Tathagata Satpathy
I read a lot of books on philosophy. But with preparations for the current parliamentary session taking most of my time in the past month, I have not picked up a book in this period.
The book I will read next and am waiting for is The Book of Indian Dogs by S. Theodore Baskaran. This book will have a comprehensive history of Indian dogs and the various breeds. Generally it is only foreign breeds that are known or sought after; Indian dogs are ignored or are thought of as unglamorous. It will be fascinating to finally read about indigenous breeds.
Tathagata Satpathy is an MP from Odisha and chief whip of the Biju Janata Dal at the Lok Sabha.
Michel Danino
I am reading Sri Aurobindo’s Letters on Yoga , probably for the fifth or sixth time (but the first time in the recent four-volume edition). It is essential knowledge, of unrivalled depth and breadth. Last I read Amit Vaidya’s Holy Cancer: How a Cow Saved My Life . It is a moving testimony of how the author’s cancer (at stage IV) became the instrument not of his death but of his rebirth. Next I plan to read Srinivas Reddy’s translation of Kalidasa’s Meghadutam . His earlier translations of Krishnadevaraya’s The Giver of the Worn Garland and Kalidasa’s Malavikagnimitram were felicitous and rigorous at the same time. I look forward to reading the great classic again in this new translation.
Michel Danino is is the author of ‘The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati’ (2010) and a member of the Indian Council for Historical Research.
