Monthly Archives: February 2010

How have you changed

From choc’s blog :

***15 YEARS AGO (1995)****
1) How old were you? 12
2) Who were you dating? Nobody
3) Where did you work? Was in school, class 6
4) Where did you live? Kanpur
5) Where did you hang out? Around school campus and in my neighbourhood playing cricket,football with the kids
6) Did you wear contacts and/or glasses? No
7) Who were your best friends? Shadab, Abdul, Kushagra, Varun, Brijendra
8) How many tattoos did you have? None
9) How many piercings did you have? None. I remember they tried to pierce my ears when I was a kid. But don’t see any marks…guess I screamed and ran away!
10) What kind of car did you drive? none.
11) Had you been to a real party? Birthday parties!
12) Had you had your heart broken? No.
13) Were you Single/taken/Married/Divorced? Single.
14) Any kids? None


***10 YEARS AGO (2000)***
1) How old were you? 17
2) Who were you dating? No
3) Where did you work? In school, class 11
4) Where did you live? Kanpur
5) Where did you hang out? Various popular joints around Kanpur
6) Did you wear contacts and/or glasses? No
7) Who were your best friends?
Abdul, Kushagra, Fahad, Nikhil
8) How many tattoos did you have? None
9) How many piercings did you have? None
10) What car did you drive? None
11) Had your heart broke? No
12) Were you Single/Taken/Married/Divorced? Single
13) Any Kids? None


***5 YEARS AGO (2005)***
1) How old were you? 22
2) Who were you dating? Nobody.
3) Where did you work? In college. Started working late in the year.
4) Where did you live? Bangalore
5) Where did you hang out? Restaurants, multiplexes, malls
6) Did you wear contacts and/or glasses? No
7) Who were your best friends? Shantanu, Shekhar, Kousthub, Priyanka
8) How many tattoos did you have? None
9) How many piercings did you have? none.
10) What car did you drive? none
11) Had your heart broken? no
12) Were you Single/Taken/Married/Divorced? Single.
13) Any Kids?
none


****TODAY (2010)****
1) Age? 26
2) Where do you work? Brighter India Foundation
3) Where do you live? Bangalore
5) Who are your closest friends? Shantanu, Abhi, Arvind
6) Do you talk to your old friends? Yes, occasionally
7) How many piercings do you have? none.
8) How many tattoos? none
9) What kind of car do you have? none
10) Had your heart been broken? yes
11) How many kids? none
12) Do you wear contacts and/or glasses? none
13) Are you Single/Taken/Married/Divorced? single!

Guns, Germs and Steel

The expanded title reads :
Guns, Germs and Steel : A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years
And it could not be more correct. In less than 500 pages, the author takes you on a whirlwind tour of how civilization emerged in all continents, and how the local geography, flora and fauna affected the development of complex societies throughout the world.

It examines various historic events, figures out the causes behind them and then tries to perform a scientific analysis of the origin of those causes.

It starts with the main factor behind origin of civilizations – food production. It examines how food production independently arose in different regions at different times. It then examines how and why it spread quickly across the vast continent of Eurasia and resulted in development of complex societies, but spread much slowly in the Americas and Africa, hence resulting in slower development.

Having food production as the foundation of development, it examines how some societies developed diseases (germs), and some did not, and how something as simple as germs resulted in wipe out of entire native populations, with the rapid European conquest of the Americas and Australia while resulting in a failure of colonization of Africa till much later. It digs deep o find out why such germs developed only in certain societies and not in others.

It also examines in detail the entire chain of evolution of civilization, starting from a tribe, leading on to a chiefdom, then a kingdom and finally becoming a nation state. It identifies how civilizations evolve from an egalitarian model into a kleptocracy with multiple class divisions as the population increases.

This is only a small snapshot of the book’s scope, it goes much deeper and wider to compile nearly entire history of human civilizations and how and why some of them succeeded while others failed. It goes behind the science of it all to explain how and why history unfolded the way they did, completely changing the study of history to be a scientific subject rather than one of humanities.

The author Jared Diamond is a maverick academic. He started his career in the biological sciences, becoming the Professor of Physiology at UCLA med school in 1966. He then switched to ecology and evolutionary biology, gaining fame for his explorations of remote parts of New Guinea in late 1970s. He then developed a third career in environmental history, becoming Professor of Geography and Environmental sciences at UCLA.