One day, I happened to watch a talk / book reading that Arundhati Roy gave at MIT along with Noam Chomsky. I dont remember how I came across it, but I listened to the whole thing, and it left quite an impression. I think I first came to know of Noam Chomsky through the Hindu, which used to publish some of his political views. Later during my undergrad years, when I took a course on Finite Automata and Formal languages, I learnt that the same person had done a lot of work on grammars. I enjoyed that course, and I later decided to take that up as the subject of my research - but that is another story and it has nothing to do with Chomsky or Roy.
Chomsky is no ordinary professor. He is a thinker - someone with an ability to provide a fresh perspective on reality, someone who is capable of leading a society's thoughts forward. Perhaps philosopher is a more appropriate term. And it is in this capacity that I think he has contributed the most - I am not belittling his contributions to theoretical CS in any way; that has been enormous, but his political contributions are perhaps even more important, since theoretical CS continues to be of interest only to a few. And it is in the same capacity that Arundhati Roy has a role to play in Indian politics. Voices of reason like these are necessary in a country whose political climate seems to get worse by the day. It helps us get our bearings right and keeps us moving forward instead of becoming a regressive country with a retarded religious sensibility that appears to have come straight out of the middle ages.
But this is a review of the book, and its not about what I think of philosophy. After watching that talk, I bought this book. Its a small book, doesnt take too long to read from cover to cover. It is a collection of essays / talks that she gave at various points in the run up to the Iraq war. She criticizes the US govt mercilessly, in a way only she can. That was well deserved though. She also talks about unrest in various parts of India - such as the naxal movement, the confrontations that adivasis have with the governments every now and then and of displaced people from the Narmada valley. She sees a common root cause in all these strifes and advocates their rights, which is something the mainstream often forgets, just because they happen to be mainstream.
In the past I have wondered how writers justified their jobs. I always found it useful to write - nothing clears up your thinking the way writing can. However, writing as a profession seemed frivolous to me - I never looked at the art of story telling as important to culture. Reading books written by someone like Arundhati Roy changes one's outlook.
Typical Arundhati Roy style writing. I like her writing, so I am going to say it was a great read.
Chomsky is no ordinary professor. He is a thinker - someone with an ability to provide a fresh perspective on reality, someone who is capable of leading a society's thoughts forward. Perhaps philosopher is a more appropriate term. And it is in this capacity that I think he has contributed the most - I am not belittling his contributions to theoretical CS in any way; that has been enormous, but his political contributions are perhaps even more important, since theoretical CS continues to be of interest only to a few. And it is in the same capacity that Arundhati Roy has a role to play in Indian politics. Voices of reason like these are necessary in a country whose political climate seems to get worse by the day. It helps us get our bearings right and keeps us moving forward instead of becoming a regressive country with a retarded religious sensibility that appears to have come straight out of the middle ages.
But this is a review of the book, and its not about what I think of philosophy. After watching that talk, I bought this book. Its a small book, doesnt take too long to read from cover to cover. It is a collection of essays / talks that she gave at various points in the run up to the Iraq war. She criticizes the US govt mercilessly, in a way only she can. That was well deserved though. She also talks about unrest in various parts of India - such as the naxal movement, the confrontations that adivasis have with the governments every now and then and of displaced people from the Narmada valley. She sees a common root cause in all these strifes and advocates their rights, which is something the mainstream often forgets, just because they happen to be mainstream.
In the past I have wondered how writers justified their jobs. I always found it useful to write - nothing clears up your thinking the way writing can. However, writing as a profession seemed frivolous to me - I never looked at the art of story telling as important to culture. Reading books written by someone like Arundhati Roy changes one's outlook.
Typical Arundhati Roy style writing. I like her writing, so I am going to say it was a great read.
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