Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Monday, April 28, 2008

Tiger at twilght - Manoj Das

This is a nice novelet from Manoj Das, but I couldnt finish reading this one. Got dragged too long. Partly I blame it on my undisciplined life and partly to my weakness in vocabulary. Its too tough for a software engineer in India to make time for extra readings, unless he is dedicated. So for me its time to change :) Good luck to me :D.
The main character in the story is an heir of a princely state somewhere in North India during the post independence time. And he was managing a beautiful castle called Heera Mahal as Tourist destination. And this Mahal was in adjacent princely state to his. The story was based on his experience with the locals in that place and the Raja of that princely state.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Navothana Chinthakal (Reformist Thoughts), Alija Ali Izetbegović


I enjoyed reading this book. But it is not quite extensive study compared to his another work "Islam between east and west". This book comprises of 5 essays. The first one takes the major portion of the book. The author disserts the current backward situation of contemporary Muslim world. Although he doesn't want to narrate about the glorious Muslim past because he believe remembering those and doing nothing is a waste exercise. Instead it would be better to work on the decay of neighbouring mosque. Anyway he went over the past and analyzed the path that Muslims came across. He believes that fundamental changes are happening in the contemporary Muslim world on their outlook of Islam. And he also believes that a great reformation is happening and he asks each Muslim to be a part of it.

The second essay was about the Muslim women. The part I like most in that was the virtue given to the efforts taken by a mother for raising children. And its comparison between Islam and the west. He also took case studies of working women and their job satisfaction and also their hectic life schedules. He statistically analysed the type of job women does and found to be major part of the unskilled jobs are handled by the women. In short he makes an assessment that it is the interest of the industrialist society that women to be there in the job market.

The third was about how to raise our children. Too much of emphasis on obedience will create a unresponsive youth. They cannot change the world instead they will become nice citizen who obeys the rules set forth by the imperialist/communist/oppressive government.

The fourth essay was about on how to read quran. He says that though Quran is static and there wont be any change to its words, the human life is ever changing. It should be read taking his/her present situation into consideration. Then Quran opens up new ways and thoughts for life forward.

The fifth is about Islam and independence movement. He briefly goes over most of the independence movement in the Islamic countries and its association towards Islamic fundamentals - the role of Jihad.

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