UK press praises new Kama Sutra
A new translation of the Kama Sutra and its adaptation to modern lives by Indian scholar A.N.D Haksar has been hailed in the British press as a “playful and wonderfully blunt translation.”
Published by Penguin, the book titled Kama Sutra: The Art of Pleasure is presented as a lifestyle guide for the modern man and woman. Citing extracts from the book, Sam Jordison wrote in the Guardian: “For a start it’s a hoot — and all the more so thanks to this new playful and wonderfully blunt translation by AND Haksar (No lingams or yonis here. This is a man who calls a cock a cock.) It’s also a fascinating — and if this isn’t too much of a contradiction — enlightening book.”
Bel Mooney wrote in the Daily Mail: “(There) is much more to the Kama Sutra than saucy sex, as this handsome, unillustrated new translation makes clear. The text forms part of a world view that sees human life as a trinity, summed up in the words Dharma, Artha and Kama.”
Mooney quoted an extract from Haksar’s introduction, that Kama Sutra “is the art of living — about finding a partner, maintaining power in marriage, committing adultery, living as or with a courtesan, using drugs — and also about positions in sexual intercourse.”
Its classical status as the world’s first comprehensive guide to erotic love comes from its concentration on “essential, unchangeable attributes, lust, love, shyness, rejection, seduction, manipulation, that are also a part of human sexuality.”
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Cosmic census finds crowd of planets in galaxy
Washington: Scientists have estimated the first cosmic census of planets in our galaxy and the numbers are astronomical: at least 50 billion planets in the Milky Way. At least 500 million of those planets are in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold zone where life could exist. The numbers were extrapolated from the early results of Nasa’s planet-hunting Kepler telescope. Kepler science chief William Borucki says scientists took the number of planets they found in the first year of searching a small part of the night sky and then made an estimate on how likely stars are to have planets. Kepler spots planets as they pass between earth and the star it orbits. So far Kepler has found 1,235 candidate planets, with 54 in the Goldilocks zone. —AP
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