Sparsh

रेलवे स्टेशनों पर ए एच व्हीलर की दुकानों ने कई पीढ़ियों को पाठक बनाया और किताबों को लोकप्रिय बनाया। दुकान के बाहर सजी बाल पत्रिकाओं के बीच में 'चंपक' दिख गई जो अब ए फोर साइज में छपती है। हमारे समय में यह किताब के आकार में छपती थी। इसके साथ याद आ गई पराग, नंदन, चंदामामा, लोटपोट, ट्विंकल और ढेर सारी कामिक्स सीरीज। इन पत्रिकाओं के साथ बीता बचपन यानी जीवन का स्वर्णिम युग। दिवाली—पर जब हम ट्रेन से यात्रा करते थे, पिता जी अक्सर हमें रास्ते में पढ़ने के लिए किताबें लाकर देते थे। वे आम तौर पर "चंपक" और "नंदन" जैसी किताबें खरीदना पसंद करते थे, क्योंकि उनमें कई छोटी-छोटी कहानियाँ होती थीं और एक के बाद एक पढ़ते-पढ़ते समय जल्दी कट जाता था। छोटी बहन चंपक की कहानियों से बहुत खुश रहती थी, जबकि मैं कॉमिक्स का दीवाना था और बार-बार उसी रोमांच का इंतज़ार करता था। एक बार मैंने हिंदी में He-Man की कॉमिक्स खरीद ली—ट्रेन की पूरी यात्रा में वह किताब मेरे साथ रही और मैं उसे बार-बार पढ़ता रहा। जब हमें बैठने की जगह मिली तो भी मेरी रुचि कम नहीं हुई; मैं लगातार कॉमिक्स में खोया रहा और व...

Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defence. -Mark Twain “There is only one thing that you write for yourself, and that is a shopping list.”? Umberto Eco, On Literature   ~Highly Recommended~ Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud - Peter Watson ~Worth a Look~ New Delhi Times (1986) - Gulzar Kashmirnama  - Ashok Kumar Pandey The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham ~Pleasure Reading~ The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time, #5) - Robert Jordan The Shadow Rising (Wheel of Time, #4) - Robert Jordan ~Avoid~ Midnight's Machines: A Political History of Technology in India - Arun Mohan Sukumar .  Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan William Dalrymple 4 What the Ladybug Heard Julia Donaldson 4

“It is our choices, which show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” - J K Rowling "The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anaïs Nin ~Highly Recommended~ Mera Dagistan -  Gamzatov, Rasul Indias War -  Raghavan, Srinath ~Worth a Look~ Full Spectrum: India's Wars, 1972-2020 -  Subramaniam, Arjun Sanskar - Ananthamurthy, U.R. ~Pleasure Reading~ A Bend in the River -  Naipaul, V.S. शिकायत मुझे भी है -  Parsai, Harishankar Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India -  Dalrymple, William Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #1) -  Yagisawa, Satoshi The Seventh Scroll (Ancient Egypt, #2) -  Smith, Wilbur Eskimo boy -  Freuchen, Pipaluk ~Avoid~ Escape from Pakistan: A War Hero's Chronicle - Chinoy, Dara Phiroze

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'" Martin Luther King Jr When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight. - Thich Nhat Hanh   ~Highly Recommended~ Man's Search for Meaning  - Viktor E. Frankl Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began (Maus, #2) - Art Spiegelman Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History (Maus, #1) - Art Spiegelman ~Worth a Look~ The Silk Roads: A New History of the World  - Peter Frankopan Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From  - Tony Joseph The Complete Persepolis  - Marjane Satrapi A Memory of Light (The Wheel of Time, #14)  - Robert Jordan Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time, #13; A Memory of Light, #2) - Robert Jordan The Gathering Storm (Wheel of Time, #12) - Robert Jordan The Path of Daggers (Wheel of Time, #8) - Robert Jordan ~Pleasure Reading~ Reverse Innovation in Health Care  - Vijay Govindar...

Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, which does not mean we deserve to conquer the Universe. - Kurt Vonnegut If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you are a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind - Kurt Vonnegut     ~Highly Recommended~ Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy Christopher L. Hayes In Service of the Republic: The Art and Science of Economic Policy Vijay Kelkar Black Box Thinking - Matthew Syed Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World - Cal Newport ~Worth a Look~ Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future - Peter Thiel Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy - Shivshankar Menon ~Pleasure Reading~ The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time, #3) - Robert Jordan 3 The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time, #2) - Robert Jordan 3 The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1) - Robert Jordan 3 Manifesto for a Moral Revolution: Practices to Build a Better World - Jacqueline Novogr...

The great enemy of plain language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one is real and one is declared aims, one turns instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms. ~George Orwell Listen carefully to first criticisms of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics do not like- then cultivate it. That is the part of your work that's individual and worth keeping. -Jean Cocteau     ~Highly Recommended~ Munnu: A Boy from Kashmir  - Malik Sajad Hatred in the Belly: Politics Behind the Appropriation of Dr. Ambedkar's Writings Ambedkar Age Collective ~Worth a Look~ Let's Talk Money - Monika Halan Jaya -  Devdutt Pattanaik Bhutan: The Kingdom at the Centre of the World - Omair Ahmad Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action - Simon Sinek Topi Shukla  - Rahi Masoom Raza Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't - J im Collins अरे यायावर रहेगा याद? -  अज्ञेय,सच्चिदानंदा हीरानंद ~Pleasur...

Great critics, of whom there are piteously few, build a home for the truth. -Raymond Chandler “Peace of mind happens to a man only after he has developed deep insight. ~Sam Veda      ~Highly Recommended~ Peeli Chhatri Wali Ladki  - Uday Prakash Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind  - Yuval Noah Harari A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea - Masaji Ishikawa Waiting For A Visa: Autobiographical notes - B.R. Ambedkar Andhavishwas Unmoolan: Aachar Vol.2  - Narendra Dabholkar   ~Worth a Look~ Andhavishwas Unmoolan : Siddhant  Vol. 3:  - Narendra Dabholkar The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, #3) - P hilip Pullman The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, #2) - Philip Pullman The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1) - Philip Pullman The Blind Watchmaker - Richard Dawkins Qissa Qissa Lakhnauwa - Himanshu Bajpai Andhavishwas Unmoolan: Vichar Vol.1  - Narendra Dabholkar   Azadi mera brand - Anuradha Beniwal Co...

“To travel,” Aldous Huxley once quipped, “is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” “That is the American Dream: to make your life into something you can sell. — Chuck Palahniuk” ~Highly Recommended~ ~Worth a Look~ The Lottery of Birth: On Inherited Social Inequalities - Namit Arora Execution Premium - Robert S. Kaplan ~Pleasure Reading~ Origin (Robert Langdon, #5) - Dan    Brown Sidney Sheldon's Angel of the Dark - Tilly Bagshawe The Legend of Virinara - Usha Alexander Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev The Great Indian Obsession: The Untold Story of India's Engineers  - Adhitya Iyer The One-Straw Revolution Masanobu Fukuoka 3 ~Avoid~

In the brief prose piece, The Four Cycles, Jorge Luis Borges wrote that there are only four stories in the world: the story of war, the story of return, the story of search, and the story of sacrifice (Troy, Ulysses, Jason, Christ). If Borges is right, then literature is not a museum of endless novelty so much as a chamber of recurring forms. What changes is not the underlying plot of human life, but the cultural machinery that gives those plots their authority—what makes war feel righteous, return feel inevitable, search feel sacred, sacrifice feel meaningful. That machinery is very often myth. Rich cultures—with their myths, religious narratives, heroic histories, and rituals—offer especially thick symbolic resources to legitimize rule, sacralize authority, and frame dissent as betrayal of the civilization itself. Mythical stories such as these refuse to see the past as fundamentally different from the present. People accept and assimilate myths, they act on the myths, and the myths ...

Howard Marks once said that “I became famous overnight after writing for 10 years.” Mr. Raj Shamani shared a valuable insight that sometimes people who are less smart, less prepared, and less talented still succeed and achieve bigger things. He emphasized consistency as a key factor enabling such success despite lacking typical advantages like talent or preparation.  I got inspired by that short to write down this blog post. A truly self-aware person recognizes that their greatest strength lies not in constantly accumulating new skills, but in nurturing and deepening the qualities that already define their unique identity. By embracing and building upon what is innately mine, I can offer a piece of life to the readers and viewers.  Hence, I am looking to work behind this YouTube Channel with imperfection and consistency.  I am thrilled to reintroduce the What good is a life if it trails behind work?  YouTube channel, a unique space that has been cultivating a rich ar...

Sparsh: 50 Pointers - Medieval-Like Fantasy Worlds - First Part While the material foundations examined in Part 1 provide the scaffolding for mediaeval fantasy worlds, this second exploration with remaining 25 pointers delves into the intangible systems that actually hold societies together and tear them apart: 26. Weak Espionage and Intelligence : Inadequate spy networks left kingdoms exposed to manipulation, surprise attacks from rivals, and internal conspiracies, undermining state security. The Delhi Sultanate frequently fell victim to surprise invasions ( particularly Timur's 1398 raid ) due to inadequate intelligence gathering leading to entire populations killed or enslaved. 27.  Prostitution and Urban Underworld:  Prostitution is a common and tolerated feature of city life. The lives of sex workers intersected with the criminal underworld providing vital networks of information and serving as intermediaries for espionage, blackmail, and political intrigue.  28. ...

What is the key reason behind the recent surge in popularity of science fiction and fantasy genres? The authors can  reveal truths about society and politics when direct expression is  suppressed  by an unfavorable political and religious environment. S cience fiction genre is a mirror image of fantasy (sword & sorcery) established from current time reference.  The book is science fiction is when you're depressed about the future, fantasy is when you're depressed about the past, and literature is when you're depressed about the present.   Similarly, fantasy is when the technology the characters use is magic and sci-fi is when the magic the characters use is technology. Common fantasy themes that readers easily recognize include resistance to tyranny, prophecies guiding destinies, hero-centered stories, journey to distant land and rags-to-riches journeys. I will not help the readers on these familiar themes of struggle, hope, and love that form the backb...