The Outlaw Bank by J Beaty and S.C. Gwynne

'Agha Hassan Abdi was perhaps the most brilliant pure businessman the developing world has ever produced.'

My whole intention of reading this book was to educate myself with the tale of BCCI, the most successful and ambitious international corporation produced by Pakistan to date, centre of whose tale was its charismatic and dashing head Agha Hassan Abdi.

And the book delivers, what an incredible tale of the rise of Agha Hassan Abdi from a lowly clerk to the head of the biggest bank to come out of the developed world. If Mohammed Ali Jinnah was the founding father of Pakistan than Agha Hassan Abdi has to considered the founding father of banking industry in Pakistan. As the head of probably the only truly international corporation to come out of Pakistan, Abdi had to have exceptional skills. He was a leader, a charmer, and a supreme manipulator who managed to ingratiate himself with some of the most influential personal in Asia. But isn't that what bankers are supposed to do in the first place? I mean people like the Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi, the Shah of Iran and President of Pakistan, President Carter probably do qualify as dream clients for any banker, surly. Or am I missing something here? I read this book in the backdrop of some of the biggest banking scams in the US and across the world which make me wonder why the authors choose to ostracise Abdi and the BCCI to such lengths. The authors repeatedly branded BCCI as a ‘ponzi’ scheme claiming that the bank had little collateral and depending on roaming capital but then what caused the banking crash of 2008? Are not the reasons pretty similar?

The clue to BCCI’s demise and take down is embedded in the book itself.

Clip from Business Week in 1980.

The Arab nations of OPEC are building a new international banking system that threatens to capture control of the world’s financial resources in the 1980’s in the same way they took control of the world’s energy resources in the 1970’s. While the different pieces of the Arab banking system are only now being put in place, it is already clear that the OPEC money weapon will join with the OPEC oil weapon in giving the Arabs unprecedented sway over the economies and politics of the West.
On one level, the Arab banks will be the richest financial institutions in the world, with the ability to tap into the OPEC oil nations fantastic wealth, which is expected to reach $1 trillion by 1985.

Did you notice the reference to weapons in the above quote?

The book for me takes great pains to highlight the corrupt and nefarious activities of BCCI, with a lot of repetition which made me wonder as repetition as a tactics is generally in propaganda and advertising. And I am afraid this particular book is highly prejudiced against BCCI right from the start till the the end. In taking down Pakistan, the authors have openly defamed whole country cultures like Pakistan which I found pretty distasteful. If the whole culture of Pakistan was so corrupt than who helped provide evidence against BCCI? Weren't those some conscientious Pakistani employees as well?

The real value of the book for me was the story of BCCI, their phenomenal rise and very dramatic and public lynching with a very important lesson to the rich Arabs by the West.

‘Don't think you can buy everything with your money as long as we have the power.’

And to the Pakistanis.

‘You are good but not as good as the Westerners, so choose your masters carefully next time.’

Sun after dark by Pico Iyer

It was a tough travelogue for me to follow as there are too many stories which don't seem to be connected very well. I was intrigued by some if the places Pico visited but was short of contextual details. For me a good travelogue is one where historical context is juxtaposed with current predicament of the focus country. Pico should have detailed the historical summary of the obscure countries covered as he would have done a great service to their little known prominence in the world. The only chapters Pico covered  well were on Tibet and the Dalai Llama. The rest of the travelogues left me wanting more, as if the details were missing.

Rage against God by Peter Hitchens

Peter has chosen to tackle the God question to counter his brother (Christopher’s) god denunciation of his famous book ‘god is not great’, by taking a very personal view of religion to begin with. Peter began to reach out to God in his thirties after having lived in the godless Russia for years. Most of his arguments are pretty good denunciations of the atheist arguments spearheaded by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. It is interesting that both rival brothers seem to be heavily influenced by the cultures they lived in, one in a authoritative Russia and the other in a free-er capitalist and still thriving USA. peter’s arguments about Communism being atheist in nature do make a lot of sense. But Peter failed to answer one of Christopher Hitchens rendition on Blaise Pascal’s famous wager, often used by the religious to sell faith in God. In the argument put forth by Blaise Pascal,which goes something like this, 'it is in one's best interest to believe in the existence of God, as it is a rational assumption and does no harm, and the possibility of eternal punishment in hell outweighs any advantage of believing otherwise.' Christopher Hitchens response was that if someone chooses to invoke Pascal's wager in order to follow religion then it demonstrates two aspects, one that it portrays a very cynical god, one who does not seem to care about proper intent, and the other aspect is about the hypocritical follower, who chooses to follow without fully believing. Hitchens did not want to believe in man made interpretations of religion, instead choosing to lead a life of constant quest, in an attempt to achieve absolute faith. And in case he did die before achieving this allusive faith and found that his scepticism was wrong and God does exist, then he would choose to argue his case in front of God by claiming that all his life he had been assiduously searching for His signs but failed to do so mainly due to the pathetic nature of arguments put forward by His followers and apologists. For me Pascal’s wager is a very weak argument used by the religious apologist. I prefer to use Christopher’s deduction as it is more attractive, filled with desire and motivation for knowledge.

The Shadow of the Crescent Moon by Fatima Bhutto

There is no story. I spent the whole time patiently waiting for a pattern to emerge but was left high and dry in the end. The only attraction for me was the intimate details of the various scenes. The plot is the same old Pakistani/American collaboration exploiting the downtrodden Pushtun minority on the Afghan border. Trouble is that the lifestyle portrayed seems to resemble nothing of the strict and clannish Pushtun families I know of. I cannot imagine any young girl or women loitering around in the company of young men like the protagonists in the novel. I also struggle to imagine the city of Mirali as depicted by Fatima Bhutto  as it resembled more of a small city in Punjab rather than the ultra conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Some of Fatima’s observations left me pretty incredulous as well, like Taliban respect for absolute justice and the rebellious university students fighting for just cause of liberation against the state of Pakistan. I am afraid the novel does not represent Pushtun area depicted at all. Rather I got a sense of a number of rebellions all merged into one story like a Bollywood movie script. The university rebellion was taken from the Baluch rebellious movement, doctors getting killed taken from larger cities of Pakistan, and lady doctor raped was taken from SUI in Balochistan, making this novel highly imaginative and romantic. Its a poor representation of the people Fatima has tried to highlight I am afraid.

The Day of the Scorpion by Paul Scott

Paul Scott gets the British Indians like no other writer in my opinion. In this second masterpiece Paul further explores the complex tripartite relationship between the British in mainland, British in India and the Anglicised Indians of India. The world that comes out of the many interrelated stories is passionate, idealistic, racial and exciting. I got to know how the British were able to rule India and got an understanding of the Indian struggle for Independence from a British Indian point of view.


It is a must read for all aficionados of British India. Cannot wait to read the third novel in the series. 

The shadow factory by James Bamford

The book reads like a thriller, starting from the ore 9/11 bombing right through to the Iraqi war. As a telecom engineer myself I was well impressed by the author's eye for detail when explaining the technical details of the survailence carried out by NSA in USA. Various colourful account of people involved in the clandestine effort made the book read like a crime thriller. I agree with the author's erudite conclusion that the NSA effort has achieve little at a huge cost. If anything the huge amount of data has made any viable operation almost impossible. Hopefully this book will help change opinions in USA.