Half a Life (novel) Half a Life (novel) Half a Life is a 2001 novel by Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul published by Alfred A. Knopf. The novel is set in India, Africa and Europe (London, Berlin and Portugal). "Half a Life" was long listed for the Man Booker prize (2001). Willie Somerset Chandran is the son of a Brahmin father and a Dalit mother. His father gave him his middle name as a homage to the English writer Somerset Maugham who had visited the father in the temple where the father was living under a vow of silence. Having come to despise his
Thermal and a Quarter Thermal and a Quarter Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ) is a rock band from Bangalore, India, that describes its music as "Bangalore rock", rooted in a classic rock idiom while Indian in "subtle, inescapable ways". Founded in 1996, TAAQ had released seven studio albums by its 20th anniversary in 2016. In 2001, when Deep Purple played in Bangalore, TAAQ opened the show. The band also opened for Guns N' Roses in 2012. The three members of TAAQ are Bruce Lee Mani (guitar and vocals), Rajeev Rajagopal (drums) and Leslie Charles (bass). By 2016, the albums released by the band included