On the lack of Suitability of Certain Unmarried Folk

I recently read " The (In)eligible Bachelors" by Ruchita Misra. This book falls into several automatic categories - Indian English Literature, Popular Culture, MBA Authors, Chick Lit, etc. This is my review of the book...

Ever since Chetan Bhagat and his "Five Point Someone" there's been an endless stream of MBA alumni from premier B-schools in this Country rushing to Publishing houses with their half thought through but fully completed manuscripts, and publishing like there is no tomorrow. Personally, I thought  "Five Point Someone" was a strictly okay sort of a book, gave an insight into the life of somewhat below average blokes at above average engineering colleges - I've done more risque, brilliant, story worthy and interesting things during my engineering college days than the protagonists in 5.someone did- not to mention my stint in B-school.
Therefore, when I hear of the latest IIM/IIT grad whose book is out I tend to skip it ( Except the Meluha trilogy which is on my read wish list, simply because the plot seems engaging to me). However, i simply could not do that with this book because (a) I know Ruchita personally , plus (b) she was one of the stars of my junior batch at IIFT and, as it mentions in the blurb a triple gold medalist (no mean feat that,trust me!) as also (c) with the exception of Vikram Chandra's "Sacred Games" & the Meluha trilogy mentioned above, which are next on my reading list there really wasn't much floating around in the market.

So, when flipkart delivered the book to me (at a hefty discount for pre-ordering the book prior to its release) I though I'd give it a try. It turned out to be a surprisingly good read. 

Surprising because at the end of the day it is, and will always remain Chick Lit - A genre I abhor, and ( not that I am a chauvinist) as far as Chick Lit goes only three books ever in this genre have ever made an impact on me, ( "Daddy Long Legs" by Jean Webster ; "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott and "The Touch-me-not Girl " by Rajlukshme Debee) and let's face it, as things stand (today at least), Ruchita is just not in the same class as these three writers. But interestingly, this book has strange parrallels to all three books I've mentiones not sure if she's drawn some inspiration from any/all of these especially "Daddy Long Legs" which of the three books I've mentioned is my clear favourite.

At the end of the day, here's a book from a hated genre of literature and a hated class of authors (for me) which at the end of the day I still enjoyed. 

A lot.

So clearly, this is one of the best Chick Lits around and one of the best works I've read from IIT/IIM alum class of chump writers.

In fact, it's the first book I've read in one straight uninterrupted sitting in a long long time  ( the last time that happened was way back in IIFT before I got busy on the student council there, almost 4 odd years ago, but you know how you have loads of free in College that work life never confers on you!)

This post is a work in progress will update a few thinking points that I really liked about the book and a few suggestions to Ruchita  to ensure her next few offerings are in the quality league that she clearly has the potential to deliver ( on the rather presumptuous assumption that my blog rants are read by a famous published author)

Keep watching this space !

On the Passing away of another Stalwart...R.I.P Professor P.Lal

Professor P Lal passes away

4 November 2010

statesman news service 
KOLKATA, 4 NOV: Teacher, poet, translator and publisher ~ P Lal (in picture) died at a city nursing home late yesterday. He was 81.
Born in 1929, he joined St Xavier’s College as Lecturer in the Department of English, immediately after passing M. A. in English Literature from Calcutta University in 1953. He is the recipient of the Padma Shri in 1970. 
Lal was an honorary Professor of English in St Xavier's College after he retired. A short prayer service was held at St Xavier's College today to pay last respects to the departed teacher. 
He was also special Professor of Indian Studies at Hofstra University, New York (1962-63), and lectured widely on Indian Literature in English, American and Australian Universities. He was a delegate from India to the P.E.N. International Writers' Conference in New York in June 1966 and visiting Professor in the University of Illinois for the spring semester of 1968.
He transcreated the Brhadarankaya and Mahanarayana Upanishads on a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship Award in 1969-70. He was a distinguished visiting Professor and Consultant, Albion College, (April to May 1972); Prentiss M. Brown Distinguished Visiting Professor, Albion College (January to May 1973); Robert Norton Visiting Professor, Ohio University (September 1973 to June 1974); visiting Professor of Indian Culture, Hartwick College, (September-October 1975), Eli Lilly Visiting Professor, Berea College (February -May 1977); Honorary Doctorate of Letters, Western Maryland College, 1977.
Lal wrote many books of poetry, over a dozen volumes of literary criticism, a memoir, books of stories for children and possesses several works of transcreation from other languages, mainly from Sanskrit into English. He also edited a number of literary anthologies. He is best known as the transcreator of the English version of the epic  Mahabharata which he did in the 1970s.
He founded a publishing house ~ Writers Workshop in 1958. The conceptual genesis of Writers Workshop was in 1955. Among his students in the 1st year BA at St Xavier's were Kewlian Sio and Deb Kumar Das, both writing poems and stories. Lal decided to form a writers’ group. The plan materialised in 1958 when Pradip Sen, Jai Ratan, Amita Desai and William Hull joined, and a formal ‘constitution’ was drafted by Deb Kumar Das. A next-door Lake Gardens neighbour, PK Aditya, installed a hand-operated treadle printing machine.
Author Ms Nita Vidyarthi, who was also Lal's colleague in St Xavier's College, said that his death was a great loss. He has always been a very dignified person and open to all forms of discussion. “We used to reach college early and often I would ask him to read my article once before I send it for publication. He used to do that most willingly. He would encourage people to write for Writers Workshop,” she said. His body was brought to St Xavier's College at 9.30 a.m. today where a large number of his students gathered to pay him last respects.

On Mir Publishing house

Back when I was schooling in Chennai, books from MIR publishers were the rage..they'd dominate book fairs at our schools and at such dos I'd usually return home with bagful of goodiees from the house of MIR.

Of course my introduction to MIR happened much earlier with the magazine Misha(Are they not from MIR?..can't be sure but I think so!) and of course, an awesome book I'd read as a kid call "When Daddy was a little boy"

But this post to share my gratitude to two books in particular:

The first called " Barankin's Fantasy World", a rather large sized hard bound tome gifted to me by my Mama (who is a big shot Gyn-obs doc at Chidambaram) when we used to stay in Adyar.The exact timeframe eludes me, but this was definitely before I was in my 4th standard. Written by Valeri Medvedev the book is actually two novels individually named "Be a man Barankin" and a part two by the name "The super-adventures of a Cosmonaut".This book shaped my attitude towards learning. A review here is meaningless , go find the book and read it to understand its awesomeness!!

The second one is another hard bound (though significantly smaller in size) tome called "Tales about Metals" by S Venetsky.Again given to me around the same time by Mama. Now, this particular book, is no book for a fourth standard (or lower) kid,but, even as a youngster, this book was an awesome read with amazing trivia and snapshots of how various metals were discovered, profiles of their discoverers, how metals are mined, refined, their interesting properties and uses. Did it shape my ultimate desire to become a metallurgist?..I think so.

The next time I re-read this book was when I was in junior college, in Eleventh standard , the book was given to me by my Chemistry teacher Padmini Iyer maam (I'd lost my copy by this time and was thrilled to see it again) along with a lot of other reading material,when she handpicked a team of three of us to represent Hindu Junior College at the prestigious national level Prof. Brahm Prakash memorial Metallurgy and Materials Quiz. This quiz has local quizzes organised at the IITs/ other prestigious engineering colleges [The Pune venue has been COEP for a few years (and maybe still remains?) and I remember helping my Quizzing and College super senior Niranjan Pedanekar organise the very first Pune leg of this Quiz at the TRDDC when I was later studying Metallurgy at COEP] by the local chapters of the Indian Institute of Metals with the top two winners at each of the local quizzes going to the national finals usually held at a prestigious Research Institution. In my year, we'd won the Chennai chapter quiz which was organised at IIT Madras ( and this was also the first time I seriously considered that it would be fun to study at an IIT) and had gone to the National finals at the awesome IGCAR Kalpakkam Nuclear Plant (where we did reasonably well but didn't win the national title..though we did rub shoulders with the absolute who's who of the Indian Materials science establishment and made it to local televison to boot,and from here on in I wanted to be nothing but a materials scientist -DO NOT ask me why i'm selling food products in Africa today)

These books are a must read.

Again when I was prepping for IIT (not really as hard as I should have but still!), MIR books by Irodov & a host of other Russian authors were irreplaceable in my preparation.

When in Engineering my introduction to Superconducting Materials and their physics, Quantum Mechanics & quantum chemistry, Applied Mechanics, Plasma physics etc. were all largely again due to MIR books. While at COEP we had a huge number of book fairs at the IE convention hall across from our hostel gate with again a fair representation of scientific titles from the MIR stable. I had amassed a huge trunk full of the most excellent and treasured books over four years ( a trunk that unfortunately was stolen before I quit college by one of our hostel peons , the b!@%#$d must have sold them as scrap to make a few bucks and entertain his friends with booze on a weekend - one of the greatest losses i've suffered in my life)

Anyways, on teacher's day, my thanks to MIR publishing house for providing me with a huge number of my most influential teachers