A gorgeous slice of life photographed by Raghubir Singh in his eleventh book of photographs. These pictures are sumptuous to look at while stimulating one's curiosity about the enormous melange of peoples and cultures that make up India.

There are camels and carpets, a medieval milestone, scooter riders and monsoon floods. There is a museum watchman who could easily be the model for one of the ancient statues he guards. There are pilgrims and festivals. Everywhere there are people living. Some are aware of the cameraman others go about their business with out acknowledging his presence.

This book is enjoyable on so many levels. Singh's feeling for his subject matter and his exceptional sense of composition and color create a satisfying work of art.

A gorgeous slice of life photographed by Raghubir Singh in his eleventh book of photographs. These pictures are sumptuous to look at while stimulating one's curiosity about the enormous melange of peoples and cultures that make up India.

There are camels and carpets, a medieval milestone, scooter riders and monsoon floods. There is a museum watchman who could easily be the model for one of the ancient statues he guards. There are pilgrims and festivals. Everywhere there are people living. Some are aware of the cameraman others go about their business with out acknowledging his presence.

This book is enjoyable on so many levels. Singh's feeling for his subject matter and his exceptional sense of composition and color create a satisfying work of art.

This is an excellent guide. I saved a lot of money on hotels and transport thanks to it. Its compact size allowed me to put it in my passport pouch. Virtually every foriegn tourist in Rajasthan had one with them.

Sarina Singh and Michelle Coxall's guide to Rajisthan is a well written reference for any Western traveller. Detailed information on the history and cultural context of a region or country gives any travel buff an insightful introduction into their travels. In addition, Singh and Coxall include up-to-date information (with convenient currency converters) on places to stay and eat, regional attractions (inluding listings of museums), regional events (such as festivals and fairs), etc. However the book's strength lies in the inclusion of several detiled maps of the region and of major cities in Rajisthan. The maps guide tourists to important locations such as hotels, banks, hospitals, post offices, police stations, etc. The color pictures and the black and white sketches well support the book's narrative and give travelers mnore than a brief glimpse into Northern India and its unique lifestyle. Other travel guides such as Frommers and Lets Go, while offering strong information, are unable to paint as clear a mental picture as the Lonely Planet guides are so adept at.

The guide to Rajisthan is perfect for unseasoned travelers unused to the hustle and bustle of Asia. The book guides tourists through the murky waters of regional customs, while highlighting invaluable cautionary information on health (e.g., food and water), local scams, etc. In addition, the book devotes an entire section to travel and transportation information including useful hints on visa applications, drivers permits, etc. The book conlcudes with a glossary of important terms and a phrase book that helps toursists navigate through simple phrases imperative for travelling through foreign countries.

I have two sources of documentation, this book and ORACLE documentation. ORACLE documentation has always been poor. This book is a little better but is missing a lot of details. The chart on Date Formatting Elemment is nice, however the example uses elements that are not in the chart. Most examples are not real world. I use the book daily for the lack of anything better.

A great book is exactly what I am looking for! This book gives pretty much a whole picture of Oracle database , not too detail , but that's fine as long as they cover area that I am interested and well-organized and some real world examples help as well. I think this book not only should be the developer's guide but also the dba's references book specially for a role like me -dba & developer.

At last the work of the Tenth Sikh master has come to the English speaking world. It is of great use to see this text in English. The English although at times very much Indian English is welcome nevertheless. The literature of the Tenth Sikh guru reflected his cosmopolitian knowledge of the lanuages of North India and Persia and for many this will be the only access to this difficult text. Many have found parts of this book to be 'Racy'' but the authors have handled it all well. As Sikhism becomes increasingly a worldwide dharma this book should find its way into every Sikh home where English is spoken. The Sikh community should all support the work of its scholars by obtaining this fine transcendental literature

Sri Dasam Granth Sahib Ji was collated by Bhai Mani Singh ji in the mid-18th Century. For this reason, many Sikh and Indian 'scholars' assert that many of the hymns and prayers within the Dasam Granth Sahib are not the compositions of the tenth and final Sikh prophet, Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji. ever since the 1700s, controversy has raged in regard to the Dasam Granth's authenticity. The net result has been that this CRUCIAL Gurbani ('words of the Guru') has been relegated to, at best, a secondary position in Sikh consciousness. Sadly, many people now deny that sri Dasam Granth Sahib is even canonical.

However, the noble efforts of Dr Jodh Singh and Dr Dharam Singh will hopefully contribute to a renaissance in Sikh thought in regard to Sri Dasam Granth Sahib ji. Their exhaustive work provides much insight and enables one to transmit the poetic and martial beauty of Guru Gobind Singh's compositions to the younger generation of diaspora Sikhs, as well as to the elders (myself included!) who have long been kept in the dark cavern of ignorance.

I would thoroughly recommend these two volumes to anyone even remotely interested in Sikh theology and revelatory literature. The only gripe I have is that the Panjabi University's two professors' use of English is, at times, rather torturous. However, this is itself understandable and does not, in any way, detract one from the sheer accomplishment and necessity of their work; 'Sri Dasam Granth Sahib Ji-Text and Translation'.

My attention was returned to this book by Amazon's "Buried Treasure" link. I tend to treasure it as such and strongly recommend it remain buried. If you would enjoy succumbing to the rantings of a decrepid, self-bombed, relentless little thief, then this book may be for you.

Wild amazing mind of Harry Smith, poet, archivalist, anthropogist, shaman, revealed in sudden bursts of illuminating starfall. Read these interviews and dance with a firebreath world. Planets spin and we spin with them. Great.

This book Covers: Architecture, software and interfacing techniques for these 16-bit and 32-bit microprocessors, Intel 8086,80386 and motorola 68000,68020

I purchased this book hoping to learn more about the x86 and 68000 CPU families and programming for those architectures. This book gives plenty of necessary background information regarding the internal workings of these CPU's, while being well-written and easy to follow. The chapters are ordered in a logical fashion, firstly introducing the reader to the high level, software programming, aspect of the architecture, and then in later chapters providing very detailed information regarding the physical structure and workings of the CPU. This allows readers to easily read through the topic of their interest without being overwhelmed by other information. Although I have not read entirely through the book, I find it to be a valuable source of reference. This book provides thorough descriptions of the CPU's instructions, internal registers, memory interfacing and other important CPU-specific information. It also gives many examples, and regular exercises, for each topic covered which helps the reader to memorize what they had just read. The charts are also very clear and make the explanations a lot easier to understand. Protected mode for 80386 is clearly covered and well-explained with easy to understand diagrams and memory exercises. I recommend this book to all people with a keen interest in CPU architectures. Beginners, like myself, could try other assembly language guides, many of which are available through the internet, as this book, despite being well-written, may be a bit too much for a primer in assembly language for a beginner. But no matter at what stage you are, this book will always be a great reference guide.

it is a good book to read and prepare for professional examinations

The psuedo-autobiography is very good at keeping the reader educated of indian terms and traditions. However, there is too much description and not enough action to keep the reader's attention. Also, since the novel is old, the language is archaic and thus does not seem to interesting to today's audience. However, 1850s British India is a fascintaing time and place, and this novel does present the times well, though through the lens of a European mercenary rather than a British officer.

Building upon decades of experience in research, design and implementation of leading-edge real-time deterministic Computer Integrated Manufacturing systems at Loughborough University (UK), this book by Singh describes pragmatic approaches to use modelling tools and infrastructural services enhancing enterprise software reuse, and system performance.

Contents include: contemporary software interoperability, state of the art, achieving interoperability, information architecture, integrating infrastructure, system lifecycle support, and case studies.

Strengths include the thorough and deep perspective afforded by experience, scope for extrapolation of findings to current enterprise-wide systems, lack of ERP-vendor bias, and attractive use of charts, tables and references. Despite the depth of the material sometimes making for slower reading, this is a useful contribution to knowledge (for systems integrators and industrial researchers) in the area of industrial business objects, component libraries and enterprise software interoperability.

A nautch girl's freedom to choose her lover can never have been unambiguous, as Mirza Mohammed Hadi Ruswa's novel on Umrao Jan, the famous courtesan of Lucknow, amply suggests. Ruswa himself described the circumstances under which Umrao Jan Ada came to be written: one evening, at a gathering of his friends where poetry was being read and discussed, a woman from the next door apartment was heard to voice her appreciation of a couplet that Ruswa had recited. Ruswa then had a word with her; she was persuaded to join the group, where she recited a verse whose last lines were:

"Who will listen to the tale of my woeful heart? Far and wide have I wandered on the face of this earth And I have much to impart."

At Ruswa's prompting, Umrao related her life to him over several sittings, and those narratives Ruswa committed to writing; it is in Umrao's words, that the narrative was to find shape. Umrao had a large hand in the characterization of her own life. She had a command over words and her easy facility with poetry won her a following among the aristocratic literati of Lucknow: with her couplets she stole their hearts. Kidnapped by a ruffian who sought to exact revenge for the term he had served in jail on the strength of testimony given by her father, Umrao was brought to Lucknow, and eventually sold into the establishment of Madame Khanum Jan. It was at this house of prostitution that she was to live out the greater part of her life; it was there that she was transformed from Ameeran to Umrao. Luckily, her education was entrusted to a scholar who combined his refined tastes and not inconsiderable learning with a real affection for Umrao. "From the shapeless log of wood that I was," Umrao was to say, "he chiselled out a civilised being"; it was the Maulvi who endowed Umrao with the confidence that allowed her not merely to sit with cultured company but to "command the respect and attention of wealthy aristocrats". Most significantly, the scholar nurtured her interest in poetry until it had "developed into a passion", and that was the passion with which she was to etch the story of her life indelibly onto the social and cultural imagination of Lucknow.

As Khushwant Singh and M. A. Husaini, whose endeavors have brought Umrao Jan Ada to readers of English, point out in their introduction, Umrao Jan Ada conveys "a flavour of all that was Lucknow -- its language, its poetry and music, and the way of life of its citizens". This was the city that perfected the culture of the social grace and where everyone aspired to be a poet. The very decadence of Lucknow not merely aristocratic but inimitable.

Umrao Jan undoubtedly evokes some of the ambience for which Lucknow was renowned, but it is the complex characterization of Umrao and the life that she led which makes the novel memorable and significant. In Ruswa's rendering of Umrao, the courtesan is most candid about her profession: though it may well be a woman's desire to be loved, a desire that swells as she grows older, it is not given to a whore to live out this desire. A tart's only friend is her money; she is no one's wife, and if she is foolish enough to give her love to some man, she does so at the considerable risk of jeopardizing her livelihood. When Ruswa interrogates Umrao about the place of love in her life, she is quite forthright in her pronunciation of the view that in her profession "love is a current coin. Whenever we want to ensnare anyone we pretend to fall in love with him." As she adds, no man ever loved her, nor did she ever love any man.

While Umrao's relations with the Nawab Sultan appear to belie her own profession of indifferent engagement with men, her surrender could not have been complete lest her very livelihood should have been endangered, for where was the man who would openly risk his lot with her? A 'respectable' man had a home to which he could return, and a wife to embrace, but what was the net of safety around Umrao? Whatever her fame as a singer of laments and as a dancer who could en-trance men as much by the style and substance of her poetic deliveries as by her movements, she would perforce be judged by the refinement of the pleasures that were hers to offer in bed. God might well forgive streetwalkers who repent, Umrao was to reflect, but "good women never" do so. They are "suspicious and contemptuous of women who go astray", for "however lovely a character" these good women may have, and however good housekeepers these women might be, they find to their great chagrin that men "will fall for a street woman who may have nothing in the way of looks, and may be wanting in all other qualities as well". Loathed by "good women", and reduced ultimately by their patrons and clients to tools of their pleasure, what could these courtesans, howsoever beautiful and talented, hope for by way of some secure place within the socio-economic and cultural fabric of Indian society?

Umrao emerges finally as a woman with formidable reservoirs of strength, almost ponderously reflective, as she slips into old age, about the strange twists of destiny that carried her from the confined world of the hearth to a realm where, though the regimes of power were just as portent, she could experience herself as an agent. It is this wild horse of ambiguity that Umrao Jan, the novel as much as the character, rides with admirable candor