Publish and be damned!

The newsletter at ISB is now an established tradition. The previous batch had a great set of people who had a way with words and who could put a witty spin on everything. As it came around to this batch, I was lucky to be elected Editor, even if it took me a while to get things up and going suffering as I do, from terminal laziness.

But the process so far has been fascinating. In the beginning (as most dime novels are wont to say) there was nothing, not even a mere trickle of articles or quotes... as the terms rolled by people began finding their feet - this is already the third term, mind you - and things began slowly falling into place. We now have a super set of people who have gotten together to contribute some good stuff and have begun to give this years newsletter a flavour thats entirely pgp2005. Much like sociological experiments have proven in the past, as the batch grows, people develop sharper teeth and a sense of wit that borders close to 1 on the pH scale (so sue me, I love being arcane). There were a few surprised folk on campus when we finally got the first issue off the ground - I think they made the honest mistake of expecting this to be a vanilla newsletter - the Harbinger was anything but that. It threw barbs all around, examined issues irreverantly, attempted to rank everything and everybody on campus, and one enterprising writer even came up with a new theory of Marketing.

Thats the best part - with 276 people, mind you, as our beloved Prof. Rakesh Vohra would have said, this is not any 'random sample of the population'. The selection process ensures that there is a fairly high degree of creativity that abounds here. It is just buried under the weight of the reading that everyone is subject to - an average of 2-300 pages a week which you dont even realize. But every now and then, it sprouts and bursts forth, bringing much needed cheer and laughter.

While we rely on the reliable Dhar to keep us informed on all things technology, the rest of us veer off down those alluring and dark sideroads. Personally, I have found that my ability to finish fiction and non-fiction books is directly proportional to time left for an examination. Since we are peppered with exams every 2 - 3 weeks, my reading cycles are also subject to the same frequencies. The weekend before or the nights leading to an exam will find me feverishly chasing stuff that I have always wanted to read or watch, but never found the time to. I will also be able to tell you reliably, anything that might be playing on Star Movies, HBO, MGM, Zee English, Sony or ESPN at any given point between 9 pm and 9 am. So continuing with this now ingrained habit, I decided to pick up Arundhati Roy's "The Algebra of Infinite Justice" (pub. Viking), Mahesh Dattani's Collected Plays (pub. Penguin books) and also came across another book by Anurag Mathur of "Inscrutable Americans" fame - Scenes from an Executive Life.

Dattani's plays are currently occupying a major portion of my mind share (more MBA lingo for you). Final Solutions contains some of the most compelling bits of dialogue that I have ever come across. Being very similar in tone to Bhisham Sahni's Tamas, I expected a good read from it. I am just in awe of the way Dattani forces his audience to examine issues - now it takes a fair bit of talent to extend a decent argument in prose format, anyone who tries will find that out soon. But being able to put it in dialogue format, and superlatively so with drama, puts some writers into a realm all their own. Sure, I have more than a fair bit of bias towards Dattani, being a fellow Banglorean, having attended the same college as him and all, but just the fact that Mahesh is the first writer in English to have won the Sahitya Akademi award is something that draws you to his writings. Dance like a Man was another of his plays that impressed me no end with its metaphorical and real time travel - examining the life of a male kathak dancer. I guess its just the prejudices that Mahesh persuades you to examine, which make him such a good read.

Arundhati Roy needs very little to announce her. And "Algebra..." is a collection of her essays, post God of Small Things. Beginning with a plaintive piece on the renewed nuclear testing in Pokharan leading to the struggle in the Narmada Valley against the inundation caused by the Sardar Sarovar dam and going on to end with the war in Afghanistan, Arundhati puts into feeling words a lot of what we wish we could have said. Also, on slightly dissimilar lines, I found this really neat little piece by George Saunders in the New Yorker. Read it and you will understand it, he uses sarcasm beautifully!

"Scenes..." began nicely, its blurb promising an insight into the life of an executive on the move in his organization. For those who have read Samuel Goldratt's "The Goal" you might see parallels in this book. It is actually about the social network in an Indian manufacturing company and a man in the midst of it all. As far as I see, its primary purpose for being in the ISB library is the guerilla Marketing ideas it contains. Oh... it does not end all loose ends nicely tied up and resolved, like in the Goal. The protagonist here gets nicely taken.

For a first attempt at blogging this has rambled on way past its intended limits. Will see you back next week!