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....The other day I saw a ticker in Yahoo News titled:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2010/12/surely-you-are-fishing-jeeves.html
My Sambandhi (D-i-L's Father) was born, brought up, worked and retired in Nellore (A.P.). He is the most desirable sambandhi anyone can wish for. He is a good 8 years younger to me and so I treat him like my younger brother. He was a Telugu Teacher in Nellore and won several awards as a Great Teacher.
But I am hard put to explain to him the difference between Telugus and Bengalis since he has never been out of A.P. The best simile I could find was the difference between hardware builders and software builders. Give a piece of land and tons of bricks, mortar and cement to a Telugu Reddy (or Naidu) and a Bengali. The Reddy will build a huge building which can house anything from a cinema hall (multiplex) to a hotel or a hospital with the latest infrastructure...concrete walls, glass and steel fittings and intelligent interiors. And will sell it or let it out and plow the money he gets in building the next Township...the hardware builder.
The Bengali will sell all the land he got at a throw away price, rent and live in the Reddy's building and spend his time writing books or music or dramas...the software builder.
To me my son is a hardware guy...he would buy a laptop for me, get all the net connections, wifi and stuff and ask me to get busy and blog...or he would buy me a geek's phone or books he thinks I would read. Period.
The other day, my son, my sambandhi and myself were returning home in the cab we booked for the past 13 days of rituals after the immersion of the holy pindas (morsels) in our famous Hyderabadi Sagar. And I was telling my sambandhi that the renowned Cancer Specialist (a young Reddy) who took care of my wife and gave her 3.5 years of bonus life will earn a lot of money and invest it building a Cancer Center maybe one of these days; but would never write a book on cancer.
But look at Siddhartha Mukherjee...this young cancer specialist could find time and interest to write a Biography of Cancer and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.
I then asked my son by the way to get me a copy of that book. My hardware son at once pulled out his Nokia QWERTY and started fingering it. And within two business days I got the book from Flipkart.com. My son saw the book in my hands, took it, flipped through its pages and expressed a desire to read it 'one of these days'...
And I was overwhelmed that I got a 600 page paperback for Rs 300!
And of course, as is my custom, I read from Page 1 including its ISBN and blurbs on the back page and saw this note on the young author (with his picture) on the inside cover:
"Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher. He is assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and practices at the CU/NYU Presbyterian Hospital. A Rhodes Scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School...he lives in New York with his wife and daughters."
The book took about 7 years to take shape.
As I said earlier:
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...Posted by Ishani
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"Indian American's book rated among the Top Ten Best Books by NYT".
Before clicking on it I bet with myself (always safe...it is a win-win..) that it is either a Mukherjee or a Sengupta (....Siddhartha or Gautam...the same fish...);...and I won hands down:
"...Just three weeks after publication, Indian American cancer specialist Siddhartha Mukherjee's first book 'The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer' has been rated among 'The 10 Best Books of 2010' by the New York Times...":
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2010/12/surely-you-are-fishing-jeeves.html
My Sambandhi (D-i-L's Father) was born, brought up, worked and retired in Nellore (A.P.). He is the most desirable sambandhi anyone can wish for. He is a good 8 years younger to me and so I treat him like my younger brother. He was a Telugu Teacher in Nellore and won several awards as a Great Teacher.
But I am hard put to explain to him the difference between Telugus and Bengalis since he has never been out of A.P. The best simile I could find was the difference between hardware builders and software builders. Give a piece of land and tons of bricks, mortar and cement to a Telugu Reddy (or Naidu) and a Bengali. The Reddy will build a huge building which can house anything from a cinema hall (multiplex) to a hotel or a hospital with the latest infrastructure...concrete walls, glass and steel fittings and intelligent interiors. And will sell it or let it out and plow the money he gets in building the next Township...the hardware builder.
The Bengali will sell all the land he got at a throw away price, rent and live in the Reddy's building and spend his time writing books or music or dramas...the software builder.
To me my son is a hardware guy...he would buy a laptop for me, get all the net connections, wifi and stuff and ask me to get busy and blog...or he would buy me a geek's phone or books he thinks I would read. Period.
The other day, my son, my sambandhi and myself were returning home in the cab we booked for the past 13 days of rituals after the immersion of the holy pindas (morsels) in our famous Hyderabadi Sagar. And I was telling my sambandhi that the renowned Cancer Specialist (a young Reddy) who took care of my wife and gave her 3.5 years of bonus life will earn a lot of money and invest it building a Cancer Center maybe one of these days; but would never write a book on cancer.
But look at Siddhartha Mukherjee...this young cancer specialist could find time and interest to write a Biography of Cancer and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.
I then asked my son by the way to get me a copy of that book. My hardware son at once pulled out his Nokia QWERTY and started fingering it. And within two business days I got the book from Flipkart.com. My son saw the book in my hands, took it, flipped through its pages and expressed a desire to read it 'one of these days'...
And I was overwhelmed that I got a 600 page paperback for Rs 300!
And of course, as is my custom, I read from Page 1 including its ISBN and blurbs on the back page and saw this note on the young author (with his picture) on the inside cover:
"Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher. He is assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and practices at the CU/NYU Presbyterian Hospital. A Rhodes Scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School...he lives in New York with his wife and daughters."
The book took about 7 years to take shape.
As I said earlier:
"It is them Hilsa they eat, Old Man...."
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...Posted by Ishani
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