en-US Mon, 13 May 2024 22:27:52 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg ReadStatus7925225275 Mon, 13 May 2024 22:27:52 -0700 /review/show/6503828179 Abhishek wants to read Street Corner Secrets: Sex, Work, and Migration in the City of Mumbai by Svati P. Shah
]]> ReadStatus7925223942 Mon, 13 May 2024 22:27:07 -0700 /review/show/6503827210 Abhishek wants to read The Durable Slum: Dharavi and the Right to Stay Put in Globalizing Mumbai (Volume 23) by Liza Weinstein
]]> ReadStatus7925221979 Mon, 13 May 2024 22:26:01 -0700 /review/show/6503825810 Abhishek wants to read Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
]]> ReadStatus7925221096 Mon, 13 May 2024 22:25:31 -0700 /review/show/6503825163 Abhishek wants to read Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea by Mitchell Duneier
]]> ReadStatus7925220051 Mon, 13 May 2024 22:24:56 -0700 /review/show/6503824404 Abhishek wants to read Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
]]> ReadStatus7925218729 Mon, 13 May 2024 22:24:12 -0700 /review/show/6503823439 Abhishek wants to read Planet of Slums by Mike Davis
]]> ReadStatus7925196784 Mon, 13 May 2024 22:12:18 -0700 /review/show/6503807726 Abhishek has read Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo
]]> ReadStatus7343019940 Tue, 26 Dec 2023 12:10:08 -0800 /review/show/6081711745 Abhishek wants to read The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan
]]> ReadStatus7343019393 Tue, 26 Dec 2023 12:10:00 -0800 /review/show/6081711325 Abhishek wants to read Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
]]> Review3078178896 Tue, 26 Dec 2023 11:11:27 -0800 /review/show/3078178896 Abhishek gave 5 stars to The Order of Time (Hardcover) by Carlo Rovelli
There was something deeply comforting about this book, and from what I took from it. Carlo alludes to a fear of time that countless thinkers had which led to them think of things which exist out of time, a time that exists without there being change or a time that does not exist.
But the fact that my time is different from someone else's time, that my time is what I experience internally conveniently places time into my own sphere of control. It takes away the anxiety that I feel from 'not doing enough' relative to others. It steers me away from the race that we run against each other. The concept of a local time grounds us to live our lives on our own personal trajectories.

Before starting this book, I was curious how a person who understands time better than any person I know ever has, would feel about the notion of death - or even about life. It was comforting to realise that our fear of death is an 'evolutionary error' and nothing more than that. That we fear it because we are in the end, those species which were selected by nature as we had the right skills and the traits to survive.

As for the book itself, Carlo makes time come to life - taking time through time. He explores its history, the philosophical and the spiritual underpinnings. He wrote non-fiction which reads like a fiction. Time really did slow down for me, only because I experienced a 'flow' myself - and that's how much I enjoyed this book.

The last few chapters ground the physics into reality and the way it is written left me in a solemn state. Very few books make one reflect on a subject for hours on end, fewer still inspire one to broaden our horizons beyond the subjects which we think we like. Carlo, through his beautiful survey of the science and the thought behind time, shows how sometimes, even pure reason can get us to conclusions which are pretty close to those which come out of a lifetime of scientific enquiry.

I don't know how I will react when I face death, but I do know that I will brood less over my mistakes in life, because in the end, it's only a miniscule part of the universe that we interact with. That no matter what we do, the future is always going to be more chaos- or entropy. That among all those infinitely many possible future states, there must be one state where I get a second chance, and the probability of not finding such a chance should be infinitesmally low.

Thank you Carlo Rivelli, your book helped me with my anxiety apart from satisfying my curiosity. ]]>