Our tigers, their tigers

For layman and conservationists alike the Sundarbans conjures the image of the graceful Bengal tiger and the mysteries surrounding its man-eating ways. It is but rarely, one gets to know of the people of the Sundarban islands who share habitat with the big cats.

From the blurbs

C V Raman: A Biography by Uma Parameswaran, Penguin Books India, Rs 350

Understanding the bug

In the Steven Soderbergh film Contagion business executive Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) becomes inexplicably sick after a trip to Hong Kong. Her condition deteriorates and Emhoff succumbs to a mystery disease, which then claims her young one. Dismissed as a minor bug in the beginning of the film, the virus spreads alarmingly, with no treatment protocol or vaccine. Investigations trace the bug to a bat whose nest was destroyed during forest clearing by a mining company. The homeless bat then infects a pig, which is slaughtered and a chef in Hong Kong, who carries the pig blood on his hands, passes it on to the unsuspecting Emhoff.

From the blurbs

Empire’s Garden: Assam And The Making Of India by Jayeeta Sharma, Permanent Black, Rs 750

Alternative care

Anyone who has ever been sick—which I suppose includes everyone in the world—would have had firsthand experience of the callous ways of healthcare establishments. For the poor, healthcare is not available at most times.

Energy matters

Daniel Yergin is among the staunchest critics of the peak oil theory. In 1992 he won a Pulitzer for a book that described the resilience of the oil industry. In a recent article he argued that in 2007-2009, “for every barrel of oil produced in the world, 1.6 barrels of new reserves were added”. He returns to his favourite whipping horse in The Quest, Energy Security and the Remaking of the Modern World.

Why some become addicts

I get immense joy every time I hear Ustad Parveen Sultana’s rendition of Dayani Bhavani in Raag Bhavani or Miles Davis’ rendition of the opera version of Dubose Heyward novel Porgy and Bess. It is hard to put my feelings into words. But I know my foodie friends get this ineffable sense of pleasure after a meal at their favourite eating joints. Others might associate this feeling with sex. Yet others with shopping. For some the pursuit of this emotion leads to addiction to dangerous hallucinogens. Sure enough, humans have an innate longing for pleasure. But why does this lead some to addiction?

From the blurbs

Lost in transition by Christian Smith, Kari Christoffersen, Hilary Davidson and Patricia Snell Herzog, OUP, US $27.95

Organ traffickers

In the mid-2000s Scot Carney was an anthropologist researching in southern India, when a fellow researcher died under mysterious circumstances while on a field trip to Varanasi. The death was pronounced a suicide. Carney spent three days over the mangled remains of his fellow researcher. “More than anything else, her death taught me that every corpse has a stakeholder. This was the beginning of my own understanding of the international market for human bodies,” he writes.

From the blurbs

New world of indigenous resistance: noam chomsky and voices from north, south and central America,