Going Crazy by Otto Friedrich

"Going Crazy" by Otto Friedrich is a kind of biography or a history of insanity or madness through the ages. Otto does a good job in keeping the narrative flowing throughout the pages with first hand accounts by many patients. Apart from celebrated cases he has also dwelt on the ordinary people's lives disrupted by what he calls as "craziness" - by all accounts all of us are somewhat crazy at some times or other - it only varies by degrees, but while majority are able to keep their thoughts clear there are many who lose control of their minds. He has also written about the cures which in medieval times ranged from cruelty itself like chaining the patients to drugs, therapies etc. It was surprising to read that so many celebrated people had problems in their lives. I would highly recommend this book to those interested in different genres like non-fiction, biographies etc. Rating 5/5

Ultra Marathon Man

Just finished reading “Ultra Marathon Man – Confessions of an All Night Runner” by Dean Karnazes, an absorbing and overwhelming story of his early athletic prowess, the loss of his sister to an accident, his subsequent forays away from running for 15 years, his rediscovery of running, to running marathons, ultra marathons to crazy distances unheard of before and impossible feats like running the south pole marathon, running 199 miles non stop etc. His heroic attempt at running the Western States 100 miler and Badwater Marathon failing the first time, have been poignantly told. A nice inspirational story with dollops of quotable quotes for keeping in one’s mirror or desktop. The paperback edition has given details of his training, nutrition, strategy etc. so that helps for people attempting to run ultra-marathons and crazy distances. A must read for running addicts. 

Children of the Thunder

I have just concluded my reading of Children of the Thunder by John Brunner — a work of speculative fiction that reveals its depths only to the patient reader. Brunner, that chronicler of social disquiet and technological hubris, here crafts a narrative that unfolds with unhurried deliberation, drawing us inexorably into a world where evolution itself seems to have conspired against the moral fabric of humankind.

At its surface, the novel concerns a band of seemingly ordinary children engaged in acts of depravity that would appal even the most jaded adult conscience — juvenile delinquents orchestrating prostitution rackets, protection schemes, and even cold-blooded murder. Yet these are no mere products of urban decay; they are the progeny of surrogacy, their origins shrouded in a chilling hypothesis — that all might share a single, mysterious genetic donor.

Gradually, Brunner peels back the layers of this unsettling premise to reveal an even darker truth. These children, it appears, are endowed with formidable psychic abilities: the power to read and bend minds to their will. Intellectually brilliant yet spiritually barren, they embody the nightmarish possibility of intelligence unmoored from empathy — the triumph of intellect over humanity.

Threaded through this disquieting tale are fragmentary news reports of one catastrophe after another — ecological, political, moral — suggesting that the planet itself is convulsing under the strain of its own misbegotten offspring. Looming somewhere in this tapestry of chaos is the enigmatic figure of General Thrower, a name that recurs like a spectral refrain, hinting at some malevolent force operating behind the scenes.

Among the more grounded figures are Peter Levin, a weary science-fiction writer eking out a living chronicling human calamity, and Dr. Claudia, a researcher whose scientific curiosity gradually transforms into moral alarm. Her intuition — that there exists a link between these psychically gifted children and the world’s escalating descent into disorder — propels the narrative toward its inexorable moral reckoning.

Brunner is never in haste. He allows his story to simmer, to accrete atmosphere and unease, until what began as a mystery becomes a meditation — on creation and corruption, on the perilous seductions of science, and on the fragility of human conscience in an age that worships power over principle.

Children of the Thunder is not merely a work of science fiction; it is a sombre prophecy — a dark mirror held up to our civilisation’s own unthinking faith in progress.

Picture taken from the internet not with an intention to violation of copyright. 

Marathon Man

Just finished reading "Marathon Man" by Bill Rodgers otherwise known as Boston Billy who won the Boston and New York Marathons 4 times each in the late 70s. Boston Billy has personally autographed this book which was given to my dear friend Bhasker Desai who had ran at this year i.e. 2013 Boston Marathon. Bhasker finished the race and was in the medical tent when the bomb blast took place.

It is a very enchanting and enthralling book with a throbbing narrative in collaboration with Mathew Shepatin. Basically it is an account of his early life and his Boston marathon experience of 1975. The narrative is very interesting in the sense that each chapter starts with his Boston 1975 progress during the race and the later part of the chapter devotes to flashback to his early life as a college student, running with Amby Burfoot who is his original inspiration, his "conscientious objector" status during the Vietnam war, his degree at special education, struggle at getting a job etc. He was a natural born runner with a great capacity for hard work and a body which could take any amount of hard work with very little injuries. The realisation that he could be a top notch marathon runner came to him only during a race with Amby Burfoot in which he raced alongside the great Amby for about 15 miles of a 20 mile race. The seeds of inspiration which Amby sowed in him made him take up competitive racing including marathons. Boston Billy alongwith Frank Shorter, Amby Burfoot and Jeff Galloway were the pioneers of long distance running first in America which then spread to other cities in the world which has since then grown exponentially. His latter attempts at Montreal Olympics of 1976 and thereafter founding a successful running business alongwith his college buddies makes for a good story. It is an excellent book, very inspirational, very nice story of an easygoing hardworking American who loves running dearly. 

The Way Through the Woods

Colin Dexter’s The Way Through the Woods (1992) stands as a testament to an author at the apogee of his narrative craft and intellectual dexterity. It encapsulates, with consummate assurance, Dexter’s singular amalgam of erudition, psychological penetration, and intricate plotting—all imbued with that peculiarly English blend of irony and melancholy that renders Inspector Morse such an indelibly fascinating presence in modern detective fiction.

The novel begins with a mystery already half-consumed by the passage of time. A young Swedish tourist, Karin Eriksson, has vanished amidst the dreaming spires of Oxford, her fate unsolved despite exhaustive police inquiry. The trail has grown cold—until, a year later, an anonymous letter arrives at The Times, hinting darkly that Karin’s body lies concealed in the sylvan recesses of Wytham Woods, alongside clues that only an intellect of uncommon brilliance might disentangle.

Summoned from convalescence, the irascible yet irresistible Inspector Morse finds himself reluctantly embroiled in the reopened case. With his loyal adjutant Sergeant Lewis at his side, he embarks upon a labyrinthine journey through the shadowed cloisters of Oxford—where academic rivalries fester, passions smoulder beneath decorous façades, and every conversation conceals an ulterior motive. As Morse ponders over poetry, topography, and the treacheries of the human heart, Dexter orchestrates a symphony of deception and revelation that builds, inexorably, to a denouement at once shocking and tragic.

Morse here emerges in all his contradictory glory: brilliant yet vulnerable, sardonic yet strangely sentimental. Beneath his crust of arrogance lies a man haunted by loneliness, nostalgia, and the ineffable melancholy of middle age. His love of Wagner, crosswords, and ale is well known; but Dexter, with masterly subtlety, exposes the fragility that undergirds this veneer of intellectual hauteur. Lewis, as ever, provides the moral ballast—his sturdy decency the foil to Morse’s mercurial leaps of logic and existential brooding.

Dexter’s prose retains its hallmark opulence and precision. His delight in wordplay, classical allusion, and linguistic puzzles transforms the novel into a cerebral pas de deux between author and reader. Yet his erudition never alienates; rather, it suffuses the narrative with a cultivated wit and wistful elegance. Oxford itself becomes a character in this drama—a landscape of mist-laden mornings, cloistered quadrangles, and the ominous serenity of encroaching woods.

Structurally, The Way Through the Woods exemplifies Dexter’s architectural finesse. The narrative unfurls through a mosaic of perspectives—letters, reports, and conventional narration—creating an almost epistolary complexity. This layered construction mirrors the novel’s central theme: the elusiveness of truth, forever refracted through prejudice, perception, and time’s distorting lens.

The mystery is plotted with mathematical precision. Every casual remark, every seemingly inconsequential clue reverberates with later significance. Dexter plays impeccably fair, providing readers all the requisite data—though few will outpace Morse’s own moments of epiphanic deduction. And when revelation arrives, it does so with both intellectual satisfaction and emotional ache, reminding us that Dexter’s compassion for human frailty underlies his every act of narrative misdirection.

In Morse, Dexter offers not merely a detective but a tragic philosopher—a man probing the enigmas of mortality, morality, and meaning as much as those of crime. His romantic misadventures, tinged with wistfulness and failure, echo his broader existential solitude. Lewis, often underappreciated, reveals quiet depths of empathy and integrity, serving as the moral compass in Morse’s world of ambiguity and yearning.

Even Dexter’s minor characters—academics, journalists, constables, and suspects—are rendered with painterly vividness. They populate his Oxford not as cardboard accessories to a puzzle, but as living embodiments of desire, deception, and disillusionment—the very stuff of humanity.

In sum, The Way Through the Woods is a triumph of intellect and emotion: a detective novel that transcends its genre to become a meditation on loss, obsession, and the inexorable passage of time. It is both elegy and enigma, reminding us that the true mystery lies not merely in who did it, but in why we do what we do—in the secrets we hoard, the affections we misread, and the winding paths, literal and metaphorical, by which we lose our way.

Erudite, elegiac, and exquisitely wrought—Dexter’s novel is not merely a whodunit, but a profound exploration of the human condition, cloaked in the beguiling garb of crime fiction. Goodreads 4/5

Picture taken from the internet not with an intention to violation of copyright. 

Jolly LLB

Directed and written by Subhash Kapoor, Jolly LLB is a deftly orchestrated courtroom dramedy that adroitly interlaces sardonic humour, moral introspection, and populist engagement into one of the most invigorating legal narratives in contemporary Hindi cinema. Released in 2013, the film — anchored by superlative performances from Arshad Warsi, Boman Irani, and Saurabh Shukla — functions both as a lampoon of India’s labyrinthine judicial apparatus and as an ode to its vestigial potential for justice, contingent upon the fortitude of those who dare to champion it.

The narrative commences in the dusty heartlands of Meerut, where Jagdish Tyagi, alias “Jolly” (Arshad Warsi), ekes out a modest existence as a small-time lawyer nursing grandiose ambitions. Disillusioned by his provincial stagnation, he migrates to the capital in pursuit of acclaim and affluence. His moment arrives when a sensational hit-and-run case — disturbingly evocative of certain real-life celebrity misdemeanours — captures national attention. The affluent perpetrator is defended by the urbane and imperious advocate Rajpal (Boman Irani).

In a fit of opportunistic bravado, Jolly files a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the accused’s acquittal, envisioning this as his passport to fame. Yet, what begins as an act of self-serving audacity metamorphoses into a journey of moral revelation, as Jolly collides with the systemic rot of privilege, venality, and apathy — and, in that crucible of conscience, discovers an unexpected integrity.

At its intellectual core, Jolly LLB is an inspired amalgam of satire and redemption. Kapoor wields the courtroom not merely as a theatrical arena but as a microcosmic India — where the dialectics of class, corruption, and conscience are litigated daily. The film pirouettes gracefully between caustic humour and earnest outrage, juxtaposing the absurdities of legal formalism with the visceral anguish of the disenfranchised.

Its satire, though barbed, is never bitter. Kapoor’s writing dissects institutional absurdity without descending into nihilism, preserving a fragile faith in the possibility of reform. In its tonal architecture, the film evokes the anarchic brilliance of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, blending farce and gravitas to reveal the moral entropy of public life while retaining a humane optimism.

Arshad Warsi delivers perhaps the most unvarnished performance of his career — imbuing Jolly with the nervous energy of an everyman caught between avarice and awakening. His portrayal evolves with understated brilliance: the gauche opportunist of the first act ripens into a man tempered by conscience and courage.

Boman Irani’s Rajpal, suave yet sanctimonious, personifies the complacent certitude of power. His courtroom repartee with Jolly provides the film’s intellectual voltage — a duel of ideology and ego, wit and will.

Yet it is Saurabh Shukla’s Justice Sunderlal Tripathi who emerges as the film’s lodestar. His portrayal, simultaneously humorous and humane, renders the judiciary not as an abstraction but as a moral arbiter capable of weary wisdom. Shukla’s performance — rightly honoured with the National Film Award — balances judicial pomposity with empathetic gravitas, turning a bench into a pulpit of conscience.

Subhash Kapoor’s direction is refreshingly restrained — eschewing the overwrought melodrama endemic to Bollywood’s legal sagas. His command over rhythm and realism ensures that both laughter and lamentation arise organically. The courtroom sequences bristle with linguistic precision and procedural authenticity; their emotional tenor emerges not from rhetorical bombast but from narrative integrity.

The screenplay is a minor marvel of social observation — interlacing the pathos of the powerless with the hubris of the privileged. The peripheral characters — the typist, the chaiwala, the clerk — are not mere background décor but living fragments of India’s legal ecosystem, emblematic of the ordinary citizens who sustain extraordinary institutions.

Anshuman Mahaley’s cinematography captures Delhi’s chaotic vitality with unembellished candour — the smog, the queues, the crumbling courtrooms — all rendered with a quasi-documentary veracity that grounds the satire in lived experience.

Beyond its commercial triumph, Jolly LLB rekindled the flame of socially conscious cinema within the mainstream fold. It reaffirmed that entertainment need not be antithetical to enlightenment — that a film can wield wit as effectively as it wields moral weight. 

Jolly LLB stands as a paragon of intelligent populism — a film that entertains with laughter, enlightens with purpose, and indicts with compassion. It dissects India’s judicial machinery not with venom but with verve, reminding us that justice, though delayed and distorted, can still emerge triumphant when confronted by conviction. Bolstered by stellar performances, incisive writing, and a director’s unerring moral compass, it remains one of the most accomplished courtroom dramas of modern Hindi cinema — proof that cinema, when guided by conscience, can both mirror and mend society.