Reading in 2022

This was a year in which I obsessively read history, and so I begin with the books that I really enjoyed. 

India in the Persianate Age: 1000–1765 - Richard M. Eaton

Lords of the Deccan:Southern India from Chalukyas to Cholas: Southern India from the Chalukyas to the Cholas

Energy: A Human History - Richard Rhodes

For almost all of childhood, Cubbon park, the green space adjoining our school, was a big part of growing up. This book below was a short read about the fascinating history of the park and the role it has come to play in the city 

Cubbon Park: The Green Heart of Bengaluru - Roopa Pai

I also ended up reading two remarkable memoirs that made a deep impression. 

Educated - Tara Westover
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi

Early on in the year I started managing the design process at work and I realised that I needed to spend some time formally acquainting myself with the vocabulary. This was a good start. 
Don't Make Me Think, Revisited - Steve Krug 

I read three works of fiction but none made a lasting impression. 

Elena Knows - Claudia Piñeiro

Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir

Heaven - Mieko Kawakami

This tome took me a while to finish, but it was a fascinating window into how seriously Dr. Ambedkar took his whole exploration into Buddhism. 

The Buddha & His Dhamma - Dr. B.R Ambedkar

And finally, some of the other miscellaneous reading I managed to finish. 
Consolations - David Whyte
Biology of Belief - Bruce H. Lipton
The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty - Patrick Radden Keefe
Parliament of Whores - P.J. O'Rourke
Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe - Steven Strogatz

Vultures of SRS Betta

A few billion years ago huge granite rocks formed under what is now the Deccan plateau. More recently, probably tens of millions of years ago, the granite complex broke through the Deccan traps, forming a geographical structure running north-south all the way from Ramanagara to Hampi. Erosion and other elemental forces played their part to leave dramatic granite rocks all along this area, making it look like the gods played marbles with these massive boulders. 

Many such massive monoliths sit close to the Arkavathy valley and one of the famous ones among them is a called the SRS Betta, named after an enterprising mystic who saw a little nook almost at the top of the sheer granite face and said "Hmm that could be a good place to meditate". That nook is now a shrine and attracts hundreds of devotees every week. The authorities have made this shrine accessible by carving out steps on the smooth granite rock face and have lined the path with hand rails. Most other rocks in this area, however, are completely inaccessible and these serve as the perfect nesting place for some of the most enigmatic large birds in this area; the Egyptian vultures. 

This weekend, we trekked up the SRS Betta. This was my first time despite having spent long periods of time in this area. As we reached the top and soaked in the fantastic views hot air drafts around the hills started attracting the raptors around. Soon we spotted our usual vulture pair in the mixed flock. This day they had come there with a surprise; there were two juveniles circling around the parents. Just as I was taking this life-affirming sight, a pair of peregrine falcons swooped in from somewhere and attacked the vulture pair. For some reason they kept bothering the juvenile vultures for nearly half an hour, just as the hapless pair were trying to mind their own business and focus on their flying skills. 

I had spotted these peregrine falcons for the first time in this area. And I had been reassured that the vulture pair, given their endangered status, had continued the holy mission of bringing new progeny into the world. We eventually came down from the Betta, but for the rest of the weekend, I've been floating on air.

Reading in 2021

 

Wave after wave of the pandemic hit us this past year, and made it yet another great year for reading. Here are some notable ones from my reading list in 2021.

The book club at work was active this year, which resulted in me reading a lot of fiction that I wouldn't have picked myself. 

• The Woman in the Window - A J Finn
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V E Schwab
• All The Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr

And here are the novels that I happened to pick myself. Especially liked the first two in this list.

• Bewilderment - Richard Powers
• Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart
• Any Human Heart - William Boyd
• The Godmother - Hannelore Cayre
• No One Is Talking About This - Partricia Lockwood

A friend whose taste in reading I really appreciate gifted this collection of science fiction short stories. Most of them blew my mind away.

• Exhalation - Ted Chiang

Over the last few years I've been trying to include at least one book in my mother tongue. This year Ii managed to read two, and coincidentally by arguably the greatest father-son combo in the history of literature. 

• ಮಲೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಮದುಮಗಳು - ಕುವೆಂಪು
• ಚಿದಂಬರ ರಹಸ್ಯ -ಪೂರ್ಣ ಚಂದ್ರ ತೇಜಸ್ವಿ

And here's the long list of non-fiction titles I managed to get through this year. 

Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World - Nicholas Ostler

Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain - Lisa Feldman

The Bitcoin Standard - Saifedean Ammous

The Journalist and the Murderer: Janet Malcolm

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India - William Dalrymple

The New Climate War - Michael E. Mann

Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness - Mark Epstein

Permanent Record - Edward Snowden

Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity - Carlo Rovelli

Atomic Habits - James Clear

Man's Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl

The Lonely Century - Noreen Hertz

4000 weeks: Time Management for Mortals 

The Bronzeback

Watching Bronzeback Tree Snakes is like watching magicians at work. Their near-perfect camouflage makes it almost impossible to spot them when they are up on a tree, especially if they are not moving. I’ve been finding their moulted skin regularly around our house, sometimes several of them together, which tells me we are surrounded by them. Yet I’ve only managed to see them clearly only once or twice, and that too when they were down on the ground. If you are lucky to spot them before they spot you back, you get to follow them as they try to look for cover. And this is when they perform their special trick. They rise up, in a gravity-defying way, reach out to the lowest hanging branch and lift themselves up into the foliage. If your luck continues you will see a gently progressing wave of shaking leaves as the snake travels - or is it “surf - in the foliage. When the wave stops, you inspect the general area and you might find the snake come to rest on a twig, motionless, fully trusting its own camouflage.

Today happened to be a lottery-winning kinda day, because I managed to trace one of these snakes over two trees before it came to rest. The lucky bit was that I also happened to have my camera in my hand. The snake let me take a half dozen pictures before it realised its cover was blown. Like the consummate superhero, it promptly put on its invisibility cloak and disappeared into the foliage.