Parasara Sridhar Duggirala's Blog

I picked up this book on a random stroll through the library. I found the title interesting and the cover pretty good, so I thought of giving it a try. This book is basically a collection of essays written on different topics. Some are directly related to the title like "Is Indian Civilization a Myth" and "How India met Vasco", others weren't related at all, like "Marquez, Hemmingway, and Cult of Power" or " An Ambiguous Parisian". Seems like a random collection of essays in no particular order. I found his essay "What, Exactly, is an Empire?" a bit pedantic. It is a classic case of logic defeating its own purpose. Here is the thing, irrespective of any definition of Empire, you are bound to ignore or include some elements that are questionable according to other definitions of Empire. One should not dismiss works on analyzing Empires because they adopted a specific definition. More frustratingly, Sanjay does not even provide an ...

Consider that there are two parties A and B. Party A proposes a "scientific" hypothesis and forces part B to provide an explanation this specific hypothesis. This is exactly the framework for the "Aryan Invasion" myth. Aryan Invasion refers to a hypothesis which briefly states that Aryans were the "white" foreigners who came to India on horse drawn carts and "invaded" the cities of India, driving the original inhabitants, called Dravidians to the south. I call Aryan Invasion as myth neither in a literary philosophical term that folks with English PhD talk about nor as a set of mythological stories that are used in popular culture. I mean myth as something that people literally invented without any scientific basis. The whole "theory" of Aryan Invasion does not have any scientific leg to stand on. Even the religious followers of Aryan Invasion such as Romila Thapar et. al. just switched their stance to Aryan Migration, as if the explana...

Why do we do anything? If the basic needs such as food, water, clothing, shelter, healthcare, and sanitation are met, what is the additional motivation to work? People often cite "fulfillment", or worse, "happiness" as a motivation to work (whatever that means!). Now consider an extreme scenario like climbing Mt. Everest, also dearly called Chomolungma, by the common folk in Nepal and Tibet. Why would you want to climb it? I will give an outline of the the logistics involved in climbing Mt. Everest. An expedition would often take at least 2-3 weeks and easily a month. One needs to diligently plan the times of ascend, set up several base camps, and stock up sufficient food, water, and oxygen. It takes several days to get acclimatized to the high altitude. It is essential to carry sufficient clothing and climbing gear. A climber can face storms, avalanches, and injuries, that can be instantly lethal, frost bite that might cause disfiguring or amputation, or worse, ...