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Complete reviews
books 2014
- sharadindu amnibas v1 by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay and Pratulchandra Gupta (ed) (1966)
ব্যোমকেশের মুণ্ডের দিকে দৃষ্টি নিবদ্ধ রাখিয়া স্যর দিগিন্দ্র: "তোমার করোটির গঠন থেকে বুঝতে পারছি তোমার মাথায় বুদ্ধি আছে।... খুলির মধ্যে অন্তত পঞ্চান্ন আউন্স ব্রেন ম্যাটার আছে।
sir digendra held byomkesh's head in a fixed glare: "looking at the structure of your skull one can say you are intelligent. cranial volume - 55 ounce of brainmatter or more. ... - Studies in Mughal India by Jadunath Sarkar (1919)
in the west, children can read intricate details about roman times, but the average indian citizen is completely in the dark about much of our history. i feel sad that many of us are more knowledgeable about guy fawkes or joan of arc than about sher shah or rani laxmibai. ...
- khAi khAi by sukumar rAy and debabrata ghoSh (ill.) (2007)
আমরা ভালো লক্ষ্মী সবাই তোমরা ভারি বিশ্রী,
তোমরা খাবে নিমের পাচন, আমরা খাব মিসরি | ...
2014 may
- Sight Unseen: An Exploration of Conscious and Unconscious Vision by Melvyn Goodale and David Milner (2004)
[patient Dee has lost shape vision after CO poisoning]. When we held up a pencil, we were not surprised that she couldn’t tell us what it was... In fact, she had no idea whether we were holding it horizontally or vertically. But then something quite extraordinary happened. Before we knew it, Dee had reached out and taken the pencil. [This required her to form the hand so that it knew how the pencil was oriented etc.] ...
- State and politics in India by Partha Chatterjee (ed) (1998)
Mathura, a 16-year-old tribal girl, was raped by two policemen within a police compound. ... The Supreme Court acquitted the policemen and held that since Mathura had not raised any alarm, her allegations of rape were untrue. Her 'consent' was not a consent which could be brushed aside as 'passive submission'. ...
- Delhi and its monuments by Surendranath Sen (1954)
Who gave this unique tower its name, Qutb the king, or Qutb the saint? ...
- Art Experience by Mysore Hiriyanna (1954)
dhvanyAloka starts by distinguishing between two kinds of meaning - the explicit and the implicit - and estimates the worth of a poem by reference to the implicit... the explicit meaning is merely the outer embodiment it is clothed in... ...
- Caste in Indian Politics by Rajni Kothari (1973)
Politics is... identifying and manipulating existing allegiances in order to consolidate positions. p.4 ...
- We didn't stand a chance: Forced evictions in Bangladesh by COHRE (Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions) (publ) and ACHR (2000)
Next morning at 7:00 am the settlement would be surrounded by police and the demolition bulldozers. ... announcements would be made to gather all belongings and vacate their homes. Usually, the men and women would try to plead with the police. [Meanwhile, the bulldozers would start demolitions.] ...
2014 mar 11
- Nicolaus Copernicus: Making the Earth a Planet by Owen Gingerich and James MacLachlan (2005)
In the 1500s, medicine students had to learn "medical astrology". Here one determined appropriate "bleeding" points guided by astrological signs.
[This may seem laughable today, but I wonder how many of today's measures in medicine would appear as laughable in the 2500s.] ... - Understanding the Heavens: Thirty Centuries of Astronomical Ideas from Ancient Thinking to Modern Cosmology by Jean-Claude Pecker (2001)
Up to the time of Copernicus, al-Bitruji's book was the new gospel and it was an anti-Ptolemaic one. ...Undoubtlessly, it made room for the new and original thinking of Copernicus two centuries later. p.154 ...
- A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionised the Cosmos by Dava Sobel (2011)
Working at a remote outpost in Poland, often under the shadow of war from Albrecht of Prussia and others, Copernicus formulated the heliocentric theory that changed our vision of the universe. ...
2014 jan 9
- Waiting for the Wind: Thirty-Six Poets of Japan's Late Medieval Age by Steven D. Carter (tr.) (1989)
the kamakura and muromachi period witnessed one of the longest lasting and most bitter literary feuds in history. The dispute, which lasted more than a century, had "a profound impact upong the whole future course of Japanese poetry." ...
- The Rain of Wisdom: The Essence of the Ocean of True Meaning by Chögyam Trungpa and Nalanda Translation Committee (tr.) (2010)
you who bind the secret joy,
Sri Heruka, i supplicate you. ... - shudhu Abrittir janya by bratatI bandyopadhyay (2006)
five out of six poems are from poets born in the twentieth century. with 153 poems by 30 poets, this is a treasure trove of modern bAnglA poetry, and an AbrittikAr's delight:
জ্বর হয়েছিল? বাড়িতে তো ছিল টেলিফোন
জানালে পারতে। থার্মোমিটার সাজতাম।
... - The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima by Henry Scott Stokes (2000)
Blood spurted from the cut and ran down his stomach into his lap, staining the fundoshi a bright red. With a final effort Mishima completed the crosscut, his head down, his neck exposed. ...
- Computational methods of linear algebra by Vera Nikolaevna. Faddeeva and Curtis D. Benster (tr) (1959)
in 1959, the terms "eigenvalue" / "eigenvector" had not yet been standardized; they are called proper numbers" and "proper vectors" of a matrix. ...
- Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers by Robert C. Hilborn (2000)
in a 3-D space, two 2-D surfaces cross transversely to form a curve (a 1-D manifold). If the surfaces are slightly perturbed, the crossing moves but remains a one-dimensional manifold. But two curves crossing at a point [is nontransverse, and] a slight perturbation will cause the intersection to disappear. [bifurcations arise from such non-transversality] ...
- Eighteen fifty-seven by Surendra Nath Sen (1957)
If Nana meditated treachery from the first, one wonders why so much money and labour were wasted on the boats, for once out of the entrenchment, the English would be as helpless in the midst of a hostile crowd on land...
- Indian English by Pingali Sailaja (2009)
Quiz: How many Indian-English-isms can you spot in this:
a) Are you the loud noisy type who loves rasta rokos and chakka jams?
b) No - you are the kind who adores pin-drop silence, isn't it? ... - rAt bhore brishTi by Buddhadeb Basu (1967)
i, mAlatI mukhopAdhyAy, someone's mother and somebody's wife, have done it. i did it with jayanta. he wanted me, and i him. nayanAngshu may ...
