Neeraj's Books

First Published: 1984 Fortieth Reprint Edition: 2020 Written by one of India's foremost lawyers and a former Ambassador of India to the United States, Nani A. Phalkivala's We, The People is a collection of opinions, talks, speeches and commentaries made on a wide range of subjects, from International relations to Indian constitutionalism from his days as a barrister till the time of being an Ambassador...... The book itself is divided into four major parts with subparts, each containing opinions he either said on a platform or wrote in a newspaper. Widely renowned to be a multi-faceted personality, it would be hard to believe for a reader (including me) that a lawyer-specialized in law-has been able to provide an opinion on Taxation and Socialism with the same expertise as a genuine expert in the subject. He swings from professional to personal and back in most of the writeups and all writings in this book (both he wrote or spoke) are written in formal English, which is expecte...

  Original language: French Year first published: 1759 Format: Amazon Kindle Edition A philosopher who believes till the end that "this is the best of worlds" and his royal pupil who finds it to be the opposite in the harshest way possible, coupled with a bit of travelling around the world and loads of characters... You have Candide. Voltaire's Candide revolves around the story of Candide, the son of a noble, who is educated by Dr Pangloss, the royal philosopher who irrespective of everything he has been through, still believes that "this is the best of worlds". How life proves both Dr Pangloss and his student Candide wrong form the rest of the story. Considering that this is a 300-year-old book read today, many of its standards, themes etc. may be outdated for the readers and it's not right to critique them, considering the audience of the time period. But the story itself constantly reminds the reader that unlike what Pangloss says, the "best of world...

First Published: 1989 Silver Jubilee Edition Published: 2014 When Ganapathi was hired by Ved Vyas (Spoiler Alert), little did he know that he was to be a part of the "most important" literary exercise undertaken- an "ancient" rendering of Modern India ( Yes, you read it right). Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel, written nearly 30 years ago revolves around Ved Vyas narrating the story of modern India to Ganapathi, who writes it down ( Ring a bell, anyone?). The novel, set between post-1857 British India and mid-1980s, is about the royal family of Hastinapur, their history and how they became an integral part in the pre-Independence struggle and post-Independence administration.  Applause to the author for the effort taken to combine two of the most important episodes in Indian History- the Mahabharata and Modern Indian History- into a single work, rendering a rethinking of both ancient and modern Indian history. He has made minor yet welcome tweaks in the ...