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Kasturba: A Life Kasturba: A Life Arun Gandhi Publisher: Penguin Price: Rs 295 Available at: Etcetera The saying that behind every great man stands a great woman, clichéd as it is, rings true. Much is known about Mohandas Gandhi, but very little about Kasturba, his wife, who married him at the age of fourteen. In this book, Gandhi’s grandson, Arun Gandhi, chronicles the tale of this quiet woman, whose life was filled with adventure, and upheavals, and reveals a story of an enduring relationship.    As a young girl in a strange new household, it did not take Kasturba very long to adapt to its ways, and more importantly, to her husband, who she found from the very beginning, was an impulsive man, a man given to taking drastic decisions, a wilful man prone to change his mind when it came to himself, his family, and his life. The Gandhi that we know, the one who led the great cotton revolution in India, and the movement for non-violence, did not obviously do it in one fell swoop. There were moves to England, to South Africa, long ship journeys, jail sentences, even for Kasturba, but she stood by him, silently, stoically, getting herself as involved as possible in not only his politics but in his spartan lifestyle, while enforcing her own views in her way.    These two human beings acted as driving forces behind each other’s very existences, which ended cruelly, abruptly, when Gandhi was assassinated in 1948. Kasturba died soon after, and the whole of India wept for the woman who they had started calling ‘Ba’, for mother, the woman who had stood not behind, but beside her husband during all his speeches, silently being his tower of strength.    As Gandhi himself said ‘I learned the lesson of non-violence from my wife. Her determined resistance to my will on the one hand, and her quiet submission in the suffering my stupidity involved on the other hand, ultimately made me ashamed of myself and cured me of my stupidity.’    — MRH Stories from Rwanda We wish to inform you-stories from Rwanda Philip Gourevitch Published by: Picador Price: $15.00 Available at: Words ‘n’ Pages In his haunting work on the evil men are capable of, New Yorker magazine journalist, Philip Gourevitch, traces the history of the Rwandan genocide of April 1994 which resulted when the Rwandan government called on everyone in the Hutu majority to kill everyone in the Tutsi majority. In just three months 800,000 Tutsis were murdered, slaughtered.    His narrative starts with a visit to Kibungo, in eastern Rwanda, on a rocky hill called Nyarubuye with a church where many Tutsis were slaughtered in mid-April 1994. He describes it: ‘The dead looked like pictures of the dead. They did not smell. They did not buzz with flies. Skin stuck here and there over the bones, many of which lay scattered away from the bodies, dismembered by the killers, or by scavengers-birds, dogs, bugs.’    And then he steps over a dead baby’s skull, smashing it.    The descriptions don’t get prettier. In what has been termed the biggest genocide since Hitler’s war against the Jews, Gourevitch describes the destruction of the Tutsis who were termed ‘cockroaches’ and treated very much like insects. It explores the blind depths that human hatred can spiral into, and the senseless killings just for the sake of it, in a journalistic style that is devoid of too much emotion, and drama, making it all the more so powerful.    — MRH BABEL Starring: Cate Blanchett, Brad Bitt Directed by: Alejandro González Iñárritu Genre: Drama/Thriller Runtime: 142 minutes The recipe for most multi-thread narratives usually involves the most dramatic points to be those where the narratives intersect. Unlike director Alejandro González Iñárritu's previous foray into the style with 21 Grams, Babel leaves the audience not really caring if and when they actually do. To the director's credit, this is partly due to the separate narratives being very interesting in themselves for some parts, but it's also due to the relatively meaningless and fickle links (save for the two main narratives). All in all, Babel has the makings of an independent film that will only be remembered for including Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in its cast.    The four narratives are spread over three continents, and are all (naturally) interconnected. A goat herder in Morocco gives his two young sons a rifle for shooting jackals; bored, the two decide to tests its range, and inadvertently fire a shot into a tourist coach. The bullet hits American tourist Susan (Blanchett), whose husband Richard (Pitt) desperately tries to get her medical attention - difficult, seeing as they are in the countryside, which has a total of one ambulance servicing it. The event causes the US government to brand it as a terrorist attack, and the gun is traced to a Japanese man. This is the scene for another of the narratives, as the Japanese man's daughter is a deaf-mute, struggling to control her sexual urges. Meanwhile, the couple's two children are being looked after by their Mexican nanny, who takes along to her son's wedding across the border; on the way back, they are stranded in the desert.    It's not quite as confusing or pointless as it sounds, but you need to really want to feel that you haven't wasted your money to take anything back from it.    — Naeem Huque The Illusionist Starring: Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel Directed by: Neil Burger Genre: Thriller / Mystery / Romance Runtime: 110 minutes In all honesty, there was nothing about the Illusionist that made me want to see it except that it had Edward Norton. Although his skills weren’t really tested - it was a role that is rather mechanical at best - he was, not surprisingly, the only real highlight of the film. The Illusionist followed the typical formula; it was probably only the ending sequence that had much of a difference of any sort, although it featured a twist that was rather predictable, only in a very sudden burst.    The story follows Eisenheim (Edward Norton) a master magician in 20th century Vienna. After the opening scene shows him being arrested from the stage for treason, the story takes a flashback to his childhood as an aspiring magician, and his love affair with the daughter of an aristocrat. The lassie’s parents find out about the affair, and forbid him to ever see her again, with which he takes off to see the world and hone his skills. He returns to Vienna to start a new show, and becomes a sensation, attracting the attention of the devious crown prince. It just so happens that the prince is engaged to Eisenheim’s childhood love, who has grown into Jessica Biel. From there on, until the last five minutes of the film when the inevitable dramatic twist is revealed, everything is as one would expect. And the end, when all the realisations are being made, could’ve also been spaced out slightly more, instead of being suddenly dumped on the audience.    — Naeem Huque SATIRE BY DAVID FRIEND, IN VANITY FAIR, JANUARY 2007 Triglyceride onion rings cholesterol    HDL “good cholesterol”    HDL fried onion rings    HDL freedom fries    osama bin laden pakistan    osama panama    osama yucatan    Google Maps: tora bora    Google Maps: cheney house    Google Maps: cheney maryland    birdshot pellet removal    quail hunting “involuntary manslaughter”    hunting accident manslaughter    hunting accident manslaughter pleas    firearms disposal    smoking gun    smoking gun mushroom cloud    hot lesbos vinyl black boots    bunker dungeon black boots    bunker decor    bunker refurbish HDTV    osama peshawar    osama cabo    saddam “al qaeda”    saddam “al qaeda” bulgaria    saddam “al qaeda” yellowcake niger    iran “north korea”    lawrence welk    margaret whiting    jeanette macdonald    jeanette macdonald nude    kate smith whalebone corset photos    brit hume stilettos photos    osama lahore    osama la jolla    WMD tikrit    WMD basra    WMD triglyceride HDL    HDL viagra    HDL levitra    lipitor levitra scotch    lipitor levitra single malt scotch cheeseburger dizziness    deferred compensation    deferments selective service    defibrillators    ahmadinejad bullseye target mail order    ahmadinejad members only beige jacket    brooks brothers menswear beige blazer    lynne cheney MySpace    mary cheney MySpace    mullah omar MySpace    maureen dowd naked    cokie roberts naked    katherine harris naked    iraq exit strategy    iraq exit strategies    iraq exit stratagem    iran exit strategy    robert gates “IRS audit”    osama Wyoming Top blogs The beauty of blogs is their random location in cyberspace and the very best are those rare gems that you stumble across purely by chance but if you’re stuck for ideas, check out www.technorati.com - a site dedicated to blogs and their bloggers which lists the best online sites.        In his photographic blog, www.shahidul.wordpress.com, Shahidul Alam, the internationally renowned Bangladeshi photographer and director of Chobi Mela has created a beautiful and powerful monument to Bangladesh’s recent history, from the fall of Ershad’s regime to the political riots that befell the country at the end of last year. The images are magnificent and the prose lyrically evocative.        www.boingboing.com has been voted the world’s best blog. Whether or not you agree, it is certainly one of the most popular. Updated daily, it provides a collage of bizzarre and interesting news stories and comments collected from around the world.        Apparently nothing at all http://blog. ryangwillim.com is San Diego-based Ryan Gwillim’s photographic diary. The captions and thoughts are simple but the images are visually arresting and portray strangely ethereal anecdotes of the author’s everyday life and observations.        www.popbitch.com is a UK-based celebrity and media scandal website and message board, providing often salacious and usually hugely embarrassing anecdotes on the stars, it has become astronomically popular and always makes an entertaining read.        If you want to hook up with fellow enthusiasts of pretty much anything, have a look at www.facebook.com - a sprawling networking machine that links friends, shameless self-publicists and all those who find www.myspace.com slightly too intimidating.        www.postsecret.com is a collection of anonymous postcards revealing people’s innermost secrets. Ranging from the ridiculous to the darkly traumatic, this site is updated every Sunday and tends to become dangerously addictive.        And if you want advice on how to start your own blog, check out www.engadget.com which will tell you everything you will never need to know about all things technology. GROUND CONTROL TO MY IMAM From ‘The Determination of Prayer Times and Direction of the Qiblah in Space,’ by Dr Zainol Abidin Abdul Rashid, a member of the engineering faculty of National University of Malaysia. The paper was delivered at the Islam and Life in Space conference last spring in Kuala Lumpur.    As trips to space become commonplace, human civilization will no longer be tied to the surface of the Earth. But Muslims, wherever they are-whether on Earth or in space-are bound by duty to perform the obligations of worship.    A Muslim who wants to travel must study the techniques of determining prayer times and the direction of the Qiblah ahead of travel in order to achieve complete worship. I will elaborate the method of determining prayer times and Qiblah direction in space, primarily on the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS is more than 200 miles from the Earth’s surface and orbits the earth every ninety-two minutes, or roughly sixteen times a day. Do we have to worship eighty times a day (sixteen orbits a day multiplied by five prayer times)? This seems unlikely, since it is compulsory for a Muslim to pray five times a day according to an Earth day, as determined by Allah during the creation of Heaven and Earth-no matter where in space the Muslim is located. As for the Qiblah, for Muslims there is only one, the Kaaba, located in Mecca. A Qiblah that changes in reference to a specific system is not in order! It must be remembered that Allah’s creation is ordered.    A user-friendly, portable Muslims in Space calculator could determine the direction of the Qiblah and prayer times on the ISS. Its essential feature would be the use of the Projected Earth and Qiblah Pole concepts. These are based on the interpretation of the holy house of angels in the sky above Mecca. The place is always rich with angels worshiping. As many as 70,000 angels circumambulate it every day. Thus, one virtual Qiblah Pole can be taken as a universal reference to determine the direction of the Qiblah. When the Earth is projected to the height of the ISS, every point on its surface will be projected also, including the Qiblah point, which can be projected upward and downward along the Qiblah Pole. This allows the direction of the Qiblah to be determined in space and in the bowels of the Earth.    – Harpers.org FOR WHOM THE RING TONES The following responses were among those given to a survey conducted in Lagos last year by the Daily Times of Nigeria that asked people whether they believed rumours that answering cell-phone (GSM) calls from certain ‘killer numbers’ causes bleeding and death. Originally from Harper’s Magazine, September 2005.    I think it is true. They mentioned in our church that a woman died at Oshodi. They said she collapsed after receiving a call. Maybe some people have gone into research to develop charms that suck blood through the phone. What we must do is develop our own counterattack. For me as a member of the OPC [a vigilante gang in Lagos], I have gotten some protection for myself, and I don’t care if anyone calls me with the so-called killer number.    Though I use the commercial phones, I don’t have any phone on which a killer could call me even if it is real. But due to the rumour, a man ran into a huge business loss because he refused to answer a call at about three in the morning. Later, when the man checked his missed call, he found out that it was a call to invite him to come and pick some goods as early as possible the following morning. Therefore, it is left for anyone to believe or disbelieve, but I don’t feel concerned about the whole episode.    I didn’t believe it before, but now I do. Somebody just came to tell me that a man in a Mercedes Benz collapsed at Ikeja at about 10 A.M. on Monday morning. Similarly, the pastor at James Osu Street, off Odunsi Street, collapsed after receiving a call from an unknown number. He was rushed to the hospital. He was discharged the following day, but since then he has not been the same again. If you go to Odunsi Street, just ask for the pastor GSM almost killed, and they will take you to his house.    Everybody using the GSM phone should beware and be careful. Many people are saying it is a lie; but what we have heard at Ogba last week convinced a number of people. Wednesday last week, two people at Ojudu, and one at Oke Ira, were reported dead.    Hence, I resolved not to pick up any number that does not indicate a caller name that I know personally.