My Books Review: August '11

1) The Metamorphosis: This short story is written by the German author Frank Kafka. A person when wakes up in the morning is suddenly transformed into a bug. How the members of the family interact with him, his thought process forms the later part of the story. I did not find this book exciting at all though it is one of the famous books of Kafka and this work is a celebrated work of his. 

2) Aavarana: This is one of the famous and controversial novels by the celebrated Kannada novelist S.L. Bhairappa. This is the first ever Kannada novel that I ever finished. One of the main reasons that I am writing the review in English because of the significance of the matters those are discussed in the novel. It surpasses the boundaries of language and perhaps even nation. 

S.L. Bhyrappa

We have novels and many other works of art which have condemned the ill practices of Hinduism. The numbers are really huge. Some have gone to win prestigious awards. But do we see any single major work that criticizes the ill practices of Islam? The answer is an emphatic no. Definitely not in a country like ours which is filled with hypocrites who have mortgaged their lives to ideologies and fame at the cost of nation’s good. A part of this novel is a minor attempt in that direction (though the major part is about the history).

History as we know in India is a completely distorted one where the academia is in the stranglehold of the Marxists who warp history to fit it into their ideology. So an average person unless makes an effort to know the real facts, he/she never gets to know the real history at all in his/her life. This novel is a great attempt to present history as it is. It concentrates mainly on the Mogul rule. The novel is very aptly named as ‘Aavarana’ or ‘the veil’ that comes between the person who wants to know the history and the history. The real veil is historian himself/herself. So, it is a Herculean task to present history as it is without coloring. In that way, the novel is more like a historical book than a novel. 

Aavarana - 'The veil' (Cover Page)

A filmmaker (Lakshmi/Razia) who is a Hindu gets converted to Islam to marry her lover and also as a sign of rebellion against Hinduism much to the displeasure of her father. Prof. Shastri who gives pose as a secularist persuades her to change her religion to Islam. The character of Prof. Shastri is an apotheosis of modern day secularists and historians .The person whom she marries acts as a non-believer and sometime after the marriage uses the methods available in his religion to persecute her. Walls rise between the couples and they stay separately. Lakshmi’s father dies and Lakshmi goes to her native. There she sees a huge collection of historical books and notes made by her father. She decides to stay in the village and devote her time to the study of real history.

The story unfolds after she begins to read the books. Novel-within-novel technique is used in narrating the further story. She begins to write a story which happens in the mogul India. Her life progresses as we see the plight of today’s India. Two stories run in parallel. In the story she writes, through the character of a Rajput prince who then is forcibly converted to Islam (and assumes the name Khwaja Jahan) the history of mogul rule is shown. Their high intolerance towards other religions, seeing women as mere pleasurable objects, slavery, homosexuality, their fanatic behavior, destruction of hundreds of temples and further conversions into mosques, and many other things are shown in a vivid way. There should be something wrong in you if your blood doesn’t boil even once after reading the novel completely. Khwaja Jahan is castrated (made a eunuch called as ‘hijdas’) and used as a sex slave and traded in the market as any other commodity. The reader wonders whether the character symbolizes the modern day India which even though has a huge potential, it acts as if it is emasculated. The character knows what is right and what is wrong but it can’t act because of sheer helplessness. It reflects modern day India.

This book will be hated by intellectuals for sure who in the garb of promoting secularism are distorting the real facts and are doing a great disservice to the nation. They can’t digest this novel which is so raw. One of the main intentions of the novel is to face truth as it is. Truth doesn’t need any decoration. But do our people have the mettle to stomach it? I doubt it. Through this book, Bhairappa has stripped the false historians naked which in itself is a great thing in the present day India.

If someone is questioning the author’s credentials in talking about history, they should know that the author has not written any historical facts without being backed by research or necessary literary works. The huge list of bibliography at the end of the book is the testimony to the fact. The people who oppose this work should engage in a debate with the author regarding specific points which they disagree rather than resorting in character assassination of the author.

3) 7 habits of highly effective people: This is the most famous, celebrated work of leadership expert, an authority on principle-based leadership Stephen Covey. I read the book for the second time. Each time you read, you get a new perspective: that’s a classic. Having read many personality development books, I can say this is not just 'another' book. Among many personality development books around, this books goes deeper than them. As the author says in the beginning of the book “we can achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude & get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow”. The book attempts that very honestly. 

The author has presented the ideas of self improvements through 7 habits & has given many tools like the 4 quadrants of time management, functioning through principle centre, importance of personal mission statement, win/win attitude etc. The author has taken pain in the effort to explain all the concepts, tools that he has presented to the minutest details. This book deserves all the accolades that it has got.

4) Nano - The next revolution: This book is written by award winning scientific writer Mohan Sundara Rajan. This books talks about the progress of nano-technology over years and the potential it holds for the future. Though it claims it is for the lay-reader, I thought otherwise. Many concepts were bouncers. The nano-tachnology in the future envelops all our lives because all the major areas of science will be touvhed by it. If all goes well in the R & D in the field of Nano-technology, perhaps we can see the world as we see it in science fiction movies.

Terrorism - Lessons from Israel & Russia [Part 3]

Israel has handled some of the most audacious operations in the history like no other nation has ever handled. Some of the operations are so audacious that they are unthinkable especially for some meek country like ours. The courage, the patriotism, the retribution exhibited is something unparalleled. Though there are many operations to quote like war of attrition, operation wrath of god, operation spring of youth, the Entebbe crisis, I would like to concentrate on operation wrath of god and the Entebbe hostage crises.

               

OPERATION WRATH OF GOD:

This was the name of the operation given to the operation carried out by the Israeli government in retaliation to the Munich Massacre. In 1972, Summer Olympics was scheduled in Munich, Germany. In that event the terrorist group Black September had kidnapped Israeli players and Israeli coaches and took them as hostages (6 coaches, 5 athletes). Ultimately all the hostages were killed. Five of the eight terrorists also died. The three terrorists were captured but were released because the group Black September had hijacked a plane of Lufthansa airlines. Israel responded to this with the operation of wrath and operation spring of youth and killed almost all who were suspected responsible for the planning of the kidnapping.

A photo of the terrorist in the Munich stadium

Golda Meir

              

                At that time the prime minister of Israel was Golda Meir. She was considered very tough in her decisions. The actions taken by her after the Munich massacre testified the fact. A decision was made to assassinate all the individuals responsible for the Munich attack and the operation was named ‘operation wrath of god’. The targets included the members of the organizations Black September and PLO. It is said that the operation might have gone for nearly 20 years. The Israeli commandos penetrated many countries like Lebanon and other countries to search and kill the targets. A few mistaken murders also did happen. Israel was criticized by a few countries.

                The aim was to take revenge of course but more than that was to make the Palestine militants frightened. The team to carry out the operation consisted of 15 people and was divided into 5 groups: two killers, two guards who would shadow the killers, two agents to rent rooms, apartments, six to eight agents who would form escape routes for the first two groups, the other two agents specialized in communications.

Several hours before each assassination, each man's family received flowers with a condolence card reading: "A reminder we do not forget or forgive.”!

The first attack was in the form of air bombing on the Palestine refugee camp. The second target was the leader of Black September in France. The execution was nothing short of a Hollywood flick. A bomb had been planted underneath the desk phone. When it was confirmed that the person had picked the phone, detonate signal was sent and the bomb was detonated. The next execution was of the representative of Fatah & happened in Cyprus. The next person was gunned down in France.  These executions cautioned the rest of the terrorists and they began to live in heavily guarded houses in Lebanon. Convinced of the fact that the previous methods of assassination would not work, Israel launched ‘Operation spring of youth’ as a sub-operation of operation wrath of god.

Ali Hassan Salameh, considered to be the mastermind behind the Munich attack

                Israeli commandos launched multiple raids into Beirut. There they assassinated many high level PLO officials. Israel believed the mastermind behind the Munich massacre was Ali Hassan Salameh. In 1973, due to mistaken identity, a waiter was murdered in Norway. International pressure mounted on Israeli government to call off the operation wrath of god. The operation was suspended for five years and resumed after that. After five unsuccessful attempts, finally Salameh was assassinated by Mossad in 1979 in Beirut. Besides these, Israel indulged in psychological warfare like running obits of still living militants and sending very personal details to others.

                The assassinations caused dismay in the Arab world. Especially the operation spring of youth lead to the belief in the Arab world that Israel was capable of striking anytime, anywhere. There were criticisms about some aspects of the operations like possible wrong targets, moral issues involved etc.  This campaign is believed to have stopped the PLO terrorism outside Israel but strategically, it is not considered completely successful.

OPERATION ENTEBBE:

                One more operation which is more audacious than any other known operations carried out by any country is the ‘Operation Entebbe’ carried out by Israel in Uganda. This happened in 1976.

                On June 27, 1976 Air France flight traveling from Israel to France via Athens was hijacked by Arab-German terrorists. It had 248 passengers. The plane was taken to Libya for refueling and was then taken to Entebbe airport, Uganda. The hijack was done by four terrorists. When the plane landed in the Entebbe airport, four more terrorists joined the original four. Their demand was to release 40 terrorists in Israel and 13 more from many other countries. They had given the deadline of July 1^st. If their demands were not met, they had warned that they would kill all the passengers on board.

Idi Amin

                Uganda at that point of time was ruled by the notorious dictator Idi Amin. He supported the pro-Palestine cause and hence supported the terrorists. This is a similar situation to that of the hijack of Indian airlines to Kandahar. The Afghan government was more or less in control of the Taliban. They being radical supported anything or anybody who were pro-Islamic. Reasons did not work, only religion did. But Israel did not succumb to the pressure like India did. It did something unthinkable.       

  Many non-Israelis were released by the terrorists. When there were questioned about the kind of the situation in Entebbe, Israel was shocked to know that the Ugandan army was with the terrorists. Israeli government tried diplomatic ways to end the crises before deciding on the operation. But nothing worked out. Somehow, the Israeli government made the terrorists to extend the deadline to July 4^th so that it could get more time to plan the assault. On July 1^st IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) planners came out with the rescue operation and it got the approval from the cabinet.

The Entebbe Airport

                Many people were released and they arrived in Paris. Only 105 were held as hostages by the terrorists. Mossad build accurate picture about the airport, the hostages from the information gathered form the released hostages. A clear picture of operation took shape: five C-130 Hercules aircraft which carried 200 personnel, two Boeing for medical and communications issues, a black Mercedes limo and some land rovers deliberately used to trick Ugandan guards. The IDF pilots practiced the landing and operating on July 2^nd.

The route taken by the Israeli commandos to reach Uganda

Rescue plane taking off

                

                Because the operation was a risky one as well as a secret one, the routes in which they are about to fly had to be chosen very carefully. The distance was very long (about 4000 km) from Israel to Uganda. The planes flew over red sea, sometimes of altitude no more than 100 ft to avoid being spotted by radars (of Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia). On July 3^rd close to mid-night, the Israeli troops landed at Entebbe. A black Mercedes and the land rovers were used give an impression that the vehicles were escorts for returning Amin or other high ranking official.

Black Mercedes which was used in the operation

The Israeli force entered the airport and the hall in which the hostages were held. The terrorists and the Ugandan soldiers were taken by a huge surprise by the unexpected daring and impossible logistics of the IDF. During a 35-minute battle, 20 Ugandan soldiers and all eight hijackers died along with three hostages. The only Israeli commando to be dead was Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, the leader of the operation. After the operation, the army began loading the hostages and the Ugandan soldiers attacked. The IDF counter-attacked.  The entire operation lasted for about 52 minutes. All 8 hijackers, around 40 Ugandan soldiers, 4 hostages were killed. All the rescued hostages were flown to Israel via Kenya.

Hostages returning after the operation

Yonatan Netanyahu's funeral

The prime minister of Israel commented: "This operation will certainly be inscribed in the annals of military history, in legend and in national tradition." He was absolutely right.  The government of Uganda urged the UN council to seek official condemnation of Israeli raid, which violated the sovereignty of Uganda. The council declined. Addressing the UN council, Israeli ambassador said “We come with a simple message to the Council: we are proud of what we have done because we have demonstrated to the world that a small country, in Israel's circumstances, with which the members of this Council are by now all too familiar, the dignity of man, human life and human freedom constitute the highest values. We are proud not only because we have saved the lives of over a hundred innocent people—men, women and children—but because of the significance of our act for the cause of human freedom”. Well, he was right.  It is high time that India takes up these ideas and start acting sternly against all the people who are posing threats to its security by innumerable means.

Birthday = One year closer to death !

Yes! I turn 24 today. There it ends. I’ve always said that the birthday is just a remainder that one is closer to death by a year. Nothing more, nothing less. Whenever I say that, many dismiss me saying that I have a negative outlook towards life. But I have to say it is a fact. Whatever one may say; it is an undeniable fact that all are inching towards the same destination called death. For some, the destination is near, for some it is far. But the destination is same for all. Perhaps death is the only destination that everyone shares.

                For a person who has ventured into something big, birthday may motivate him/her by reminding the less amount of time that is available. In that way, if it is motivating or adding life to years (not the opposite!) then it is worth celebrating. But if it ends up being just another ritual or a compulsive act, it is unworthy of celebration. 

               But, if someone comes and wishes me a happy birthday, of course i don't preach these philosophies but instead throw a smile and say 'Thank you very much pal' ! But i clearly know these things ain't got any value !!