(Part 2) Top products from r/ABCDesis

OP, I would suggest spending the next one year of your life dedicating yourself to learning about India. I do not mean superficial learning about empty customs and rituals - I mean actually learning about the history of India over the last 5000 years.

I hate, hate, hate to use quotes from Westerners who have studied India (because it goes to show that we take pride when Westerners say something good about India) - but because you have such a huge inferiority complex about your race and wish you were White, I shall resort to using these examples.

>1. If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power, and beauty that nature can bestow – in some parts a very paradise on earth – I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most full developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant – I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life – again I should point to India. - Max Muller

>2. J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist and director of the Manhattan Project, learned Sanskrit in 1933 and read the Bhagavad Gita in the original form, citing it later as one of the most influential books to shape his philosophy of life. Upon witnessing the world's first nuclear test in 1945, he later said he had thought of the quotation "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds", verse 32 from chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita.

>3. In the introduction to The World as Will and Representation, written in 1818, Arthur Schopenhauer stated that "the access to [the Vedas], opened to us through the Upanishads, is in my eyes the greatest advantage which this still young century enjoys over previous ones, because I believe that the influence of the Sanscrit literature will penetrate not less deeply than did the revival of Greek literature in the fifteenth century".

>4. In 1789 Jones published a translation of Kālidāsa's The Recognition of Sakuntala. The translation captured the admiration of many, notably Goethe, who expressed his admiration for the Sanskrit play Shakuntala. Goethe went on to borrow a device from the play for his Faust, Part One.


Spend the next one year reading about how rich your culture is. I don't mean Bollywood culture - you don't need to learn anything about that - read about History, Philosophy, the various art forms. I know India is a messed up place in many, many ways but things will improve. Every country/region goes through ups and downs. You think the US is going to be a great country 300 years from now? There was a time when the Greeks were a mighty nation and now they are reduced to nothing. There was a time when the Arabs contributed a lot to mathematics and art - now they don't have that kind if culture.

You are never going to have true self-confidence if you don't feel proud about your origins. You are lucky that you are from India - because there are many things you can find about India's glorious past to feel pride in.

I recommend this book to get started - 'The Wonder That Was India'

http://www.amazon.com/Wonder-That-India-A-L-Basham/dp/033043909X

You will see how in the Indus Valley there was actual town planning - this was when most of Europe was a complete mess. I agree that we shouldn't just find comfort in the past and the present is most important. The present day India is a complete, complete, complete mess. But how can we expect to get out of the mess if the youth do not even have self-confidence about their heritage? In the case of Indians, we need to teach our children about our glorious past so that they feel pride and then are able to dream big and change the country.

I don't know what your story is and whether or not your parents ever discussed Indian History with you beyond the British rule. Anyway, you are an adult now and live in a country where you have access to excellent public libraries. Go and immerse yourself in some serious study. You will come out a different person.


EDIT 1 - Regarding women : Just have self-confidence and try to be a good human being. Don't give a damn about what another person thinks of you, and this quality will attract women.

Thank you! Your reply also has great points so I want to address those:

> They want cross-disciplinary people.

Excellent point and I agree. This ties in with the idea of not doing something that can be outsourced easily. In the 20th century, specializing in one single field and mastering it was wise. But in the 21st century, maybe not. It actually makes us more vulnerable to being replaced since they only have to find 1 other person to replace you. But by combining one field with another, you become a unique asset that either can't be found elsewhere or would require more people to do the same work. And we can be creative with the combinations, combining things that our unique interests and skill sets make possible for us--but maybe not someone else.

>one person to be doing the job of 2-3 people

This is definitely true. A globalized work force means greater competitions for jobs than ever before and less job security. Interestingly, the only way out of that is to be what we're talking about: irreplaceable. If they can't find someone else to do what you can do, you have the leverage about your work load & hours. Or at least much more so than someone who has 5 people in line willing to work that same job more cheaply than you.

>you don't have to make a whole new technology that spins out over 100 patents

Yes exactly, and I think that's where people (myself included once upon a time) get hung up. They assume if they don't have an idea at the level of the next Apple, they're not innovative enough. In actuality, innovation is a muscle. You can start small, and the more you start thinking creatively in the little things the more likely you are to start innovating in bigger things. I highly recommend this book for ways on becoming more creative.

Lateish to the party but Teach Yourself Hindi is probably the best Hindi textbook ever made. I'm serious, it's recommended every single time someone asks on /r/languagelearning

If you're like me and had aunties that tried to explain Hindi grammar but utterly failed, this book is super satisfying. It breaks down the language in a way that makes sense and is much easier to learn.

Yes, I can so relate to this. Good post. I was raised to be that way too-- speak only when spoken to, don't argue or talk back, be flexible and accommodating, keep private matters private. I would go so far as to say that my lack of assertiveness, guilt in wanting simple things (like respect) for myself, and questioning my instincts made my marriage/divorce drag on much longer than it should have; years beyond when I knew that it wasn't going to work out. Part of it was being very young but I would say I could have moved on and moved forward much faster if I had stood up for myself and had more confidence in my decisions (and if my family had supported me-- but that's another topic). Hopefully others won't have that extreme an experience.

In the workplace, practicing and faking it till you make it works for me, maybe it could work for you. You might feel like an impostor, but trust me, everyone feels like that to some extent. Try to figure out what it is that will make you more confident in those situations and work on that. For me, it's usually knowing about something inside and out so that I can speak confidently about it. True Desi nerd style! I still struggle with asking for things I want sometimes. It still feels really selfish, which I don't think will ever go away completely.

Some books that helped me: Quiet and of course Lean In. As others mentioned, therapy can work too in finding practical solutions to specific problems you might have. It's not just you :)

The one book that I recommend to every single person I run into is "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion".

The book is a summation of research by moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt that really changed the way I thought about how different people arrive at different moral values and perspectives, as well as articulated and crystallized what I already intuitively understood.

It had particular relevance to me as an Indian-American because when it comes down to it, the culture clash between Desi and Western values really revolves around different moral values, and the book really helped me understand the nuance and approach behind both.

Children Just Like Me

As a kid, my little sisters and I used to love seeing how kids around the world lived. This book is a gem

https://www.amazon.com/Children-Just-Like-Me-Celebration/dp/0789402017/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522097689&sr=8-2&keywords=children+just+like+me

The Paper Crane by Molly Bang. I loved this in 2nd grade, it was an East Asian styled tale involving origami and magic
https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Crane-Reading-Rainbow-Book/dp/0688073336/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522097844&sr=1-2&keywords=paper+crane

Malala's Magic Pencil
https://www.amazon.com/Malalas-Magic-Pencil-Malala-Yousafzai/dp/0316319570/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522097952&sr=1-1&keywords=malala%27s+pencil

FYI, here's some Desi-themed science fiction I recommend:

• Manjula Padmanabham's book Kleptomania and Other Stories and her play Harvest
  
• not a Desi writer, but I really enjoyed Ian McDonald's River of Gods, book 1 in the "India 2047" series

I would recommend The British in India. It's an awesome read around the social setup and the lives of the people which is what I wanted to understand to really get the sense of the history. I now think it's more important to explicitly understand the people and the sentiment rather than the raw facts one could get from most pop books or wikipedia.

From my personal experience of eating both Pakistani and Indian Punjabi food, I've noticed a difference in meat vs veg variety.

I've found Pakistani food to be more focused on meat whereas Punjabi Indian has more veggie dishes.

As others noted, there is ton of diversity in Indian food based on regions and cultural/religious histories.

This book is very interesting. It's an historical perspective on South Asian cuisine.

https://www.amazon.in/Indian-Food-Historical-Companion-Achaya/dp/0195644166

I would highly, highly recommend Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004). It does an absolutely brilliant job of situating General Zia's rule and his influence on Pakistani politics and society in the context of larger international trends relating to the war in Afghanistan. You'd probably be specifically interested in Part 1 of the book, which covers a lot about the Zia era.

I'd also recommend books by Ahmed Rashid, who has written a ton about current events relating to the Pakistan and the surrounding region.

> religious nationalism was one part of a larger set reasons for Pakistan forming.

> Deeper concerns about electoral representation in a unified India were at work

Have a read

Search “hare krishna scarf” on amazon. I found this and similar versions in different colors.

I just finished reading Bad Feminist. It's one of the first books I've read on feminism and found myself relating to a lot of what Gay had to say.

You should check out India: A Potrait It covers history from 1947 to present.

The Dallas locality around the Hanuman temple has a lot of commited families where kids learn full Gita (rare even in India), various stotras, yoga and languages. It is mainly Telugu based though there are probably some Tamil people too.

BTW, I think the terms like 'conservative' and 'holding on' are somewhat self-defeating and moreover not true. What is the unusual is the current setup which is inherited from Protestant background where learning happens primarily from texts, and learning from actions ('ritual') has become sidelined(this book covers some of the reasons - its author teaches courses on Harvard on ritual).

But that is a temporary thing and things are changing. A more productive diagnosis is how to transmit the inspiration which lies behind the processes. Like for some reason, a culture develops taboos against math or reading poetry(like post-Protestant societies have against practices across the world) , the response isnt so much about holding on to math or poetry, but figuring out what has broken down in the learning process and repair it.

My recommendation is The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty. It's about the last Mughal Emperor of India and the rise of the British Raj. Even though not written by an India, Dalrymple's research heavily relied on previously undiscovered documents in the Indian Archives. Also it has pictures!

You should also check out William Dalrymple's [other books] (http://www.amazon.com/William-Dalrymple/e/B000API5E8/ref=la_B000API5E8_pg_1?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_82%3AB000API5E8&ie=UTF8&qid=1397287440). His last book, [Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42] (http://www.amazon.com/Return-King-Afghanistan-1839-42-Vintage/dp/0307948536/ref=la_B000API5E8_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397287446&sr=1-1), deals with the British East India Company's first foray into Afghanistan.

Edited for formatting