The Sixth Extinction - Elizabeth Kolbert

I came to know about this book through The Straits times' Big Read Meet program. I had read some articles written by Elizabeth Kolbert in National Geographic magazine and New Yorker. So I knew her subject. This book is really an eye opener for anyone who interested in earth's environment and its inhabitants and it also show the actual earth we lives in.

The book highlights how the human dominion over other living things destroys the earth. The author lists so many extinct animals and birds to prove that point. The book shows the clarity in authors thoughts and use of easy language  made this book a riveting and sometimes thrilling one.The author's field reporting is comes into force in this book. Each chapter deals with either already extinct species or critically endangered one.

The author explains how different factors from climate change to unlucky flightless birds to acidification of oceans contributes to the 'Sixth' extinction. The author talks about Cuvier ,Lyell and Darwin  and how they first proposed 'evolution' and  ' extinction'.Its very interesting how these scientist moved from one theory to another after the discovery of big animals fossils. It took around hundred years to accept that some mass extinction took place which killed all those big predators ie in 1980, Luis and Walter Alvarez proposed that massive asteroid caused mass extinction at the end of cretaceous period, which was generally accepted.

I liked the idea of new Pangaea - how we the humans knowingly or unknowingly breaking down the boundaries of countries by travelling. The industrial revolution has changed the concept of travelling. The author explains how these travels brought invasive species to our backyard and destroys the native species.The time take to evolve has reduced a lot because of it species are not able to survive. The author also highlights that we may be the last generation to witness this much diversity of living organisms.

After reading this book I spoke to one my friend who travelled to Australia couple of times to visit the Great Barrier Reef ,

Me : How was barrier reef?
Him :not as good as last time I visited.
Me: I hope I can visit within next 5 years.
Him : I think there won't be any thing spectacular to see in five years time.!!!

The author also feels the same thing , may be not in five years. Another example of slow extinction of birds and animals without us noticing. Some months back I spoke to one of my brother ,I ordered two feeder for feeding birds in my native -Pamban.  The conversation:

Me : You will get two bird feeder, when you go home take it and give to my sisters.
Him:Bird feeder for what?
Me:Feeding birds.
Him: Nowadays we can not find even crows!!

When I visited my native in June, I noticed the difference, there were far few crows than it used to be. We grown up with lots of crows, woodpeckers,mynahs and kingfishers but now spotting woodpecker is a rare event, crows and mynahs numbers have fallen. No idea about kingfishers. This is how we are loosing our planet's life without we noticing it. As I'm writing this U.N climate Summit 2014 is happening but the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases China and India are missing ( not exactly missing but send their representatives). This shows our effort to save our planet.

Great book and a must read!

Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo

I bought this book just by looking at the cover! Never heard of it before. Even before I came out of the book expo I started reading the book , I really don't know why. Normally I go home , read first few paragraphs in all the books bought then choose one or go to older ones from bookshelf. I did not kept the book down for the next three days. I did not read any other books during those three days. A great political,psycho and historical thriller.

After reading this book , I searched Google for Peru's history. Then the book made sense.The style of writing and characters are something unique - may be inspired from real people . The setting - year 2000 (Officially the war was over), guerilla war between army and insurgents(Sendro Luminoso) , presidential election, tourists arriving for holy week festivities.

The bloody story unfolds through prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldíva from Peruvian town of Ayachuo , who is writing a almost perfect report on a death in his jurisdiction. The death is unique, the post moderm report shows that the victims arms were removed before death and the body was beyond recognition. The police department's hierarchy will not come into his help to solve the case. He started to explore the case though no one seems to know anything, irrespective of clear evidence of Sendero involvement. He writes report endorsing commander Carrion for whom "In this country there is no terrorism, by orders from the top" . As a reward for his work, he was sent to Yawarmayo , where Sendero and police wages war using native people.Felix's further inquiry threatens to destabilize the official line on terrorism.Felix also finds that whoever he talks to dies .Dead bodies piles up. Each body represents  a day in Catholic Calendar. He feels guilty. As expected he founds the way through his investigation which culminates in bloody Easter.

By portraying Felix as a loner, who still talks to his mother in her decorated room and strictly follows the rules the author sets the tone for the story. Felix is not at all suitable for investigating the psycho murders. But as I read, these portrayal gave me the real horrifying effect of the murders. The author also explains the conflict of Spanish and native Indian cultures briefly.Though the book talks about the events from 1980 to 2000, the culture difference and exploitations of the natives started 500 years before.

As Felix says "We waged a just war..but sometimes I have difficulty distinguishing between us and the enemy.I begin to ask myself what exactly it is we fought against." the ordinary people of the Peru were the only sufferers. Both army and senderos terrorized the citizens. This book is a good start to know about the bloody recent history of Peru.

This book won many awards including the prestigious Premio Alfaguara de Novela award.

Click here to know more about Ayachuo Holy week celebrations

பசுமை புரட்சியின் கதை - சங்கீதா ஸ்ரீராம்

One of the best book about so called 'Green revolution' . After reading this book, for the next two days I was really angry and frustrated about how we treat our land and our farmers. Some unexplainable feeling. I called many of my friends and talked about this book . The book details the gradual degradation of our farming methods .

I'm not a farmer. But i knew how the traditional and 'our' way of doing things are best suited. I'm from fisherman family. This book can be easily applied to fishing too. How our fishermen were used by various companies and gradually lost their say in how to fish, where to fish and what to dish etc.  I remember my uncle told " we should not listen to  M Swaminathan's words about fishing in our area because he never came to our island and did any research or talk to our fisherman". For my uncle our fisherman knew more about those scientists sitting in comfortable lab doing test.

 The book starts with how Indian traditional farming worked . Most of the details about our own farming was written by Britishers whose work Dharampal used to fight against the British modernisation of Indian farming. The author also tells the story of the great Indian scientist R H Richharia, the man who would have brought the real revolution. Of course there is no reference of Dharampal and Richharia in any 'Green revolution' books.

Using the facts and government records the author explains the famines of 1800 - 1900.  The facts shows a very clear man made 'famine deaths' . There were around 35 officially recorded famines during that time. The administrative mismanagement of Britishers caused most of those problems irrespective of in 1877 Madras presidency received 66 cm rainfall and in 1943 Bengal exported 80,000 tonnes of food items.  In his book "ஆங்கிலேயர்கள் இல்லாத இந்தியா (l'inde sans les anglais") " Pierre Loti tells the story of his travel experience around India (1899-1990), he wrote lot of pages on famines .He also wrote while public mostly poor people were dying , the rich people enjoyed their life.

The most ridiculous thing is even after Justin Von Leibeg admitted his mistakes in his approach and regretted for it but we are still using his approach in our farming. Leibeg's own words:
"நம்மை உருவாக்கிய படைப்பாளியின் பேரறிவுக்கு எதிராகப் பாவம் செய்துவிட்டேன். அதற்கான தண்டனையையும் பெற்றுவிட்டேன். அவனுடைய வேலைப்பாட்டை மேம்படுத்த விரும்பினேன். இந்தப் பூமியையும் அதிலுள்ள உயிர்களையும் பிணைத்து இந்தப் பூமியை எப்போதும் புத்துயிருடன் விளங்கச்செய்யும் இயற்கை நியதிகளின் அற்புதமான சங்கிலியில் எதோ ஒரு வளையம் விட்டுப் போய்விட்டது என்று என்னுடைய குருட்டுத்தனத்தினால் நம்பினேன். பலவீனமான, சக்தியற்ற நான், விடுபட்டுப்போன அந்த வளையத்தை உருவாக்கிப் பொருத்த முயன்றேன் . . . மழை நீரைக்கொண்டு உருவாகும் ஒருவகை மண் கரைசலிலிருந்துதான் செடிகள் தங்களுக்குத் தேவையான ஊட்டச்சத்துகளை எடுத்துக் கொள்கின்றன என்பது எல்லாருடைய நம்பிக்கையாக இருந்தது. என் மனத்தினுள்ளும் இது ஆழமாகப் பதிந்தது. இந்தத் தவறான கருத்துதான் என்னுடைய முட்டாள் தனமான செயல்களுக்கெல்லாம் ஆரம்பம்"

                                            * above image taken from Kalachuvadu website.

The story of 'reserved forest" :

"தங்களுடைய தேவைகளை நிறைவேற்றிக்கொள்ள, ஆங்கிலேய அரசு, 1800களில் வன மேலாண்மையைத் (உண்மையில் அதன் கட்டுப்பாட்டை) தன் கைகளில் எடுத்துக்கொண்டது. முதலில், கிராம மக்கள் வனங்களுக்குச் சென்று கால்நடைகளை மேய விடுவதற்கும் அவற்றிலிருந்து தங்களுக்குத் தேவையான பொருள்களை எடுத்துக்கொள்வதற்கும் தடை விதிக்கப்பட்டது. 1803இல் தான் முதலில் கடல் வர்த்தகத்துக்கான கப்பல்களைக் கட்டுவதற்காக, மலபார் தேக்கு மரங்களை "reserved" என்று அறிவித்து, வெட்டி வீழ்த்தினர். இப்படித் தங்கள் சொந்தத் தேவைகளுக்காக ஒதுக்கிவைக்கப்பட்ட காடுகளையே, நாம் இன்றும் "reserved forests" என்று அழைக்கிறோம்! பின்னர், படிப்படியாகக் கட்டடங்கள், ரயில் பெட்டிகள், தண்டவாளங்கள் போன்ற பல்வகையான தேவைகளுக்கென மரங்களை வெட்டிச் சாய்த்தனர்.5 1866ஆம் ஆண்டு இந்திய அரசு வனத்துறையை நிறுவியது. " I think the size reserve forest is getting smaller and smaller(?) . We should have some thing like  US's Wilderness Act to protect our wilderness , in case of US, the wilderness acres are keep expanding . We can also do that. At least we can protect whatever we have now.

The author beautifully explains how NPK model fuelled by various US agencies (including laws like PL-480) and companies products made our farmers depended on them completely for everything.The author not only talks about the history and problems of the green revolution but also proposes possible ways to overcome the difficulties starting from the change in lessons/syllabus in schools to colleges.The questions and answers in chapter 15th gives clear idea of what we needs to do get back our lands fertility .
" 'நவீன பொருளாதாரம் ' என்று பரவலாகக் குறிப்பிடப் படும் இந்த அமைப்பின் முக்கியமான தன்மை ஒன்றுண்டு .நாம் எவற்றையல்லாம் மக்களுக்குப் பரவலாக,எளிதாக ,மலிவாக கிடைக்க வேண்டும் என்று விரும்புகிறோமோ அவைற்றையல்லாம் கிடைக்கவிடாமல் செய்யும்.உதாரணத்துக்கு ஆரோக்கியமான உணவு ,சுத்தமான தண்ணீர் ,விதைகள் போன்ற உயிருக்கு ஆதாரமான பொருட்களை உருமாற்றி காப்புரிமைகள் பெற்று ,பைகளிலும் பபுட்டிகளிலும் அடைக்கும்.அதற்கு விலை போட்டு ,அந்த விலையைப் படிப்படியாக அதிகரித்துக்கொண்டே போகும் ."

Overall an excellent book. Each and every Indian should read this book.

Click here for Jeyamohan's foreword for the book

Author's blog

Links to most of the chapters in this book