelity and polytheism; and that we may overthrow their temples and idols and become ghazis and mujahids before God”.

Al Beruni describes the victorious march of Mahmud of Ghazni as “He went to Mathra (Mathura) which is a place of worship of the infidels, and the birth place of Kishan, the son of Basudev, whom the Hindus worship as a divinity – where there are idol temples without number, and took it without any contest, and raised it to the ground”.

Ibn Batuta notes on the principal mosque of Delhi (not the present Juma Masjid, which was built by Shah Jehan) as “the cathedral mosque occupies a large area; its walls, roofs and paving are all constructed of white stones, admirably squared and firmly cemented with lead…at the eastern gate, there are two enormous idols of brass prostrate on the ground and held by stones, and everyone entering or leaving the mosque treads on them. The site was formerly occupied by an idol temple, and was converted into a mosque on the conquest of the city”.

Many Muslim and pseudo-secular historians suggest that Jizya, the poll tax to be paid by Hindus for living in their own homeland, was necessitated by economic and not religious considerations. The root of this argument crumbles if we consider Muntakhab-Al-Lubab by Mohammed Hashim Khafi Khan that “the income from Jizya, which at its height, amounted to fifty-two lakh was in addition (to these twenty crore); but it began to decrease from the reign of Bahadur Shah”. So, this means that this tax constituted only 2.6% of the total revenue which is hardly an economic motivator, particularly when we learn that Aurangzeb was ready to forego the considerable income from the export of Salt Petre which was used for making gun powder, on the argument that this may be used in wars against Muslim countries!

Babur notes in his diary, later called Babur Nama that, “The solid rock out-croppings around Urwahi (Gwalior) have been hewn into idols, large and small. On the southern side is a large idol, approximately twenty yards tall. They are shown stark naked with all their private parts exposed. Around the two large reservoirs inside Urwahi have been dug twenty to twenty-five wells, from which water is drawn to irrigate the vegetation, flowers and trees planted there. Urwahi is not a bad place. In fact, it is rather nice. Its one draw back was the idols, so I ordered them destroyed”. We can safely assume that the Taliban which destroyed Buddha statues in Bamiyan was emulating their illustrious medieval compatriot.

The cruel face of the spoilt son of Akbar, romantic and often inebriate Jehangir is exposed in his memoirs, the Tuzuk-I-Jehangiri when he comments about Guru Arjan Dev, a Sikh Guru who was beheaded by Jehangir. “In Gobindwal, which is on the river Biyah (Beas), there was a Hindu named Arjan, in the garment of sainthood and sanctity, so much so that he had captured many of the simple-hearted Hindus, and even of the ignorant and foolish followers of Islam, by his ways and manners, and they had loudly sounded the drum of his holiness. They called him Guru, and from all side stupid people crowded to worship and manifest complete faith in him. For three or four generations (of spiritual successors) they had kept this shop warm. Many times it occurred to me to put a stop to this vain affair or to bring him into the assembly of the people of Islam”.

Jehangir notes on Pushkar that, “On the 7^th Azar I went to see and shoot on the tank of Pushkar, which is one of the established praying places of the Hindus, with regard to the perfection which they give (excellent) accounts that are incredible to any intelligence, and which is situated at a distance of three kos from Ajmer. For two or three days I shot water fowls on that tank, and returned to Ajmer. Old and new temples which in the language of infidels, they call Deohara are to be seen around this tank. Among them, Rana Shankar, who is the uncle of the rebel Amar, and in my kingdom is among the high nobles had built a Deohara of great magnificence on which one lakh rupees had been spent. I went to see that temple. I found a form cut out of black stone, which from the neck above was in shape of a pig’s head, and rest of the body was like that of a man. The worthless religion of the Hindus is this, that once on a time for some particular object the Supreme Ruler thought it necessary to show himself in this shape; on this account they hold it dear and worship it. I ordered them to break that hideous form and throw it into the tank”.

A curious reference is also there on the practice of Polyandry in Malabar. Abdur Razzak notes in Matlau-s Sadain that, “among them is a tribe (in Kalikot) in which one woman has several husbands, of which each one engages in separate occupation. They divide the hours of the night and day amongst themselves, and as long as any one of them remains in the house during his appointed time, no other one can enter. The Samuri is of that tribe.”

Rating: 2 Star

Arctic Home in the Vedas

Arctic Home in the Vedas

Author: Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Publisher: Vijay Goel, Delhi

Pages: 188

Tilak, the renowned freedom fighter of India and a learned intellectual to adorn the pantheon of enlightened leaders of the 20^th century puts forward a new theory on the origin and birth place of the Aryan race. From the references in the Vedas and Zend Avesta, the sacred book of the Parsis, Tilak concludes that the original home of the Aryans was well to the north of Arctic circle, which had a pleasant and habitable climate in the inter-glacial period immediately after the last ice age around 8000 BC. They migrated from the place and travelled to diverse places like Western Europe, Persia and India. References from Vedas and Brahmanas are quoted extensively throughout the book giving the arguments credence and authority. Corroborative evidence from Avesta makes the arguments powerful and lends weight to stand upright even in the face of the fiercest criticisms.

Tilak’s language is pristine and unequivocal. Whether the theory is right or wrong, the style of presentation and the author’s knowledge of the topics he is handling is impeccable. The long bibliography testifies to the determination of the ‘hard liner’ in Indian politics in early 20^th century. The time period of Aryans’ migration is categorized thus:

10,000 or 8,000 BC – The destruction of the original Arctic home by the last Ice age and the commencement of the post-Glacial period.

8,000 – 5,000 BC – The age of migration from the original home. The vernal equinox was then in the constellation of Punarvasu.

5,000 – 3,000 BC – The Orion period, when the vernal equinox was in Orion. Many Vedic hymns can be traced to the early part of this period. It was at this time that first attempts to reform the calendar and the sacrificial system appear to have been systematically made.

3,000 – 1,400 BC – The Krittika period, when the Vernal equinox was in Pleiades. The traditions about the original Arctic home had grown dim by this time and very often misunderstood, making the Vedic hymns more and more unintelligible.

1,400 – 500 BC – The Pre-Buddhistic period, when the Sutras and the philosophical systems made their appearance.

When the arguments are however examined with the cold light of reason and hindsight, they fall to the ground. The author’s reasoning is mainly based on the passages in Rig Veda which refer to long nights and dawns. Instead of treating them as poetic fantasies, Tilak takes them to mean verbatim and concludes that the Arctic days and nights are longer, sometimes up to months, these are reproductions of the dim memory of the original home of the Aryans. In some passages, the justifications are really stretched to the verge of breaking. An example goes like this, “Aditi, Mitra and also Varuna forgive if we have committed any sin against you! May I obtain the wide fearless light, O Indra! May not the long darkness come over us! (Rig Veda II, 27,14). The expression in the original for ‘long darkness’ is dirghah tamisrah and means an ‘uninterrupted succession of dark nights rather than simply ‘long darkness’.

Tilak’s unabashed eulogy of Brahmins and supremacy of Aryans is discomfiting for those readers who expect a more cosmopolitan view from one of the stalwarts of Indian nationalism. Regarding Brahmins, he says, “The Asiatic Aryans (as against European Aryans) were able to preserve a good deal more of the original religion and culture, but it seems to be mainly due to their having incorporated the old traditions into their religious hymns or songs; and made it the exclusive business of a few to preserve and hand down with religious scrupulosity these prayers and songs to future generations by means of memory specially trained and cultivated for the purpose.” and also, “the vitality and superiority of the Aryans races, as disclosed by their conquest, by extermination or assimilation of the non-Aryan races, with whom they came in contact in their migrations in search of new lands from the North pole to the Equators, if not to the farther south, is intelligible only on the assumption of a high degree of civilisation in their original Arctic home”

Overall rating: 2 Star

From Akbar to Aurangzeb – A Study in Indian Economic History

From Akbar to Aurangzeb – A Study in Indian Economic History

Author: W H Moreland
Publisher: Low Price Publications, Delhi
Pages: 341

Unlike other history books which deals with Kings and macroeconomic perspectives, this book is intended mainly to learn the grass root conditions existing in India at that time, the economic lives of individuals, societies and countries, struggling to be alive. It provides a rich source of information on the economic aspects of India during a short period of Akbar’s death (1605) to the accession of Aurangzeb (1658). The development of foreign trade, formation and consolidation of foreign trading companies, material of import and export, the coins and weights and measures prevalent at that time etc are only a small part of the information provided by Moreland. The book was originally published in 1923 and being a member of the erstwhile Indian Civil Service, the author carries weight in his scholarship and the arguments he puts forth.

After the sea route to India through the Cape of Good Hope was discovered by Vasco Da Gama in 1498, the trade to India and the Spice Islands (Indonesia) was monopolized by the Portuguese for a little more than a century. The English and Dutch East India companies were formed in the beginning of 16^th century and their naval powers gradually drove the Portuguese out of Indian seas. The Dutch assumed power over the Spice Islands from the Portuguese. The new companies found it hard to maintain a balance of trade with India, as the imports from Europe were not saleable here, as the purchasing power of the people was very low. Only a few curiosities and luxurious articles were purchased by the Moghul nobles and other rich merchants. Consequently, the Europeans had to pay for the material they exported to Europe in gold or silver, which again, was controlled back home. Pepper, cotton, calico, indigo and salt petre were the main articles of trade from India as no other spice was grown in India. To find the money (gold and silver) to trade, the new companies participated in the Asiatic carrying trade in which cotton was transported from India to Spice Islands where they can be converted to spices like clove, nutmeg etc. Also, raw silk was carried from India to China or Japan where there was a gold surplus. The British company was in worse financial position than the Dutch but since they had no base outside India unlike the Batavian occupations of the Dutch, the British started a factory in Surat. The term ‘factory’ is not used in the modern sense, but rather as a warehouse. This was necessary because collection of material was not feasible while the ship was anchored at port because the traders increased the prices when they know that the demand was urgent. Hence, the British found it advantageous to build a factory, collect materials there and export it when ships arrive. This was the modus operandi of the companies.

There are some interesting points in the book, particularly a reference to Kunjali Marakkar, the naval chief of the Zamorins towards the end of the fifteenth century. He says that, “The only great challenge to the Portuguese was that of “Cunnale”, the pirate-king of Malabar. The story of his rise to power is curious rather than important. Enjoying the secret protection of Calicut, he gradually became a serious danger to Portuguese shipping, and towards the close of the 16^th century he assumed the title of “Lord of the Indian Seas”, and granted licenses for shipping on the lines adopted by his enemies. A Portuguese expedition sent against him was defeated, and he then styled himself “Defender of Islam, and Expeller of the Portuguese”; but his enjoyment of these titles was short, for a second expedition was completely successful, and it is said that the “Lord of the Indian Seas” was eventually executed at Goa.”

The spice trade lost its importance in the 18^th century because, “The insistent demand for pepper and cinnamon, cloves, mace and nutmegs arose partly from their use in preserving meat for winter consumption, and partly from the taste of the time; while its gradual reduction was due on the one hand to changes in Western agriculture, which ensured supplies of fresh meat throughout the winter, on the other hand to changes in the art of cooking, and in particular o the substitution of sweet for spiced dishes.”

Slave trade was rampant in India at that time, as the author says, “At the outset, Batavia was a capital without a population. The Dutch themselves were few in numbers, and the hostility of their neighbours was sufficient to prevent any large influx of settlers from the vicinity; a letter written from Batavia in the year 1626 says that the natives had abandoned all parts previously inhabited, and that from paradise the country had become a wilderness. A supply of inhabitants had to be organised, and, as might be expected from the conditions prevailing at that time, the skilled craftsmen, shopkeepers, market-gardeners, and the like were obtained from China, while the East coast of India furnished general labourers and domestic servants. The Chinese came of their own accord, and lived in Batavia as free men under a ‘captain’ of their own nation; the Indians, on the other hand, were purchased on the coast from dealers of their own nation, and were imported as commodities in Dutch vessels. From about 1620, therefore, the Dutch requirements from India were, first, a large initial supply of slaves, and then a steady stream of reinforcements to make good the wastage, which may fairly be assumed to have been heavy. Owing to the change of climate, imported slaves, “Bengalders, Arakanders, Malabars etc’, were greatly affected by sickness on their arrival in the islands. The supply was obtained by ordinary commercial methods: there is nothing to suggest that the Dutch merchants practiced either force or fraud, and we find them regularly buying from Indian dealers after obtaining the permission of the authorities.”

Francisco Pelsart, the chief of the Dutch factory at Agra, describes the life of the people as, “the manner of life of the rich in their great superfluity and absolute power, of the common people in their utter subjection and poverty – poverty so extreme and so miserable that the life of the people cannot be adequately depicted or described, for here is the home of stark want, and the dwelling-place of bitter woe. Yet the people endure patiently, seeing that there is no prospect of anything better, and scarcely anyone will make an effort, for a ladder by which to climb higher is hard to find; a workman’s children can follow no occupation other than their father’s, nor can they marry into any other caste. There are three classes of people who are indeed nominally free, but whose status differs very little from voluntary slavery, - workmen, peons or servants and shop keepers. For the work men, there are two scourges, low wages and oppression. Workmen in all crafts, which are very numerous (for a job which one man would do in Holland here passes through four men’s hands before it is finished), can earn by working from morning till night only 5 or 6 tackas, that is, 4 or 5 stivers. The second scourge is the oppression of Governor, nobles, Diwan, Kotwal, Bakhshi, and other Imperial officers. If one of these wants a workman, the man is not asked if he is willing to come, but is seized in his house or in the street, well beaten if he should dare to raise any objection, and in the evening, paid half his wages, or perhaps nothing at all. From these facts, their diet can be readily inferred. They know little of the taste of meat. For their monotonous daily food, they have nothing but a little khichri, made of moth mixed with rice, cooked with a water over a little fire until the moisture had evaporated, and eaten hot, with a little butter, in the evening; in the day time they much a little parched pulse, or other grain, which they say satisfies their lean stomachs. Their houses are built of mud, with thatched roofs. Furniture, there is little or none – some earthenware pots to hold water and for cooking, and two beds, for here man and wife do not sleep together. Their bed clothes are scanty, merely a sheet, or perhaps two, serving both as under – and over – sheet; this suffices in the hot weather, but the bitter cold nights are miserable indeed, and they try to keep warm over a little cow dung fire, which is lit outside the door, because the houses have no fire-places or chimneys; the smoke from these fires all over the city is so great that the eyes run and the throat seems to be choked.

In this country, peons or servants are exceedingly numerous. For their slack and lazy service, the wages are paid by the Moguls only after large deductions. Most of the great lords reckon 40 days to the month, and pay from 3 to 4 rupees for that period; but wages are often left several months in arrears, and then paid in worn-out clothes or other things. Very few serve their masters honestly; they steal whatever they can; and if they buy only a pice-worth of food, they will take their share, or dasturi (commission)…..Otherwise, it would be impossible to feed themselves and their families on such low wages; and accordingly their position and manner of life differ very little from that of the workman in the wealth of their poverty.

Whatever he may deal in – spices, drugs, fruit, cloth, or anything else – the shopkeeper is distinctly better off than the workman, and some of them are even well-to-do; but they must not let the fact be seen, or they will be victims of a trumped-up charge, and their property will be legally confiscated, for informers swarm like flies around the officials, and make no difference between friends and enemies, perjuring themselves when necessary in order to remain in favour. Further, they are so oppressed that if the Emperor’s nobles or governors should require any of their goods, they must sell them for very little – less than half price….”

Corruption was rampant among the officials, as “Apart from taxes, local authorities could hope to realise a large income from presents, fines and bribes. The first of these heads does not call for detailed description; the practice of giving presents was universal and binding. Writing primarily of Agra, Pelsart recorded that criminals were rarely executed unless they were poor, but their property was confiscated for the benefit of the Governor and the Kotwal. He added an expression of pity for those who came before these godless and unrighteous officers; their eyes bleared with greed, their mouths gape like wolves for their prey, their bellies hunger for the bread of the poor; every one stands with hands open to receive, for no mercy or compassion can be had except on payment”

Overall rating: 4 Star

Next

Next

Author: Michael Crichton

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 423

‘Next’ is Crichton’s last piece of work, published in 2006. This work is in stark contrast to his other books which is so thrilling and packed with scientific snippets that the reader would be compelled to finish the book in one go. ‘Next’ is nothing of the sort, being a documentary than a novel in which there is no interconnecting thread going through all sections. This is Crichton’s views about the revolutions through which genetic engineering is going through and the immoral and unethical pathways via which it is progressing, mainly due to the unnecessary legal hassles put forward by the US legislature. It talks about talking chimpanzees, a humanzee (a chimpanzee born on an embryo fertilised with human sperm), parrots doing maths, pharma companies claiming ownership on donor’s tissue cells and forcibly trying to recover it from their siblings etc. The book should rather be presented as a statement by the author against some of the worst practices the genetic industry is facing now.

Crichton suggests solutions to the sorry state of things. They are,

1. Stop patenting genes
2. Establish clear guidelines for the use of human tissues
3. Pass laws to ensure that data about gene testing is made public
4. Avoid bans on research
5. Rescind the Bayh-Dole Act (the act which permits university professors to sell their discoveries for their own profit)

Overall rating: 3 Star

The Lost Symbol

The Lost Symbol

Author: Dan Brown

Publisher: Doubleday

Pages: 478

The latest thriller by the creator of ‘Da Vinci Code’ and ‘Angels and Demons’ is another page turner in the inimitable style of the master story teller. The book is based on the esoteric rituals and practices of the very poweful secret society ‘Free Masons’ in which the most prominent personalities of the USA are members. The prodigal son of the society’s tallest leader tries to break in to the society through a map encoded in a small stone pyramid kept in secret cellars. This man was practising occultism and believes that the knowledge or ‘lost word’ which can be located by deciphering the engraving on the pyramid will turn him into a demon with mystical powers if he sacrifices himself at the altar of the House of the Temple of Freemasons. Robert Langdon, the hero of the two earlier super hit books, along with the help of Katherine Solomon, the sister of the freemason’s leader averts this crisis by unlocking the secret codes. The villain of the piece possesses a video of occult practises performed by the freemasons in which several influential senators and justices of the Supreme Court are participating. The CIA is determined to stop the video from circulating and declares its recovery as a concern for national security. All is solved at the last minute by the lead characters. A thrilling piece of work which holds the suspense in every word of it. Superbly done.

So much for the thriller part! But the contents however, is disappointing particularly after Angels and Demons in which Brown resorts to science fiction in which a positron explosive device is used. Such a device, though doesn’t exist now, is certainly feasible if technology is sufficiently advanced. Angels and Demons is based on solid science and many chapters are staged at the CERN (European Centre for Nuclear Research) giving the author an air of scientific honorability. Alas, all that is dashed in the present work! Here, Brown praises the power of human mind, how the ancients had possessed greater knowledge than the present society, a pseudo-science called Noetics which explores whether the power of mind can alter the physical world and answers in the affirmative. There are passages in which Katherine declares that it is a solid scientific reality that thoughts have mass and prayer groups or minds working in unison can affect the world in a beneficial or harmful way.

Coming so close on the heels of Angels and Demons, surely many of the laymen who read these false premises will falter towards the junk science of mind power or Noetics or what ever you call it! There are laughable references that proves the Ancients had more wisdom than us and many scientific theories are described in an encrypted form in the old texts. We are led to believe that String theory, the physical theory for unification of the four fundamental forces of nature is detailed in the Book of Zohar, a Jewish work many thousands of years old! It has now become the fashion of a few people to declare that the ancient texts describe what we know today as scientific facts. The advocates of Vedic Science comes readily to mind. Whatever you say to them, they will show the text in the Vedas where it is described in an esoteric form. The only problem is that since the text is obscure, you have to interpret it in the way the advocates do. String theory however, is still debated and not proved true by any stretch of the imagination. I wonder how Brown can explain the irregularity if it is indeed proved wrong in future accelerator projects! Interpretation is a vast portal through which any scientific theory can be embedded in any text!

Strangely, the author seems to be doing penance after the allegations of blasphemy in the earlier works. He praises all religious books, particularly the Bible and claims that it contains scientific ideas beyond which we need not look further. The human mind, he says, is the true God and its power makes us Gods. A strong link to the Advaita theory is noticeable, in fact, the book is littered with references to Hindu concepts and ideologies. After all such trash, there is one inconsistent sentence in one the final passages, “If the ancestors could see us today, surely they would think us gods”. This is with reference to the achievements of modern Science which we have around us, but it runs counter to argument thread of the book.

Altogether, the book is a disappointing one, which comes only marginally above in quality to ‘Digital Fortress’, the poorest of Brown’s five books. The author is obsessed with Robert Langdon, the hero of three of his works! In a lighter vein, one would be tempted to ask him what happened to Sophie Novou and Vittoria Vetra, the heroines of the previous two works, when we see his romantic overtures to Katherine Solomon, the heroine of this book!

Rating: 3 Star

White Mughals

White Mughals

Author: William Dalrymple

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 508

William Dalrymple is an Indophile English author whose work titled ‘The Last Mughal’ portrays the 1857 freedom war or mutiny, depending on which side you are on, gained much acclaim in India. Chronologically, the ‘White Mughals’ is a prequel to the events which caused the rebellion in 1857. Content wise, there is no relation between the two works. The Last Mughal is essentially history, while White Mughals is more of a novel. It establishes the love and marriage of the English resident of Hyderabad, James Achilles Kirkpatrick with Khair-un-Nissa begum, a noble lady of the Hyderabadi aristocracy. They lived happily for a decade or so, at the end of which their two children were sent to England for education and Kirkpatrick dies following a serious illness. Khair then have an affair with a senior officer of the East India Company, Henry Russell who abandons her after some time to marry an English woman. Khair also dies of an illness soon after. The children who were sent to England are converted to Christianity and never visit India again. This is the essence of the story. Nothing much to impress really.

Dalrymple establishes that the dislike and condescending attitude the British developed towards India and its culture was an entirely new offshoot in the beginning of the 19^th century. Earlier they were more accommodating and eagerly took part in the religious functions and married Indian women. The Anglo-Indian society thus formed were given prominent positions in the company hierarchy till the time of Lord Cornwallis, who put an end to such practices and excluded the hybrid community from the power centres. This was the time in which the British were still dependent on Indian kings and sultans and naturally they found it convenient to establish marital relations with the aristocracy of the princely states. At the turn of the 19^th century, the English were all powerful in India. 50 years after Plassey, they stood unchallenged with the French threat convincingly put out after Mysore wars which saw Tipu Sultan defeated.

‘White Mughals’ however, portrays the moral degeneracy India has sunk into in those periods. He quotes the writing of a Portuguese sailor thus, “Others were no doubt lured from Portuguese service by the delights of a society in which slavery, concubinage and polygamy were widespread and entirely accepted, and where they could emulate the curious figure some British sailors encountered at the beginning of the seventeenth century living with as many women as he pleaseth......he will sing and dance all day long, near hand naked...... and will be drunk two days together”.

Tipu Sultan is considered to be champion of Indian freedom since he fought against the British. Our politically inclined historians, however, has lost sight of Tipu’s real intentions in fighting against the British. He had only one aim in doing so, and that was the continuation of his reign and nothing else. He openly sought help from the French who helped him in increasing his military power and providing him with a mercenary force. How can such a person be the fountainhead of India’s freedom struggle? Dalrymple quotes a letter from Napoleon Bonaparte to Tipu, which was sent from Cairo, annexed by Napoleon. It runs thus, “You have already been informed of my arrival on the borders of the Red Sea, with an innumerable and invincible army, full of the desire of releasing and relieving you from the iron yoke of England. I eagerly embrace this opportunity of testifying to you the desire I have of being informed by you, by the way of Muscat and Mocha, as to your political situation. I could even wish you could send some sort of intelligent person to Suez or Cairo, possessing your confidence, with whom I may confer. May the Almighty increase your power, and destroy your enemies!”. It is curious to hear Bonaparte talking about iron yoke of England, because if he and Tipu had their ways, India would have been under the iron yoke of France! Some freedom fighter!

The Muslim aristocracy who ruled India had their roots in Afghanistan or Persia. The book describes how these powerful nobles saw the country of their livelihood. Abdul Lateef, a Persian in the court of Hyderabad was “shocked to see men and women naked apart from an exiguous cache-sex mixing in the streets and markets, as well as out in the country, like beasts or insects. I asked my host, “What on earth is this?” “Just the locals” he replied, “They’re all like that!” It was my first step in India, but already I regretted coming and reproached myself”. And this man lived in India for the rest of his life, sapping the tax revenue from those wretched locals whom he despised so much.

All in all, the book is not as nicely readable as the Last Mughal, especially since the author’s narration of even the minutest details like the gardening arrangements of the British resident in Hyderabad. There are several such sections where the reader has no choice but to somehow read through the boring sections. Otherwise, it is a good work, even though the theme is very superficial and does not appear anywhere in the course of Indian history.

Rating: 3 star

The Science of Leonardo

Author: Fritjof Capra

Publisher: Doubleday

Pages: 274

Leonardo Da Vinci, the renaissance painter and engineer needs no introduction to any audience. Whatever unfamiliarity the general public had, had been effectively wiped out by Dan Brown’s classic, “The Da Vinci Code”. Brown’s colourful portrayal of the great man had created the wrong impressions on many minds, mine included regarding his religious affiliations. Till I read Capra’s eminently written biographical narrative portraying Leonardo as one of the pioneering scientists and a great military engineer, I was naturally inclined to side with Brown’s suggestions of a polytheist about da Vinci.

Da Vinci was born in Florence and rose to prominence due to his works in that city and others including Milan, Rome and France. Capra’s main intention in the book is to bring out those aspects which made da Vinci a pioneering scientist. So, those who reads this book for some of the background anecdotes regarding some of the world’s greatest paintings will be in for despair. Except one or two cursory references even to Mona Lisa, Capra focuses always on the making of a scientist. Leonardo was famous for the detailed drawings on human and animal anatomy, especially equestrian, his surgeries on dead animals and humans, studies on hydraulics and canals, designing costumes and royal emblems for entertainment shows and on and on.

Leonardo clearly anticipated some of the developments in science during the 16^th century, the era of Descartes and Newton. But Capra’s suggestions that had the background been sufficiently advanced during da Vinci’s time, he would have surpassed many of the great men may better be regarded as only his opinion and not based on any established fact. Also, the origins of medieval thought is given very briefly, but attractively. The following paragraph is one of them.

“In early Greek philosophy, the ultimate moving force and source of all life was identified with the soul, and its principal metaphor was that of the breath of life. Indeed, the root meaning of both the Greek ‘psyche’ and the Latin ‘anima’ is ‘breath’. Closely associated with that moving force – the breath of life that leaves the body at death – was the idea of knowing. For the early Greek philosophers, the soul was both the source of movement and life, and that which perceives and knows. Because of the fundamental analogy between micro- and macrocosm, the individual soul was thought to be part of the force that moves the entire universe, and accordingly the knowing of an individual was seen as part of a universal process of knowing. Plato called it the ‘anima mundi’ the ‘world soul’”. The resemblance to the theory of Advaita is so striking!

And finally, a note from da Vinci’s note book – “Just as a well-spent day brings a happy sleep, so a well-employed life brings a happy death”.

Rating: 3 star

In Search of the Big Bang

In Search of the Big Bang

Author: John Gribbin

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 346

John Gribbin is a renowned science writer who has a direct appeal on the general public. His style, full of clarity and fluid explanation of even difficult concepts marks him apart from other writers of the bunch. However, this one piece is an exception to the rule. The narration is terse at several sections, which might also be due to the fuzzy perception of concepts even by experts of the field. How can one account for the existence of a quantum fluctuation, an act of creating something from nothing? What is the difference between believing that God created universe from nothing and that the universe spontaneously originated from a quantum fluctuation in vacuum? Though Gribbin makes fun of the Pope’s comment at a science seminar in Vatican in 1981 when he advised great scientists, including Hawking who was present, to avoid going for the origin of the Universe as it is in the purview of the meta-physicists, we can’t help feeling that Science has a lot more to go forward in at least trying to explain the events which unfolded not at the beginning, but even after the elapse of a time period after the event. Cosmology abounds with theories which can be tested at only very high energies which occur only very near in time to the Big Bang. The author valiantly defends such theories as if it is common sense, but in several cases, it is just the contrary.

However, several concepts are clearly spelt out. An example is the elucidation of the second law of thermodynamics, which is also called “The Supreme Law of Nature”. Heat always flow from a hotter object to a cooler one, states the law. This creates an arrow of time in which processes can occur only in one direction. Though physical processes are time invariant, meaning that they happen in the same way, even if time is reversed, the second law defines the direction in which time flows.

The description of Edmond Halley’s works in Chapter 3 is thrilling. Ptolemy and Hipparchus had created star maps in the beginning of the Christian era. But in 1718, Halley realized that three stars – Sirius, Procyon and Arcturus – were not in the places where Ptolemy had seen them. The differences in positions were much too great to be dismissed as error by the ancients. Arcturus, for example, appeared in 1718 to be twice the width of the full Moon away from the position in Ptolemy’s writings. Halley inferred that Arcturus, and the other stars, had moved over the centuries since the Greeks recorded their positions.

Parsec, the unit of measurement of distances to stars is clearly explained. Since the radius of the Earth’s orbit is 150 million km, observations made 6 months apart, from opposite sides of the Sun, are at the ends of a baseline 300 million km (2 AU) long. It is a matter of simple geometry to calculate how far away a star would have to be, in order to show a certain parallax displacement across such a baseline. One parallax second of arc, or parsec for short, is the distance to a star which would show a displacement of 1 second or arc from opposite ends of a baseline equal to the distance from the Earth to the Sun. A parsec is a little more than 30,000 billion km, and is 3.26 light years.

Distance to other distant stars are galaxies are made with the help of a class of stars called Cepheid stars which vary in brightness. These pulsate, swelling up and then shrinking in upon themselves, repeating the process over a regular cycle during which their light waxes and wanes. There is a unique relationship between the brightness and period which holds true for all cepheids. This helps to fix the brightness of a distant star. The name is derived from Delta Cephei, which was one of the first identified as a variable.

One of the issues which had puzzled me for years was why powerful telescopes were always made with mirrors instead of lenses. Gribbin clears the issue with one shot. Bigger lenses are bent out of shape by their own weight, whereas mirrors are advantageous because no light is passing through, the back can be supported by a frame work to hold the mirror in shape.

Edwin Hubble postulated in 1929 that the universe is expanding and the expansion is proportional to distance. The constant of proportionality is called Hubble’s constant. Since this value changes over time, some scientist prefer to call it Hubble’s parameter. George Gamow and Ralph Alpher established the Big Bang theory in 1940s to explain the origin of the universe, which was improved by Alan Guth, with his inflationary model.

Overall rating: 3 star (How apt to rate a cosmological book in number of stars !!).

DNA – The Secret of Life

DNA – The Secret of Life

Author: James Watson

Publisher: Arrow Books

Pages: 432

Dedication: For Francis Crick.

Nothing can be more rewarding than having a book about DNA straight from one of the co-discoverers of its double helix structure. Francis Crick and James Watson discovered its internal structure in 1953 and were duly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962. The style and structure of the book is inimitable. An unbroken chain of sly humour makes it eminently attractive and compels the reader to get stuck to it even though the topic of discussion is pure science and technology. Though Watson was accused of ‘scientific racism’ in his later years, the book presents no such example. On the contrary, his avowed enmity to racism is amply evidenced in his tirades against the proponents of Eugenics in the beginning of last century. Eugenics prompted many states in US to adopt laws for sterilizing people with genetic disorders so that their genes won’t pass along. Many a times, the victims were mainly of African or Asian origins.

Many physicists or would-be physicists took part in the search for DNA. Erwin Schrodinger, who needs no introduction to physics students wrote a book titled, “What is Life?” in which he suggested that the language of life might be like Morse code, a series of dots and dashes. In fact, the language of DNA is a linear series of As, Ts, Gs and Cs. And just as transcribing a page out of a book can result in the odd typo, the rare mistake creeps in when all these As, Ts, Gs and Cs are being copied along a chromosome. These errors are the mutations geneticists had talked about for almost fifty years. Watson was attracted by Schrodinger’s sound logic and Crick was actually a physicist who turned to biology after reading “What is Life?”. He asserts that, “The discovery of the double helix sounded the death knell for vitalism. Serious scientists, even those religiously inclined, realized that a complete understanding of life would not require the revelation of new laws of nature. Life was just a matter of physics and chemistry, albeit exquisitely organized physics and chemistry”.

Watson discusses several genetic disorders, citing the defect at the root of all, in genes. Sickle cell anemia, a genetic disorder common in Africans, makes the red blood cells of victims tend to become deformed, assuming a distinctive “sickle” shape and the resulting blockages in capillaries can be horribly painful, or lethal. The difference between the normal gene and those afflicted with the disease amounted to a single amino acid. Glutamic acid, found at position 6 in the normal protein chain, is replaced, in sickle cell hemoglobin, by valine.

Explanation of GM foods are neat and to the point. Example of BGH is cited. Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) is similar in many ways to human growth hormone, but it has an agriculturally valuable side effect: it increases milk production in cows. Monsanto Corp cloned the BGH gene and produced recombinant BGH. The milk yield increased by 10%. The milk produced is indistinguishable from that produced by non-supplemented cows. As the GM food debate swirls around us, it is important to appreciate that our custom of eating food that has been genetically modified is actually thousands of years old. In fact, both our domesticated animals, the source of our meat, and the crop plants that furnish our grains, fruits and vegetables, are very far removed genetically from their wild forebears. Agriculture did not suddenly arise, fully fledged, ten thousand years ago. Many of the wild ancestors of crop plants, for example, offered relatively little to the early farmers: they were low yield and hard to grow. Modification was necessary if agriculture was to succeed. Early farmers understood that modification must be bred in if desirable characteristics were to be maintained from generation to generation. And in the absence of gene guns and the like, this activity depended on some form of artificial selection, whereby farmers bred only those individuals exhibiting the desired traits – the cows with the highest milk yield, for example.

Bt Cotton is also explained nicely. Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) naturally assaults the cells of insect intestines, feasting upon the nutrients released by the damaged cells. The guts of the insects exposed to the bacterium are paralyzed, causing the creatures to die from the combined effects of starvation and tissue damage. First used as a pesticide in France in 1938, the bacterium was originally thought to work only against moth/butterfly caterpillars, but different strains have subsequently proved effective against the larvae of beetles and flies. The success of the mechanism has inspired genetic engineers. Instead of applying the bacterium scattershot to crops, it would be better to engineer the gene for the Bt toxin into the genome of crop plants. The farmer would never again need to dust his crops because every mouthful of the plant would be lethal to the insect ingesting it (and harmless to humans). The method has at least two clear advantages over the traditional dumping of pesticides on crops. First, only insects that actually eat the crop will be exposed to the pesticide; non-pests are not harmed, as they would be with external application. Second, implanting the Bt toxin gene into the plant genome causes it to be produced by every cell of the plant; traditional pesticides are typically applied only to the leaf and stem.

In 1992, UNICEF estimated that some 124 million children around the world were dangerously deficient in vitamin A. The annual result is some half million cases of childhood blindness; many of these children will even die for want of the vitamin. Since rice does not contain vitamin A or its biochemical precursors, these deficient populations are concentrated in parts of the world where rice is the staple diet. An international effort, funded largely by the Rockefeller Foundation has developed what has come to be known as “golden rice”. Though this rice does not contain vitamin A per se, it yields a critical precursor, beta-carotene (which gives carrots their bright orange color and golden rice the fainter orange tint that inspired its name).

Watson led the Human Genome Project (HGP) in its beginning. A 3 billion dollar effort with cooperation across countries and academy and industry helped it become a grand success. The HGP has proved Darwin more right than Darwin himself would ever have dared dream. Molecular similarities stem ultimately from the way in which all organisms are related through common descent. A successful evolutionary ‘invention’ is passed down from one generation to the next. Once evolution solves a particular problem – for example, designing an enzyme to catalyze a particular biochemical reaction – it tends to stick with that solution. Some 46 percent of the proteins we see in yeast also appear in humans. Also, 43% of worm proteins, 61% of fruit fly proteins and 75% of fugu proteins have marked sequence similarities to human proteins. A comparison of the gene count of several species are given.

Common name Number of genes

Human 25,000

Mustard plant 27,000

Nematode worm 20,000

Fruit fly 14,000

Baker’s yeast 6,000

Gut bacterium 4,000

The Neanderthal genes were sequenced successfully. They had more in common with human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) than with those of chimpanzees, telling us that Neanderthals were unquestionably part of the human evolutionary lineage. At the same time, however, there were dramatic differences between the Neanderthal sequences and all 986 available sequences of modern human mtDNA. The sum of the genetic evidence leads us to conclude that while Neanderthals do have their place on the evolutionary tree of humans and their relatives, the Neanderthal branch is a long way from the modern human. If, when they encountered each other in Europe 30,000 years ago, Neanderthals and humans had indeed interbred, their mtDNA sequences would have entered the modern human gene pool. That we see no evidence of such input implies that modern humans eliminated the Neanderthals rather than interbreeding with them.

The rationale for skin color is given. Why did people living in higher latitudes lose melanin? The best explanation involves vitamin D3 synthesis, a process carried out in the skin and requiring UV light, D3 is essential for calcium uptake, which in turn is a critical ingredient of strong bones. As our ancestors moved out of Africa into highly seasonal environments, with less year round UV radiation, natural selection favoured pale-skinned variants because they, with less sun blocking pigment in their skin, synthesized D3 more efficiently with the limited UV available. The same logic may apply to the movements of our ancestors within Africa too. The San tribe, for instance, in South Africa, where UV intensities are similar to those of the Mediterranean, have a strikingly pale skin. But what about the Inuit peoples, who live in or close to the hardly sunny Arctic but are surprisingly dark? Their opportunities for producing the vitamin would appear to be further limited by the need to be fully clothed all the time in their climate.

Human genome has a striking similarity to that of the chimpanzee. They have 24 chromosome pairs whereas we have 23. It turns out that our chromosome 2 was produced by the fusion of two chimp chromosomes. There are also differences in chromosomes 9 and 12 and several inversions within chromosomes.

DNA fingerprinting is also explained in detail. This technique was discovered by accident by a British geneticist, Alec Jeffreys. He noticed that a short piece of DNA repeated over and over again and such repeats varied in number from individual to individual. Jeffreys determined that the repeats were junk DNA, not involved in coding for protein, but he was soon to discover that this particular junk could be put to good use.

The book covers all the aspects of genetic research and examines the burning issues in detail and with an endorsement by the author that nothing is amiss in the new technology. When ill informed people rally up against Bt Cotton and GM food, it is very helpful for the society to have a dissenting voice. Watson’s definitive approval lends weight to several counter arguments to have science have its way and keep politics and superstitions away from it.

Overall rating: 5 Star

Four Elements

Four Elements

Author: Rebecca Rupp

Pages: 351

Publisher: Profile Books

An eminently readable scientific book, presented in an easy to read and simple language. It traces the origins of scientific thought and the quest for elements which are the building blocks of matter. The book presents a historical survey of water, air, fire and earth, the ancient Greek’s fundamental components of the universe. Thales of Miletus posited that water was the basic element of matter. His pupil, Anaximander (610-546 BC) chose earth, Anaximenes (585-525 BC) chose air and Heraclitus chose fire. Empedocles combined all four in a ‘unified theory’. Plato taught his atomic theory in his academy. It was the closing of Plato’s Academy in 529 AD (after 900 years of service) on orders of Justinian that traditionally marks the beginning of the dark ages. Aristotle added the fifth element, ether to the list. Abu Musa Jabir Ibn Hayyan (Geber) postulated that all matter is composed of sulfur and mercury which could then be recombined in a different ratio to generate another metal, say, gold. Effective recombination required a catalyst, which Geber referred to as al-iksir (or elixir). Paracelsus of 15^th century combined the Greek and Arabic scholars while Robert Boyle (17^th century) refuted all these and built the foundations of modern Chemistry.

The book then delves into varied and interesting data on each of the four elements, beginning with water. A very interesting anecdote is given, proving the gullibility of the unsuspecting public. Nathan Zohner, a student in the US collected signatures of 86% of his class to ban the substance “Dihydrogen Monoxide” which he claimed is responsible for thousands of deaths annually (by accidental inhalation), is a prime component of acid rain, and has been shown to accelerate the corrosion and rusting of many metals. In gaseous form, it causes severe – even fatal – burns. And the stuff is addictive. Dependency on it is irreversible: complete withdrawal results in certain death!

The book then explains water’s molecular structure and properties, water cycles, presence of it in early earth, history of swimming, and on and on. It is an excellent browser’s paradise. So many topics, in so few pages. A perfect beginning for those who want more.

An excellent work by Ms Rupp. Nothing more, nothing less.

Overall rating: 4 Star