Pretty vacant

This is a queerish kind of book whose point is not too clear. It chooses to invest heavily in lyricism, a kind of poetry of contradictions that never states the real cause of things. Take this passage towards the end of the book: “[Ba] told Bean you could never be afraid of your own blood; that you could have a yearning for someone long after they’d disappeared from your life, but you could also yearn for them before they were born: Javier her unborn child.

The Pleasure Seekers
Tishani Doshi;
Bloomsbury; Rs 499; pp 320 

Ba told her to recognise these two worlds as one; to be easy and light so when the moment came you’d be ready to plunge. You wouldn’t have to go stooping around the edge with no fizz fizz in your step.” I am not sure that this kind of blather works in a novel.

This is not even   magic realism. This is the story of Babo, a Gujarati boy from what used to be Madras, his Welsh wife Sian, his two daughters Mayuri and Beena a.k.a. Bean, his parents Prem Kumar and Trishala and his grandmother Ba, who lives in a village in Gujarat and can smell people and events over great distances.

Full review here Hindustan Times

REVIEW: One Amazing Thing

review
One Amazing Thing 
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Penguin / Hamish Hamilton
Rs 450
Pp 224
ISBN: 9780670084524
Hardback

Blurb
A group of nine are trapped in the visa office at an Indian Consulate after a massive earthquake in an American city. Two visa officers on the verge of an adulterous affair; Jiang, a Chinese–Indian woman in her last years; her gifted teenage granddaughter Lily; an ex-soldier haunted by guilt; Uma, an Indian–American girl bewildered by her parents’ decision to return to Kolkata after twenty years; Tariq, a young Muslim man angry with the new America; and an enraged and bitter elderly white couple. As they wait to be rescued—or to die—they begin to tell each other stories, each recalling ‘one amazing thing’ in their life, sharing things they have never spoken of before. Their tales are tragic and life-affirming, revealing what it means to be human and the incredible power of storytelling.

Reviews
Games people play Business Standard
The Mistress of Spices, Divakaruni’s first book, seemed low on zest. But its unfair to pigeonhole anyone on the basis of one encounter, so when this latest arrived from the publisher, I decided to renew the acquaintance.

The one interesting thing about this book (‘amazing’ is a special word and one that should not be used lightly) is that it is, or sets out to tell, a different story.

A motley group of people (all hoping to travel to India) are trapped in the visa section of the Indian consulate in an American city following an earthquake. As time wears on and chances of escape or rescue look bleak, one of them decides that they should ‘focus their minds on something compelling’ and tell an important story from their lives, ‘one amazing thing’ that has made a difference or made them who they are. 

So unfold stories by the visa officer Mangalam, his colleague Malathi, an estranged American couple, Tariq, an angry young Muslim man, Jiang, a Chinese-Indian woman returning to Kolkata… the characters are stereotypical but their stories are interesting, if on a basic level.

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Various kinds of life, and the different turns that they take Asian Age
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a master storyteller. In One Amazing Thing, a collection of short stories woven into a single tapestry, her weave is seamless, possessing an almost flawless fluidity. What is overridingly attractive is that just as in her earlier book Palace of Illusions — which was certainly “an amazing thing” — she is unpretentious, never attempting to be clever.

Her craft lacks the jarring in-your-face quality that many “intellectual” writers are prone to. The nine stories unravel at a rhythmic pace, and each protagonist comes vividly alive.
An earthquake traps nine people in the Indian visa office in an American city. The focus is naturally on a collective struggle to survive. There’s little food, and later the office begins to flood. At a moment when the psychological and emotional stress begins to wear them down, a young graduate student Uma, who has been reading Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and who helps hold the collection together, suggests that each tell a personal tale, “one amazing thing” from their lives, which they have never told before. As their stories of self-discovery unfold in the situation they are in, not knowing whether they will come out alive or dead, their lives flash before them and they tell strangers their innermost secrets.

REVIEW: Journey to the Holy Land

REVIEW

Journey to the Holy Land - A Pilgrim's Diary
Amir Ahmad Alawi
Translated and with an introduction by Mushirul Hasan and Rakhshanda Jalil
Oxford University Press
Rs. 650
Pp 271
ISBN: 0198063466
Hardcover

Blurb
One of the five pillars of Islam, Hajj (literally ‘effort’) is the largest annual pilgrimage in the world stretching back to the time of the Prophet (seventh century ad) and even earlier. Before the age of organized travel, the journey spread across sea, deserts and mountains was perilous to say the least. Nonetheless, the hajjis (pilgrims) trivialized the dangers in the knowledge that they would soon enter the House of God.

Translated and introduced for the first time, Amir Ahmad Alawi’s Safar-i Sa’adat (Propitious Journey), written in 1929, is a firsthand account of this quintessentially Muslim journey. Presented in the form of a roznamcha or daily diary, the work is much more than a personal narrative of lamentation and triumph. Alawi watched, listened and recorded with an air of confident authority. His catholic vision captures the comingling of cultures and peoples, and he candidly comments on the social, economic and political conditions of the places he passed through.

The comprehensive Introduction, while locating the place of hajj in Islam and describing some of its well-known customs, rituals and practices, provides a broad understanding of hajj in colonial India. The special piece, ‘My Experience of the Hajj of 1916’ by J.S. Kadri, information on movement of ships meant for hajj passengers of 1929 and a detailed glossary add value to the book


Review
A pilgrim's progress to Haj Hindu
Amir Ahmed Alwai wrote Safar-I-Sadaat in Urdu based on his daily accounts of his Haj experience. He undertook the Haj journey that spanned more than four months, beginning January 31, 1929. This book is its English version. The objective evidently is to make it accessible to a wider audience. One of the negative offshoots of the British colonial rule has been the damage native languages suffered on account of the dominance of English, which virtually became a global lingua franca, so to say. And Urdu is among the worst victims. The irony of it all is that the most vehement of the critics of imperialism are also the most committed champions of English. This translated work can well be seen as an attempt to demonstrate that native languages are indeed a reservoir of vital sources of historical and other information and are as effective a medium as English to tell the human story.

Quite enlightening is the 69-page introduction which provides an incisive analysis of the contemporary literature on Haj experiences, apart from giving a detailed account of Alwai's life, career, antecedents, and, more importantly, the socio-historical importance of the region he belongs to. Marked by profound scholarship and intellectual richness, this piece bears the unmistakable imprint of Mushirul Hasan, who has a towering presence among contemporary historians, thanks not just to his several volumes of scholarly work but also to his creation of a new genre of historiography on modern India by employing varying methodologies. There is also an interesting chapter by J.S. Kadri, titled ‘My experience in Hajj in 1916', which provides a comparative perspective on such empirical accounts of Haj pilgrimage.
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This above all Telegraph
I have never been on a pilgrimage. I admit I never had the least desire to do so nor would go on one now except as a spectator-journalist. However, I also have to admit that everyone known to me who has been on one speaks highly of the emotional satisfaction they derived from the experience.

All religions believe in pilgrimages. For Jews and Christians, it is Jerusalem, the birthplace of both faiths. They also have lesser places of pilgrimage like Lourdes in France, where it is claimed that the sick are miraculously healed. Hindus have their Kumbh melas where they go in millions to bathe in the holy Ganga. The Sikhs have their five takhts (thrones), with the recent addition of Hemkunt Sahib in Uttarakhand. By far, the most spectacular of all pilgrimages is the haj to Mecca and Medina. It is obligatory for all Muslims who can afford it. Millions of Muslims from all parts of the world gather there to offer prayers. Those who can’t make the haj go on a lesser pilgrimage called umra. From the pictures I have seen (no non-Muslims are allowed in Mecca or Medina), the haj makes for an impressive sight, with thousands of similarly attired people going through their genuflections with military precision.
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Everyman’s Mecca Outlook
Western scholars have noted that from the fourth to the 16th century, pilgrimage was the dominant mode of travel to the Middle East and the most common paradigm for travel writing. The Crusades were fed as much by religio-political aspirations of regents as by the desire of European ‘commoners’ to see the Holy Land. It was they who often formed the most vehement of crusaders, a rag-tag army trailing behind the knights and princes.

Again, from the 19th century onwards, there was a revival of the practice of pilgrimage to the Holy Land from Europe and the US. While this history of Western pilgrimage has been widely studied, the parallel history of Haj pilgrimages is only now being excavated and examined in English. In this context, the book under review—the first English translation of Amir Ahmad Alawi’s Journey to the Holy Land, and the excellent introduction by translators Mushirul Hasan and Rakhshanda Jalil—is a major contribution to a burgeoning branch of study.

REVIEW: The Last Victory

REVIEW
The Last Victory: The Imperial Agent II
Timeri N. Murari
Penguin
Rs 399
Pp 432
ISBN: 0143065726
Paperback

Blurb
It is October 1910 and the lovers Kim and Parvati are fleeing across India, escaping forces beyond their control. They know that great changes are afoot—the Mahatma’s ideas are gaining ground and the Indian National Congress is about to change remarkably with the entrance of Jawaharlal Nehru. Ahead lie turbulent times that will reveal the ruthlessness of the Empire and give rise to the promise of independence.

Kim and Parvati’s lives criss-cross those of many known and unknown Indians who believe in the Indian nation, and they too are swept into the very centre of the struggle for independence, where they must confront their terrifying tormentors.

Taking off from The Imperial Agent, where Timeri Murari masterfully recreated Kipling’s free-spirited and idealistic hero, Kimball O’Hara, The Last Victory is a thrilling account of Kim’s life—from the uncertainty of youth to an illuminating maturity mirrored only by the brilliance of a new India.


Review
High voltage drama Hindu
Exploring this novel is somewhat like opening a carefully preserved album of beautiful images and wondering if they'll survive the harsh light of scrutiny. Any work of fiction that dares to toy with the historical past risks courting that danger. And the final days of the Raj, in particular — the subject of The Last Victory— has inspired so many memorable tomes that yet another novel, which gives it pride of place would, one imagines, invite more intense critical attention than most.

But Timeri N. Murari's grand Raj production (for that is how this sequel to The Imperial Agent comes across) will probably get away unscathed. Its meticulously researched historical backdrop notwithstanding, the book adroitly escapes being judged by the criteria that would apply to a historical novel. The thoroughness of this research is evident as the author weaves his suspense-charged fictional episodes around real-life events — among them, World War I and the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre — and smoothly incorporates personalities like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru into his narrative, making them come alive in imagined sequences, even if there is a tendency towards stereotyping in the delineation of such characters as General Reginald Dyer of Jallianwallah Bagh notoriety who vows to “teach the bloody wogs a lesson they'll never forget”.

REVIEW: Curry Is Thicker Than Water

REVIEW

Curry Is Thicker Than Water
Jasmine Anita Yvette D'costa
Bookland Press
Rs 867
pp 130
ISBN: 097837939X
Paperback

Blurb
A cobra flies in through an open window. Wives form a pact against their bigamous, abusive husband. A mother and son battle over eagles' eggs. A homeless guest with a secret. An elephant protests on a highway. A woman marries a pumpkin. Diverse people - one country This is the teeming, hectic world of India. It is also the vivid, startling world that Jasmine D's Costa gives us in Curry is Thicker than Water.

Review
Humour seasoned with a dash of satire DNA
This collection of six short stories is by a Mumbai-born, Canada-based writer, and not one of them has anything to do with the worn-out theme of alienation.

Hallelujah. Why, none of the characters even whip up an improvised bhel puri with Kellogg’s Rice Krispies (yes, Jhumpa Lahiri has scarred me for life). All the stories are set in India instead, and are seasoned with a nice dash of local flavour and loads of satire.

Being anal retentive, I started with the very first story. And honestly, I wanted to stop there itself. ‘The elephant on the highway’ is a crazy caper about a talking elephant that’s sick of begging and decides to protest by lying down slap bang in the middle of Mumbai’s Western Express Highway, making the traffic situation infinitely worse.

A beggar (who earns an astronomical amount a day) befriends him. There are some faintly amusing sketches of chaps from the BMC and animal rights activists wondering how to move it or save it, but this is certainly not the best story in this book and I cannot for the life of me imagine why it took the lead. Oh right, I’ve just got it: it was published in Canada and elephants are exotic there. Tsk.

REVIEW: Jangalnama

REVIEW

Jangalnama: Travels in a Maoist Guerrilla Zone
Satnam
Penguin
Rs.250
Pp 206
ISBN: 9780143414452
Paperback

Blurb
The profound insights offered in Jangalnama are the result of Satnam’s close observation of the guerillas and adivasis of Bastar.—Varavara Rao

Maoist guerillas—always on the move, always on guard—living deep in the jungles of Bastar. Outlawed, demonized and hunted by the state, they are perceived with fear, incomprehension and terror by the outside world.

Satnam spent two months in remarkable intimacy with the guerrillas: travelling with them, sharing their food and shelter, experiencing their lives first hand. Through his up-close and personal account of their daily lives, we register them as human, made of flesh and bone. We are persuaded to appreciate their commitment to root out oppression.

Jangalnama is not merely a travelogue recording Satnam’s days in the jungle. It is a compelling argument to recognize the humanity of those in conflict with the mainstream of Indian society and to acknowledge their dream of a world free of exploitation.

Review
Racy eye-opener of a book on the Maoist movement Little About
Why Bastar's tribals harbour Maoists?

This is undoubtedly India's answer to "Red Star Over China", the epoch-making story of what the then obscure Mao was up to in China's rural areas at the head of a nascent Communist party that eventually took power in 1949. When American Edgar Snow came out with the classic of a book, the world sat up and took notice.

The Indian Maoists of Bastar are of course not an unknown commodity. Yet there has been no account of what they are doing in the huge, forested land of poverty amid plenty known as Bastar, a story as exhaustive and moving as this racy eye-opener of a book.

Unlike most books on Indian Maoism, this one does not dabble in ideology, party documents and polemics. Like Snow did decades ago, Satnam, a committed Leftwing writer-activist from Punjab, focuses on the impoverished people and the revolutionaries he meets in Bastar. He spent two months in the forests, living with his subjects to study why Maoists are on the ascendency in the mineral-rich region where governments have existed only in the form of greedy contractors and corrupt policemen, leaving the mass of tribals to wallow in poverty, disease and illiteracy while outsiders strip away Bastar's minerals.

REVIEW: Indian Essentials

REVIEW
Indian Essentials
Penguin
Rs 450
Pp 526
ISBN: 9780143065265
Paperback

Blurb
In this quirky collection, twenty writers and social commentators ponder the mysteries of the Indian psyche and try to make sense of one trait, phenomenon or cultural value that is quintessentially Indian. From the Indian male’s predilection for public urination to the Indian female’s obsession with gold, from the jhatkas of Bollywood to the melas of Allahabad, from our embarrassingly frank matrimonials to our obsession with sex (or rather not talking about it!), nothing is spared scrutiny. And because we Indians like a little something extra over and above what we are promised, in The Short Dictionary of [Other] Things Indian, a concise guide to Indianisms, there are the peculiar Indian qualities. Dip into this collection to find out what it means to be Made in India.

The way we are Tribune India
The reviewer has decided that she’s going to follow Jerry Pinto on Twitter or whichever social network he is on, since the time he had her chuckling over his little compilation of terms most Indian, which comes in the form of an extra booklet along with Indian Essentials.

That’s a cunning trick, by the way, because the size of Indian Essentials can daunt the reader who is now used reading only about 30,000 words, give or take a few. But the slim little book grabs you and when you put it away singing Vicco Vajranti Ayurvedic cream, twacha ki raksha kare antiseptic cream, (Because Jerry Pinto, henceforth, the reviewer’s Twitter hero, asks the reader to, you see), you reach for Indian Essentials, hoping that its going to do the glossary justice. The view is a bit lop-sided, I admit, but the glossary is so vastly amusing that the expectations rise.

And the reader is not disappointed. Dare she go non-intellectual and say that the book is "lovely?" There! She’s said it! It’s a lovely book, amusing, touching the core and revealing the reality of the pure Indian spirit, but sweetly, gently, with humour and compassion. The Indian love for tradition, the hypocrisy, the family feeling, the smoke curtains around sex, the NRI phenomena, Bollywood, cricket, marriage `85 everything is dissected, put under the microscope, thoroughly examined and then sewn up neatly by the authors of this anthology.

The list of authors packs quite a punch. All heavyweights in their respective fields, they have varied views, experiences, and spheres of influence. That’s why each piece, though the surmise(s) is not new, is treated with a fresh perspective. For example, in Hum Log, the Sex Log, the writer, Samrat, writes about the obfuscation of sex issues in India, but with what different angles! He covers everything from the immensely popular porn website Savita Bhabhi to ‘Ask the Sexpert’ sections of magazines answering questions in their half-baked manner; divine procreation in mythologies, and the ‘V.D, Sex specialists’ who promise that the suffering man will regain his "virility and masculine vigour". The article is no-holds-barred irreverent and rip roaring hilarious!

Review: All That You Can’t Leave Behind

REVIEW
All That You Can’t Leave Behind: Why We Can Never Do Without Cricket
Soumya Bhattacharya
Penguin,
Rs 199
Pp 129
ISBN: 9780143066293
Paperback


Blurb
If one were to do a nationwide poll of Indians born after Independence and ask which is the one date they remember most, the answer may well be 25 June 1983, the date on which India won the cricket World Cup. It is often said that cricket in India is like a religion; nothing could be more misleading. Religion has scarred the nation more deeply than anything else. Cricket is the balm that heals.

In our collective consciousness, there is nothing quite like cricket. As the most visible expression of national identity, as an obsession or a dream, cricket is the only thing that possibly unites a country as diverse and as contradiction-ridden as India.

In this brilliant book, Soumya Bhattacharya shows how we have made this game our own, given it our own colour, our own customs, our own codes. And how cricket in turn has come to permeate every aspect of our public life, from popular culture to politics—so that, when a game is on, the rest of life happens strictly between overs. In the end, All That You Can’t Leave Behind is as much about India as it is about cricket.

Our secular institution Deccan Herald
Hockey continues to be our national sport (yes, from time to time, we need to keep reminding ourselves) and disciplines such as tennis and more recently badminton have captured the imagination of Indian sports lovers. But nothing quite excites and drives us like cricket does. Everyone has an opinion, and the beauty is that there is no such thing as a correct opinion or a wrong one. Yes, statistics throw up cold numbers and therefore leave little room for debate, but that is certainly not the case when it comes to opinion.
Not everyone who is passionate to the extent of being obsessive about cricket, however, gets a platform to express himself. Most of us have to make do with discussions with friends, which begin pleasantly enough and soon become animated before mushrooming into full-blown and heated arguments because each man has his opinion, and is completely convinced that he is correct. Time after time.

Then, we have people like Soumya Bhattacharya, tied to cricket through a special bond that was the extraordinary World Cup triumph in 1983. Bhattacharya is fortunate in that he is in a position where he can share his views with millions of people. Fortune, however, has had very little role to play in the manner in which he has communicated with fellow cricket-lovers through All That You Can’t Leave Behind.

This labour of love isn’t overpowering in that it doesn’t beat you into accepting the author’s point of view as being the only one worth consideration. If anything, All That You... is a personal account of a fascinating relationship that began with Kapil Devils conquering the world, and that hasn’t suffered because of the passage of time or the escalation of responsibilities.

Given that he is the Resident Editor of The Hindustan Times in Mumbai, Bhattacharya doesn’t need a book to influence opinions, which in any case doesn’t seem to be his motive. Right at the beginning, though, he debunks the popular myth that cricket in India is a religion.

REVIEW: From Unipolar to Tripolar World

REVIEW

From Unipolar to Tripolar World
Arvind Virmani
Academic Foundation
Rs. 995.

Pp 352

ISBN - 978-81-7188-799-6

Hardbound

Blurb
Developed country experts on international affairs and the global economy have consistently underestimated the speed with which China’s economy and power would rise relative to Germany, Japan and the USA. They are now similarly underestimating the speed at which India’s economy will close the economic size and power gaps. This book shows, why and how a tri-polar global power structure will emerge from the current confused system variously described as ‘multipolar’, ‘apolar’, ‘pluripolar’, ‘West and the rest’ and ‘unipolar with an oligopolistic fringe’. The Book goes on to draw out the implications and consequences of this evolving global power structure and makes suggestions on the policy options that need to be explored and pursued to increase the possibility of a peaceful transformation .

Review
And now, a tripolor world Hindu
After holding some key positions in the country — such as Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance; Principal Adviser, Planning Commission; and Director, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations — Arvind Virmani has moved to the International Monetary Fund, where he is serving as Executive Director.

The first two chapters of this book, he says, summarise the analysis done during 2004-05 and 2005-06 on the “economic foundations of a nation's global power.” They spell out the author's notion of the power of nations using an index he has developed — Virmani's Index of Power, VIP for short. In the rest of the chapters, barring two, there are repetitive elaborations and restatements of this theme. In fact, the volume is just a compilation, without careful editing, of papers presented by him over a decade.

Of the two exceptions, the chapter on China's socialist market economy is a self-contained piece, having some bearing on the main theme. However, the other, on “proliferation by nuclear weapons states and NNWS NPT partners”, provides an account of Pakistan's explorations into the nuclear arena, and is at best only tangentially related to the theme.

REVIEW: Gandhi

REVIEW
Gandhi: Naked Ambition
Jad Adams
Rs 799
Quercus
Pp 288
ISBN : 9781849162104

Blurb
A brand-new biography of the ‘father’ of modern India…..The pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India’s independence movement, pioneer of non-violent resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience (satyagraha), honoured in India as ‘father of nation’, Mohandas K. Gandhi has inspired movements for civil rights and political freedom across the world.

Jad Adams offers a concise and elegant account of Gandhi’s life: from his birth and upbringing in a small princely state in Gujarat during the high noon of the British Raj, to his assassination at the hands of a Hindu extremist in 1948 only months after the birth of the independent India which he himself he had done so much to bring about. He delineates the principal events of a career that may truly be said to have changed the world: his training as a barrister in late Victorian London; his civil rights work in Boer War-era South Africa; his leadership of the Indian National Congress; his focus on obtaining self-government and control of all Indian government institutions, and the campaigns of non-cooperation and non-violence against British rule in India whereby he sought to achieve that aim (including the famous ‘Salt March’ of March/April 1930); his passionate opposition to partition in 1947 and his fasts-unto-death in a bid to end the bitter and bloody sectarian violence that attended it.
Jad Adams’s accessible and thoughtful biography not only traces the outline of an extraordinary life with exemplary clarity, but also examines why Mahatma Gandhi and his teachings are still profoundly relevant today.

Reviews
Father’s foibles Mint
Mohandas Gandhi left an enormous paper trail of his thoughts. His collected works run into several volumes. Then there is his autobiography. His close associates Mahadev Desai and Pyarelal wrote extensively about Gandhi. His grandson Rajmohan wrote the comprehensive and objective Gandhi: The Man, His People and the Empire. The sheer size of the material can be daunting, and biographers could always sift through Gandhi’s thoughts (and he had thoughts about almost everything) to build a theory explaining his life. Jad Adams, a British broadcaster and historian whose previous works include an account of the Nehrus and biographies of Rudyard Kipling and Tony Benn (the leading light of “old” Labour), has read those sources to retell Gandhi’s life.

There is a buzz about the book because Adams wrote an article in TheIndependent newspaper a fortnight ago about Gandhi’s complex attitude to sex. But that’s only part of the book. The article focused on Gandhi’s idiosyncratic, peculiar, misogynist views about sex. And not only views, but also practices, such as sleeping naked with young women to test his resolve to overcome basic instincts. This, while he was married to Kasturba.
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Bookbag
Until I read this book, Mohandas Karamchand (or Mahatma for short) Gandhi had always been a very shadowy figure. I was familiar with the picture of the loincloth-clad man who fell victim to an assassin's bullet shortly after Indian independence, but knew little more.

This book tells the full story admirably. Born in Gujarat in 1869 during the high noon of the British Raj, he trained as a barrister in London during the late Victorian era. After being so used to the commonly-seen pictures of him in later life, it is almost startling to see one of him as a dapper young man in his 20s in frock coat and wing collar. He undertook civil rights work in South Africa during the second Boer war, then returned to India and assumed leadership of the Indian National Congress. This was the stage at which he became a force to be reckoned with, and his campaign to obtain self-government and control of Indian government institutions made him world-famous. As a pioneer of satyagraha, or resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, a philosophy founded on ahimsa or total non-violence, he inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.

When he returned to Britain in 1931, shortly after being chosen as 'Man of the Year' by US 'Time' magazine, it was not as a lawyer, but as sole representative of the Indian National Congress at a Round Table Conference in London. As we see in another photo of him, this time bare-legged in his usual clothing alongside smartly-attired British and European men with hats and umbrellas in the English rain shows, he looked somewhat out of place. Irreverent East End children would shout after him, Gandhi, where's your trousers?, while when he was asked after meeting King George V whether he thought himself underdressed, he said that the King had enough on for both of us.
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Gandhi Financial Times
A section of the popular Bahri Sons bookshop in New Delhi’s Khan Market is devoted to books about Mohandas K Gandhi, India’s liberation leader. Now, 62 years after the Mahatma’s death, yet more books are about to be added to its well-stocked shelves. Ramachandra Guha, a Bangalore-based historian and author of India after Gandhi, is writing a two-volume biography, while former New York Times editor Joe Lelyveld’s book on Gandhi is to be published next year.

Jad Adams has got in there ahead of such distinguished rivals with his readable and provocative Gandhi: Naked Ambition. A British historian and research fellow at London University’s School of Advanced Study, Adams has already published books on Rudyard Kipling, as well as on India’s ruling Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Here, he focuses on Gandhi’s personal and political contradictions in a chronological account of his life. He begins with Gandhi being married off at the age of 13, when he was a not particularly promising student in Gujarat, and ends with the body of one of the world’s most celebrated advocates of non-violence being drawn by 200 uniformed servicemen in a state funeral in Delhi.

REVIEW: Operation Red Lotus

REVIEW
Tatya Tope's Operation Red Lotus 
Parag Tope
Rupa
Rs 595
Pp 468
ISBN: 9788129115621
Hardbound

Blurb
Tatya Tope's Operation Red Lotus is a quest to understand the real history of the Anglo-Indian War of 1857. A quest by the contemporary members of the Tope family, which led to the discovery of the dramatic battle manoeuvres of their ancestor, the legendary Tatya Tope, as well as the true import of the war.

Reviews
1857 and all that TOI Crest 
Why would a book on a historical figure – a national hero in the first war of independence – not have a single photo of the man, except for a grainy sketch on the cover? "Because not a single photograph of Tatya Tope is available anywhere. The sketch is an artist's imagination and the only photograph taken by the British in April 1859 can't be real because Tatya had died in January 1859, three months before," says Parag Tope, who is descended from the freedom-fighter.

Parag's "Operation Red Lotus: Tatya and the Anglo-Indian war of 1857" has just been published. He is not a historian and does not claim to be one, but he believes Indian history is too serious a matter to be left to the British. "History is always written with an agenda," says the engineer and MBA who owns a company in San Francisco. Parag worked with five others to research his famous forebear in an attempt to bring out the "truth....We grew up hearing stories about Tatya's life and his bravery from old people in our family but we could not find any of this in history books."

=/=/=/=/=/=/=
Reverberations – 150 years later 2nd look
The 1857 war in India, is something that remained an enigma for the last 150 years. For “the public was at the time and for years to come saturated to an astonishing degree with lurid accounts of the uprising, which became the subject of countless sermons, novels, plays and poems, and about which more than eighty novels were written, six appearing in the “peak” year of 1896 alone”.

So, I too was vaguely thrilled to receive a draft copy of the Operation Red Lotus (Red Lotus) by Parag Tope, some 7 months ago. Over the next 2-3 weeks, I went through the book. The first time with more enthusiasm than objectivity. Then came the time to take a 2ndlook look.

This book was an interesting experience. For one it represents yet another attempt to clean up Indian history of colonial detritus.

REVIEW: Sarpanch Sahib

REVIEW

Sarpanch Sahib: Changing The Face Of India
Edited by Manjima Bhattacharjya
HarperCollins
Rs 175
Pp 152
ISBN: 817223905X
Paperback

Blurb
The book talks about seven gutsy women in seven far flung villages of India: Deepanjali, the adivasi graduate sarpanch treading new waters in Kalahandi; Chinapappa, the non-literate panchayat president in Tamil Nadu making education accessible to children; Sunita, struggling against a corrupt system in Madhya Pradesh; Maya, comingg to terms with sudden electoral defeat in the hills of Uttarakhand; Maloti, finding innovative ways of governing her constituencies in tea estate in Assam; Veena Devi, young widow and seasoned politician, navigating the criminalized politics in Bihar; and Kenchamma, the first Dalit woman president of Tarikere panchayat in Karnataka

Reviews
A silent revolution Deccan Herald

What do Deepanjali from Kalahandi, Chinapappa from Pachinakapalli, Sunita Adivasi from Tighra, Maya Bhakhuni from Boonga, Maloti Gowalla from Chamong, Veena Devi from Nawada, Kenchamma from Tarikere — separated from each other by thousands of kilometers — have in common? Possibly even unaware of each other’s existence, these women are nevertheless bonded by the revolution that swept through rural India in the guise of the 73rd Constitutional Amendment.

At a time when there is an animated debate on the 33 percent reservation for women in the lower house of the Indian Parliament, this book could not have been timelier. Even as arguments against reservations are eloquently voiced, and even while conceding that the bill in its current forms need major surgery, there is no doubt that women’s reservation will play a positive role. And Sarpanch Sahib proves well the empowerment that reservations can and have conferred on large sections of society — the critical mass.

REVIEW: 50 Indian Film Classics

REVIEW

50 Indian Film Classics

MK Raghavendra

Collins,  

Rs 350

Pp 323

Blurb 

An eclectic collection of essays by the winner of the National Award Swarna Kamal for Best Film Critic 1997 With more than a thousand films produced annually in over fifteen languages India is acknowledged as the largest producer of motion pictures in the world.50 Indian Film Classics provides detailed critical accounts of the most important Indian films beginning with Prem Sanyas (1925) to Rang De Basanti (2006) in languages ranging from Bengali and Hindi to Manipuri and Malayalam and representing a whole gamut of themes: from the 1930s mythological Sant Tukaram to the politically radical Calcutta '71, from art-house favourites like Uski Roti and Mukhamukham to blockbusters like Sholay and Lagaan. These perceptive essays introduce the reader to the many moods that inform Indian cinema, the austerity of Pather Panchali, the lavishness of Hum Aapke Hain Koun…!, the solemnity of Samskara and the fun and frolic of Amar Akbar Anthony.Illustrated with rare posters and stills this is an invaluable guide to the most significant cinema India has ever produced.

Review

Interpreting Indian classics Deccan Herald
One may or may not agree with Raghavendra’s academically-inclined theses, but they always make for interesting reading and the much-needed fresh breath in the mostly-stale air of Indian

Top 100 or Top 50 lists in any subject always elicits keen interest in the media as well as people. Such lists not only give a peek into the thought process of their creators but also provide a ready reckoner on many things. But ‘top’ lists also provide the basis for arguments, as each such list is the creation of a single mind that has a particular view of things, and thus always remains debatable.

Film scholar M K Raghavendra avoids any such immediate cause for debate by intelligently calling his book 50 Indian Film Classics. Going for this title, he has ensured that nobody can argue with him about why he did not include a certain film in the list, since nobody can argue that the 50 films listed in the book are not classics — either in the artistic term or in the mainstream term.

REVIEW: A Tale of Two Truths

REVIEW

A Tale of Two Truths
Ashvin Desai
Penguin,
Rs 199
Pp 134
ISBN: 0143066242
Paperback

Blurb
Dhobi-ka-Gadha, like most other donkeys, was born detached, blissfully ignorant of the great beyond. Food, his beloved Pyari and a day without a beating from the washerman were the only thoughts that filled his mind. But then along came Toti, the Buddhist parrot from Sarnath, and in her wake Langu, the Hindu monkey from Varanasi, armed with the tenets of their religions. Both had one agenda: to convert the donkey. While one promised Nirvana, the other assured Moksha, words that a donkey could ignore. However, the promise of freedom, by leapfrogging a few steps up the karmic ladder to become a human being, was a carrot even Dhobi-ka-Gadha could not pass. And thus began his downfall.

A brilliant satire, A Tale of Two Truths resurrects the fable genre. As he demolishes the absoluteness of ritualistic religion, Ashvin Desai offers a dash of clarity and wisdom with his extraordinary wit.

Review
Lured by higher ideals Deccan Herald
What is that one thing you should avoid like the plague if you want contentment, joy and peace in your life? Well, it is religion! At least that is what Ashvin Desai’s hilariously written book A Tale of Two Truths convinces you to believe. Justifying the clichéd saying that “All good things come in small packages,” this little book of delightful satire talks about how religion can play havoc with human life if it is not adopted with awareness and discretion.

Dhobi ka Gadha or simply DkG is washerman Sukhiya’s donkey whose consistently unruffled state of mind, free from any emotional fluctuations, could be a matter of envy for even a highly evolved spiritual person. But then, isn’t such a blissful state a crime to indulge in when the real purpose of life is to ponder over higher spiritual truths and liberate oneself from the clutches of Maya? So Langu (the monkey) and Bodhi Toti (the parrot), representatives of the two great religions of Hinduism and Buddhism respectively, volunteer to save DkG from falling into the abyss that spiritual non-inquiry can lead one to.

REVIEW: Grey Areas

REVIEW

Grey Areas: An Anthology of Indian Fiction on Ageing;
Ed. Ira Raja
OUP
Rs.695
Pp 400
ISBN: 0195689585
Hardcover

Blurb
This anthology broadly focuses on the question of ageing by bringing together an impressive range of stories and poems from across the Indian languages. It constructs a comprehensive collection of representational writings on ageing from contemporary India while drawing attention to the central importance of age as a category of identity that is complex, fragmented, dispersed, multiple, contested, and conflicting.

The six sections in which the stories and poems are categorized are relevant to both a sense of the content and to the experience of ageing in India. The wide range of stories included here look at ageing from the multiple, overlapping perspectives of intergenerational relations, homes, belongings, poverty, dislocation, memory, madness, nation, illness, and death. With a detailed introduction by the editor, Ira Raja, this well-thought-out, well-structured, and superbly-chosen collection represents some of the best contemporary writers from across the Indian languages. It will make an extremely valuable addition to the anthologies of contemporary Indian writing on a topic that is of particular interest to the academia at this time.

Review
No dying of the light Hindu
It's that time of year when you must slow down a little. As the summer peaks, nature demands that you take it easy. So sit back, arms pillowing your head, and think of age, of mortality, of the obliteration of the self. That is what Tyeb Mehta's Woman on Rickshaw, used so aptly on the cover of Grey Areas: An Anthology of Indian Fiction on Ageing, appears to do.
And as you look on,
the cracks that begin around her eyes
spread beyond her skin.
And the hills crack.
And the temples crack.
(From ‘An Old Woman', by Arun Kolatkar)

That poem, early in the anthology, extends the age marked in the crow's feet near a woman's eyes to the whole world.

If the women inspire poetry, the old men make for some remarkable tales in this anthology. Abdul Bismillah's ‘The Second Shock' is a story simply told, yet it leaves you reeling. A classic tale of age and youth, of community life and endless ribbing suddenly silenced — not by death, as you might assume, but by something worse. Read it, for any attempt to describe it would only detract from the epiphany that comes at the end.

REVIEW: Lie

REVIEW

Lie: A Traditional Tale of Modern India
Gautam Bhatia
Tranquebar
Rs. 395
Pp 401
ISBN: 9380283739
Paperback

Blurb
The graphic novel looks at issues, personalities, people and ideas that project the popularly-held view of the country. Its characters interact with each other in a way that gives vent to a range of popular and suppressed prejudices-desires, taboos and age-old injustices - that dog the life of every Indian. A sardonic look at the current state of affairs in the country, using a traditional form of expression, Lie has been drawn by miniaturists from Rajasthan.

Through a glass, very darkly Hindu
From the palette of sombre colours used in the illustrations to the black humour running all through, Gautam Bhatia's graphic novel Lie: A Traditional Tale of Modern India is, at every level, a very dark piece of work.

A broad picture-book narrative that is part-soap opera and part-family melodrama, the self-proclaimed critic and satirist explores every nook and cranny of society, laying bare the flaws with brutal honesty. Thus, Bhola the protagonist, flawed in every conceivable manner morally, takes to politics and the apathy, corruption and wily mechanism of the bureaucracy is revealed in a manner that is as entertaining as it is disturbing.

At the other end of the spectrum is the impoverished and ideology-driven farmer Alibaba who chooses to walk the Gandhian path of uprightness and justice. Mid-spectrum is the sex-worker turned prime minister, Rekha.
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True copy Timeout Mumbai
More than a decade ago, architect Gautam Bhatia skewered the icing-cake aesthetic favoured by India’s nouveau riches in his brilliant Punjabi Baroque, which cast a jaundiced eye over the home designs of the newly affluent. His latest book, Lie, is a graphic novel drawn in collaboration with three Rajasthani miniature artists. The visuals are colourful, but the narrative is a darkly humourous sketch of Indian life. In an email interview with Naresh Fernandes, Bhatia said India evokes laughter as a form of relief, “like people who laugh in a perilous roller coaster ride when they are at their most fearful”. 

Lie is an angry book. What motivated it?
I live with this fear that I’ll wake up one morning and India would be gone. Just vanished! As if in the middle of the night someone just removed it from the map, and I’m waking up in Europe or America where everything is ordinary and normal. India is great rallying point, a dark smudge of a place that keeps people like me afloat, provides all the hate and love, and fear and prejudice, and despair and joy that makes life worth living. Everyday provides such an intense dose of ugliness, such noisy cries of despair, or moments of such real pleasure that you are left reeling. India is the motivation. Anger is also a strong motivational force in a farce. It makes you see things as so bleak and desperate that the only recourse is laughter.
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True lies. The great India story Financial Express
Good ultimately triumphs over evil. But what if it doesn’t, or has co-opted the majority along the way? In an age where the virtues of positive thinking and ignoring any signs to the contrary are almost the only option, here is an alternate view. Lie: A Traditional Tale of Modern India is as bleak as they come. It’s a parable of a land that has lost its way, of its citizens who are trapped in a system with escape routes cut off.

Lie is also different. To start with, it is a graphic novel, a genre in which dark is usually associated with forces of the night with superhuman powers rather than politically loaded tales of cynicism or despair. Its graphic artistes are not some young dudes doing their cool stuff, but three traditional miniaturists from Rajasthan—Shankar Lal Bhopa, Birju Lal and Ghansham. “They were the only ones who agreed to illustrate what we wanted instead of the usual images they do,” says Gautam Bhatia. The miniature form was chosen, explains Bhatia, as it can cram considerable amounts of information in small spaces and what is unsaid in words could come through as “there is no space for silence in the visual medium”. The book, in fact, started by being part of a larger project called Desh Ki Awaz and the plan was for a 600-page An Indian Story but was finally whittled down the present 180 pages. The book went through several stages as each illustration had to be discussed, not an easy project. The result is a traditional looking vividly coloured manuscript with the colours of Rajasthan seeping in.
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REVIEW: Trickster City

REVIEW

Trickster City: Writings From The Belly Of The Metropolis
Translated from the Hindi by Shveta Sarda
Penguin
Rs499
Pp 326
ISBN: 9780670083329
Hardback

Blurb
Trickster City is an extraordinary composite of writings on Delhi by a group of young people who have, over several years, sustained among themselves and with others around them, a relationship of conversing about the city.

This collection chronicles the loss of home and livelihood through urban eviction; encounters with the agencies of the state; love stories gone awry; the fragility of relationships; and the sustained effort to build life in anticipation of beauty and pleasure. The writers draw from experiences, events and biographies, part fictive, part documentary, to inscribe an image of the city that is rarely available. There is a yearning in their writings for the expression of the poetic and allegorical alongside the harshness of everyday existence.

Trickster is an aphoristic and playful meander in search of a new language that expresses the profound uncertainties and delicately realised joys of urban life.

Reviews
Unknown, overlooked corners of the city DNA
Trickster City, a remarkable collection of sketches, vignettes, short stories, and testimonies, evokes an urban landscape not familiar to most “people like us” urbanites. It deserves to be read widely not only because it introduces us to hidden, unknown, or deliberately overlooked corners of our city, but also because the writers grapple with significant questions about identity, belonging, and community with restraint, compassion, optimism, and humour. In talking of urban redevelopment, city beautification, land reclamation, gentrification and rezoning —whether in Mumbai or Delhi, Cairo or Beijing — we forget (or choose to ignore) the cost in human terms. Trickster City reminds us that the underbelly of a city is also home to people of considerable energy, talent, and passion, determined to find their place in the sun.

The contributors to this anthology are young people in their twenties who live in neighbourhoods across the city that few English-speaking, upper-class Delhi residents have heard about, much less visited — LNJP colony in Central Delhi, Dakshinpuri in South Delhi, and Sawda-Ghevra, a new resettlement colony to the north of the city. The writers have been associated for different durations with the various Cybermohalla labs set up by Ankur Society and Sarai-CSDS (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies). Shveta Sarda, who has worked with Sarai-CSDS since 2001, has translated, with sensitivity and skill, the stories from the Hindi original, Bahurupiya Shehr (Trickster or Shape-Shifting City), published in 2006.

Melodies Of Unheard Voices Businessworld
A paean to the city of hearts by unconventional narrators serenading Delhi’s underbelly
Here is a gift to the city of hearts – Delhi – by the people who really live here, have been repeatedly abandoned by the metropolis, but their affection for the city endures. Trickster City is a collection of short pieces on Delhi in translation that evolved from the writing workshops conducted by the Cybermohalla labs by Ankur Society and Sarai-CSDS. The writers belong to the underbelly of the metropolis. They are teachers, delivery boys, shop assistants, school dropouts, and those pursuing graduation through regular classes or correspondence. The fascinating part about many of them is how they maintain blogs, work on manuscripts and drafts for future books.

The problems of urban resettlement or unsettlement, demolitions, census and police encounters are not new to us. Yet we who have voter identity cards and read English newspapers largely ignore this world. What is new in this collection is our learning of the responses of the the actual people who undergo these hardships and have to do these activities. The collection is full of heart wrenching descriptions of real situations: slaughterhouses, losing a diary, STD booths, train rides and so on. Yet it never delves into melodrama. Shveta Sarda, the translator, has brought to us the real stories of people who live in the underbelly of the city.

The book has eight sections but do look up the translator’s note and the short descriptions on the writers. The translator has retained the poetic expression alongside the harshness of the language.

REVIEW: Changiya Rukh

REVIEW

Changiya Rukh: Against the Night
Balbir Madhopuri
translated from the Punjabi by Tripti Jain
OUP
Rs. 395
Pp.216
ISBN: 9780198065500,
Hardback

Blurb 
The first Dalit autobiography in Punjabi to appear in English, Changiya Rukh means a tree lopped from the top, slashed and dwarfed. Balbir Madhopuri uses it as a metaphor for the Dalit robbed by a tradition that places every sixth Indian beyond touchability. Significantly, by bringing forth fresh branches and leaves, the lopped tree proves its innate worth through defiant resilience.

Set in the village of Madhopur in Punjab, the work leads most centrally to the question of how a man conducts himself among people who either do not understand him or would like to see him in the slush where they think he belongs. Madhopuri’s vision is both melancholy and honest as he captures and sensitively portrays the plight of his community despite all constitutional and legislative measures. But in the end, this real life story of a Dalit’s rise from bonded labourhood to the editorship of a socio-economic journal is one of triumph of resistance, of achievement, and of hope.

Perceptively introduced and contextualized by Harish Puri, this book will appeal to students and teachers of caste studies, Indian literature in translation, comparative literature, and translation studies.

Review
Against the night... Hindu
... is the first Punjabi dalit autobiography to appear in English translation. Excerpts...
D uring this phase of terrorism in which brother was killing brother, another incident disturbed me a great deal. One of our relatives informed us, “The Sardarni I work for as a sweeper had one day happily told me, ‘Sister, Khalistan is about to be created. That would be great. The Hindus will all leave, and you people will live with us in Khalistan!'”

We all listened intently to her, our questioning eyes were fixed on her face as she went on, I said, ‘Sardarni it would be great for you, but will we also get some land? Then again, why are you insisting that we should stay here with you in Khalistan? For us, Hindus and Sikhs are the same. Do you really love us so much Sardarni …?'

“Then?” We had to hear what came next.

‘Then what!' She said, ‘We like you that is why I am telling you! Who will clean and sweep for us in Khalistan?'

REVIEW: Dancing Earth

REVIEW
Dancing Earth: An anthology Of Poetry From Northeast India
Edited By Robin Singh Ngangom , Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih
Penguin Books-India
Rs. 350
Pp 344
ISBN: 9780143102205
Paperback

Blurb


The poets of North-East India, though belonging to diverse spaces, cultures, languages and religions, share a common bond. It is a sensibility defined by a deep connection with the land; the overarching presence of nature in their lives; the predominance of myths and tribal folklore; and the search for an identity. All this informs their poetry and gives it a unique flavour. Much of the distinctiveness of their work is also the consequence of contemporary events, often marked by violence. Like its title poem ‘The Dancing Earth’, the anthology too, is a celebration of this life, in all its unpredictable variety, richness and contradictions.  So while Thangjam Ibopishak writes ‘I Want to be Killed By an Indian Bullet’ and Chandrakanta Murasingh speaks of a minister with ‘neither inside nor outside’, there are  also Temsula Ao’s poems about her stone-people ancestors; Mamang Dai’s portraits of swift rivers and primeval forests; and the Shillong poets with their mist-shrouded pine slopes, red cherries and gridlocked streets.

Dancing Earth brings together the best known poets of the region, cutting across languages and time periods. Redolent of native imagery and forceful yet lyrical cadences, this anthology weaves together a remarkable variety of themes, capturing the myriad nuances of the North-East.

Review
Revisiting the northeast with sonnets Little About
The northeast has long been on the fringe of mainstream literary consciousness, edged out by its complex socio-politics, crisis of identity and the prolonged rule of the gun. The literature from the region is a mirror of the angst.  "The Dancing Earth: An anthology Of Poetry From Northeast India", edited by Robin S. Ngangom and Kynpham S. Nongkynrih, is a saga of life as experienced by the seven sisters in the northeast and by Nepal, and told in blank verses and sonnets. The collection brings together some of the best-known poets from the region irrespective of the state to which they belong in English translations.

 The poems manage to bring out the style and the essence of the emotions of the original sonnets.They draw from narrative folklores, songs, social rites, ethnic religions, individual memories, suffering, volatile politics, terror and the loneliness of a breed of young poets.

The poetry addresses two important issues: the question of regional identity in a land that has been described as a contiguous swathe with ethnic diversity, who share a common history, and how violence has seeped into the poetry to breed a gut-wrenching contemporary melange of content and poetic metres.

REVIEW: The Green Pen

REVIEW:
The Green Pen, Environmental journalism in India and South Asia.
Keya Acharya and Frederick Noronha
Sage
Rs 395
Pp 312
ISBN:  9788132103011
Hardback

Review
‘Green’ in black and white Hindu
Many people believe that water is a very ‘dry’ subject, frets Shree Padre in ‘Water journalism warrants better attention,’ an essay included in ‘The Green Pen’ (www.sagepublications.com). To Padre, the subject of water is so wide, important and deep that to do justice to that we need a battalion of water journalists. He anguishes about the dearth of right kind of information in the form of books, videos and so on that can teach the layman how water can be conserved in the local situation or how rain can be caught.

“Take the example of open wells that are there in many parts of the country. For nearly 4,500 years, these have been serving people. But in the last 50 years, this structure is being neglected, abandoned and refilled with soil.” If only a booklet can explain the possible methods to increase the water availability in a well or to revive a ‘dead well’ or at least to reuse a dried well as a percolation pit for the surrounding community, it can encourage the local communities to shoulder the easy, low-cost revival process, the author argues.