Prince of Oudh, best books of 2019 and on sleep
A few interesting stories that I came across last week:
• In these times of significant information access, mysteries are difficult to kept wrapped for too long. But once in a while, a few surprising stories pop up. One such came out in last week in NY Times. It’s a fine piece of investigative journalism telling the story of Cyrus and his sister, Sakina, and their mother, Wilayat. They were the alleged royal family of the kingdom of Oudh, who lived in seclusion in a ruined place for close to 30 years. This is a story that sounded as foreign to me as to perhaps all of you, but for the Indian generation before ours, it may not have sounded as fantastical though. Reading this long-form story — which I hope becomes a book one day — reminded me of Rushdie’s books laced with magic surrealism. While every other written line is memorable, the one that stayed with me was about Delhi. It read, ‘other great cities may be built on top of ruins, but Delhi is built of them. It is almost impossible to go from one point to another without stumbling over a 700-year-old tomb or a 500-year-old fort.’ I have spent many years in Delhi and a favourite pastime was often to pick up my motorbike and ride through these ruin-laden streets late in the night when traffic had eased. Here is a piece I once wrote on Delhi. While the story is worth a read for its portrayal of this eccentric and mysterious alleged royal family, the faded photographs that go along with it add yet another perspective and deserves a study by themselves. It’s a tragic story but read it if you wish to learn about how India once was, the hangover of which still penetrates some old forgotten parts of the country.
• FT came out with its annual curated list of best books. It’s my go-to source for scouting good stuff to read. Books are not bucked into a one-all list but slotted into several categories. Worth a browse if you are searching for something new to read. The ones that I added to my list are: The Man who Solved the Market in Business category, Ducks Newburyport and Sudden Traveller in Fiction category, The Body by my favourite Bill Bryson in the Health category, and On the Plane of Snakes by Paul Theroux, another favourite in Travel category.
• Lately, sleep has become a fad and tons of stories have started to appear on this topic in well recognized journals. New terms such as ‘sleep divorce’ and ‘solo sleepers’ are being added to dictionaries. I am fascinated by the subject as well, and my continued fascination to perfect a night’s sleep brought me to this story that appeared in The Atlantic last week. It’s a meditative story reflecting on the history of sleep and alongside, it provides a good commentary on the book The Bedroom by Michelle Perrot (published in 2018). The case the writer Mallika Rao makes, is that separating beds to ensure a good night’s rest is not a bad idea, and may even be conducive to a successful marriage. Rao also goes back into history to show that ‘sleep divorce’ is not a radical idea after all, and has been experimented with historically as well, citing a few famous personalities as reference. After all, sleep is a deeply personal journey and allocating private space to it is worth thinking about.
A quote that I came across last week:
In the land of the quick fix it may seem radical but to learn anything significant, to make any lasting change in yourself, you must be willing to spend most of your time on the plateau, to keep practicing even when it seems you are getting nowhere.
- George Leonard, a pioneer of the human potential movement in the 1960s
