An Odyssey in War and Peace by J.F.R. Jacob
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Although a slender volume, it nonetheless encompasses the brilliant General’s career from WWII to the Kargil conflict including his stint with the BJP and governing two states – Goa and Punjab.
Gen Jacob did not suffer fools gladly and spoke his mind to incompetent and lazy seniors (he threatened to resign on a number of occasions). His calling a spade a spade, being a stickler for rules and not bending to the will of bureaucrats probably led to his not being considered for the Chief - much to the loss of the Indian Army.
He is quite dismissive of the much acclaimed Sam Manekshaw (and rightly so, the Field Marshal was a vain-glorious political person) and sidelines Gen Arora completely for their roles in the liberation of Bangladesh. Gen Jacob's contribution for this Indian military triumph is not publicly acknowledged.
Very simply written, not pretentious at all and immensely readable. It could have done with some better editing – there are a lot or repetitions. I plan to read his earlier book exclusively about the Bangladesh war “Birth of a Nation.”

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The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some terms to describe this epic: Kafkaesque, Joseph Hellerian, Douglas Adamsonian, Voltairian (‘Candide’ – which is satirical take of Leibniz’s “This is the best of all possible worlds”).

This Bacchanalian romp through central Europe during World War I is a satire like Heller’s Catch-22 is of World War II. Joseph Heller’s fictional island of Pianosa appears as a paradise when compared to the hellish conditions of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire which shanghies the Czech canine-peddlar Svejk like Bukowski in “Hair”.

Svejk is like an affable version of Yossarian, apparently an innocent victim of circumstances but eventually emerges as an astute, loquacious and scheming individual, albeit resigned to his fate. Whereas Yossarian was a shirker, Svejk is willing to do everything. Svejk’s dissolute chaplain is in sharp contrast to the Chaplain in Catch-22 ‘yearning for Mary tragically’.

The venal Quartermasters will put the money-grubbing Milo Minderbinder to shame. This is how the NCOs justify the purloining of military stores: “Every man in the course of his eternal life undergoes countless changes and has to appear once in this world as a thief in certain periods of his activity. I’ve gone through this period myself”.

Esurient Baloun, cantankerous Lieutenant Dub, edacious generals, avaricious officers abound the plot as our gallivanting protagonist tries to keep up with his army unit. The garrulous and indefatigable Svejk is always ready with fables from his past to validate present events as he traipses around the countryside scrounging for drink and food.

The horrors of war are sharply brought out. War – the great equalizer: “And as the troops passed through and camped in the neighbourhood there could be seen everywhere little heaps of human excrement of international extraction belonging to all peoples of Austria, Germany and Russia. The excrement of soldiers of all nationalities and of confessions lay side by side or heaped on top of one another without quarreling among themselves”.

Alas, before Svejk has a chance to engage the enemy the book ends – the author Jaroslav Hašek dies!

The crowning glory of the book are the simple but evocative illustrations by Josef Lada.

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A Little Book of Doctors' Rules III. . . For Oslerian Clinicians.: New Revised Edition by Clifton Meador
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is, strictly speaking, not a book of rules, rather a set of guidelines and principles of clinical practice. These apply equally to the raw intern or to the hoary old practitioner and all physicians in between. Hippocrates and Osler are outdated to a large extent.

Here are some Oslerian aphorisms:
• Medicine is learned by the bedside and not in the classroom. Let not your conception of disease come from words heard in the lecture room or read from the book. See, and then reason and compare and control. But see first.
• Live neither in the past nor in the future but let each day’s work absorb your entire energies and satisfy your widest ambition.
• The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.
• The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.
• The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head. Often the best part of your work will have nothing to do with potions and powders, but with the exercise of an influence of the strong upon the weak, of the righteous upon the wicked, of the wise upon the foolish.
• We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life.
• To study the phenomenon of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all
• I have three personal ideals. One, to do the day’s work well and not to bother about tomorrow…The second ideal has been to act the Golden Rule, as far as in me lay, toward my professional brethren and toward the patients committed to my care. And the third has been to cultivate such a measure of equanimity as would enable me to bear success with humility, the affection of my friends without pride, and to be ready when the day of sorrow and grief came to meet it with the courage befitting a man.

These, in contrast, are the aphorisms of Hippocrates:
• We should rather purge upward in summer, and downward in winter.
• Pains seated above the diaphragm indicate purging upward, and those below it, downward.
• Dysentery, if it commences with black bile, is mortal.
• In all cases whatever, bilious discharges cease if deafness supervenes, and in all cases deafness ceases when bilious discharges supervene.
• If a person labouring under a fever, without any swelling in the fauces, be seized with a sense of suffocation suddenly, it is a mortal symptom.
• Sweats, in febrile diseases, are favourable, if they set in on the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth, twenty-first, twenty-seventh, and thirty-fourth day, for these sweats prove a crisis to the disease; but sweats not occurring thus, indicate pain, a protracted disease, and relapses.
• When the hypochondriac region is affected with meteorism and borborygmi, should pain of the loins supervene, the bowels get into a loose and watery state, unless there be an eruption of flatus or a copious evacuation of urine. These things occur in fevers.
• Blood or pus in the urine indicates ulceration either of the kidneys or of the bladder.
• When small fleshy substances like hairs are discharged along with thick urine, these substances come from the kidneys.
• Spasm supervening on a wound is fatal.
• A convulsion, or hiccup, supervening on a copious discharge of blood is bad.
• If a drunken person suddenly loses his speech, he will die convulsed, unless fever come on, or he recover his speech at the time when the consequences of a debauch pass off.
• Persons disposed to jaundice are not very subject to flatulence.
• When a person has been cured of chronic haemorrhoids, unless one be left, there is danger of dropsy or phthisis supervening……………

This book is so valuable because the author reminds doctors that they are treating a person, not a disease. With that in mind, he stresses the importance of listening to the patient, observing him, and even touching him. First, listen for clues: "Most patients can tell you why they got sick. . . Let a patient ramble for least 5 minutes when you first see them. You will learn a lot." Then, be sure you are facing the patient. "Learn to watch people's faces and eyes. Learn to watch their lower lip and then the upper lip." Finally, "Always examine the part that hurts. Put your hand on the area." Then, based on what he has heard, seen and felt, the doctor is able to begin ordering tests – but not a battery of tests: "Use laboratory tests like a rifle, not a shotgun." Over-testing can lead to over-treating.

The author says, “My fascination has always been more with the nature of the practice of medicine than with its actual practice. I have often wondered what it is that constitutes the real stuff of the practice of medicine. What are its essential elements? What is it we do that is helpful? What do we do that is harmful? Is there a way to codify and describe these necessary elements? Can we tease out the unspoken and unwritten rules by which we operate, and which determine our behaviour and make us physicians? Can we begin to explore the hazy art of the practice of medicine in some systematic way? Can we create a science of the art of the practice of medicine?”

The book codifies simple but essential guidelines which should have been taught in Medical College or learned through experience.

For example,
• Learn to listen for the “life narrative” of the patient. Diseases tend to arise from the “lived life” of the patient.
• Sit down when you talk with patients. Don’t talk with patients with your hand on the door.
• Always examine the part that hurts. Put your hand on the area.
• Touch the patient, even if you only shake hands or feel the pulse, especially with seniors. But not with paranoids.
• When you are listening to a patient, do not do anything else. Just listen.

A book that should be read and reread.


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Intern: A Doctor's Initiation by Sandeep Jauhar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I began the book with a groan “Oh no! Another cliched story of the overworked and randy intern going through his apprenticeship in the usual flippant manner.” However, it was a pleasant change in the narrative and this turns out to be an engrossing tale of self-discovery. Here is a cynical PhD in physics deciding to pursue a career in medicine. He is confused as he weighs his options to do law or journalism (in fact, he does an internship in TIME).

He describes the gut-wrenching details of his internship. He went through a dark phase of clinical depression and a painful herniated intervertebral disc.

He addresses the ethical challenges of practicing medicine. How does one balance reality with the four cardinal principles of Medical ethics?
• Respect for autonomy – the patient has the right to refuse or choose their treatment.
• Beneficence – a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient.
• Non-maleficence – to not be the cause of harm.
• Justice – concerns the distribution of scarce health resources, and the decision of who gets what treatment.

These are interlinked with the concepts of “Primum non nocere” – above all do no harm and “informed consent”.

A senior doctor astutely observes “Autonomy trumps everything if the patient has capacity, but who decides? The doctor, of course. So ultimately the patient can decide only if the doctor says so. In the end, the power structure in medicine is such that only doctors can decide whether patients have the right to exert their autonomy. And how do doctors decide? It is based on their experience, their prejudgement, their prejudice; and some doctors have the prejudice that patients cannot make medical decisions for themselves. So in these cases, paternalism rules, and it’s a slippery slope toward a situation where autonomy is always undermined.

In contrast, there was another senior doctor whose statement could have been taken out of Catch-22, “We can get them (the patients) to do whatever we want. As long as they agree with us, they’re not crazy.”

Interestingly, the medical world in America appears to be liberally peppered with doctors of Indian origin.

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The Sarkari Mussalman by Lt. Gen. Zameer Uddin Shah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first heard of the author when he had been appointed as VC of AMU. I wondered how a fauji would manage the rambunctious crowd at the hoary institution, where the ebullient students are always in a state of ferment. The press kept us informed (not always accurately, according to him) about his authoritarian attempts to suppress the mutinous atmosphere. That is when I learnt that he too was an alumnus of St Josephs, Nainital – albeit nine years my senior.
More about that later; first the book. It is simply and lucidly written, with none of usual Army bombast. I only wish the photos were of better quality – the earlier ones are grainy and not even suitable for a family album (e.g., Photo No. 28) and the later ones have been luridly photoshopped. There should have more details about his soldiering, unless these are operational secrets. He rightly says that retired faujis are a very valuable human resource and should be usefully employed in imparting their knowledge, experience and skills in nation building.
Gen Shah should not have been so circumspect about detailing his experiences during the communal riots in Gujarat. What else was this book for (hence the four star rating)? He should have laid bare those ‘wounds’ he talks about. However, it was fascinating to read about his encounters with the “Actress bhi kabhi HRD Minister thi.” What were those words from PM Modi that assuaged his feelings after one of these encounters?
His description of his time at St Joseph’s took me on a nostalgic trip my school days - to thrillers by Alistair MacLean, well-thumbed brown-paper covered Midwood books, weekly outings to town on Thursdays to watch movies at Capitol while munching 10 paise worth of peanuts. As he mentions, our potpourri of cultures and religions turned us into responsible citizens. I can vouch for the secular nature of “Sem”. Our houses may have been named after Christian saints, but all Indian festivals were celebrated. I can still taste the fruits we got on Janamashthmi. The ‘other’ were our traditional and rabid rivals Sherwood. Alas! socials with the ladies of “Sonn” (St Mary’s Convent) had ceased in our time – I would attribute the escapades of our seniors (the author included) leading to this sad state of affairs.
Incidentally, a trip to "Sem" a couple of years ago was a big disappointment. The place was in a shabby and decrepit state. The original Irish Brothers are now an extinct lot and their indigenous replacements are from the familiar Bhartiya milieu of lazy corrupt individuals.

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Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome by Venki Ramakrishnan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fascinating. Very engrossing manner of explaining the arcane world of crystallography and molecular biology. The intrigues of the Nobel Prize and other prizes in various sciences is a revelation.

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Of Counsel: The Challenges of the Modi-Jaitley Economy by Arvind Subramanian
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For the lay person who does not know the difference TBS and GBS or GDP and GTT, this book was very simply and lucidly written – at least in parts. The sections on Power and complicated Fiscal stuff was gibberish to me. The initial sections were very informative, as was the section on Agriculture.

The postscript on Federer and Nadal was the author’s tribute to these legends of tennis. Particularly evocative was the photo of Federer hitting a backhand and the similarity in grace with a ballerina.

How the GST evolved is fascinating stuff. Alas, the ‘real’ reason for demonetization was not there....

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The Curse of God: Why I Left Islam by Harris Sultan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a book with a lot of promise but is ruined by convoluted and repetitive arguments that, at times, read like an incoherent rant. The author’s specious contention is that scientific concepts in the Koran were based on the prevailing knowledge at the time of its writing and are,hence, not divine revelations. The Koran apparently maintains, for example, that the earth is geocentric rather than heliocentric.
Nit-picking aside, he has rightly pointed out that twisted interpretations of the Koran suit the Muslim clergy.
This warping of facts is what is happening in Hinduism. I am concerned by the increasing misrepresentation of Hindu myths as the truth, by both Hindu fanatics and Hindu laity alike. They ludicrously attribute Hindus in the hoary past of pioneering test-tube babies, organ transplant and plastic surgery. Another preposterous claim is that in the Mahabharata during the war in Kurukshetra, nuclear weapons and flying chariots were supposedly used as weapons of mass destruction. In this increasingly bizarre scenario, the most risible example is the farcical debate going on about the caste of Hanuman the Monkey God. One two-bit politico (a Muslim to boot) contends that the mythological god is a Muslim as the name Hanuman ends like other Muslim names like Rehman, Suleiman etc.
However, the book is immensely readable, supplemented as it is with interesting graphics and statistics.

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William Osler: A Life in Medicine by Michael Bliss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This hagiography is the account of the life of William Osler who has been put on a pedestal by his acolytes on par with Christ and Shakespeare. He learnt and practised medicine during the sanguineous period of blood-letting (His father nearly died as a result of enthusiastic leeching prescribed during a bout of pneumonia).
Bacteriology came into existence, X-Rays were discovered during his lifetime. He died before the antibiotic era – succumbing to multiple lung abscesses that resulted from pleural effusion, in turn a consequence of pneumonia. His only succour was morphine – he avidly prescribed opioids himself.
He misdiagnosed often (but boldly admitted his shortcomings), did not innovate or make original discovery. Yet he will forever be remembered for the basic clinical principles of history taking, observing and examining the patient closely in order to establish a diagnosis or rather at a set of differential diagnoses.


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