Bose with his enemy’s enemy

There is an abundance of literature on Subhas Chandra Bose apart from his collected works edited by Sisir and Sugata Bose. His most recent biography, His Majesty’s Opponent, by Sugata Bose, his grand nephew and Harvard historian, has been acclaimed as the finest so far.

Romain Hayes, an independent researcher, has specialised for several years on German foreign policy during the Second World War.

This is Hayes’ first book — a comparatively short, readable and carefully documented account of the period between April 1941 and February 1943 which charts, almost month by month, the events in the life of Subhas Chandra Bose in Germany. The book’s focus is on Bose’s efforts to seek the assistance of the Axis powers to overthrow the British imperialist regime from his country by military means. That was his singular aim.

Let us go back a couple of months to February 1941. A disillusioned and marginalised Bose, who till recently was the undisputed leader of his party, escapes house arrest in what was then called Calcutta, travels incognito across India, enters Afghanistan disguised as a Pathan, crosses into Soviet Russia and is rebuffed by the country whose support he seeks. He then changes disguise and enters Germany.

Full report here Asian Age

Firebrand unveiled

A sincere portrayal of the bandit queen's life, one that empathises with the subject.

Outlaw: India's Bandit Queen
and Me; Roy Moxham
Rider; Rs.599

Inspired by a newspaper article about a young woman forced into banditry by her circumstances and now languishing in an Indian prison without the benefit of a trial, a London-based archive restorer wrote her “a letter of support”, offering help with her legal fees. A fortnight later, he received a reply in Hindi, dictated by the woman who was illiterate. He had the letter translated and wrote to her again. The thread of communication thus established would grow into an unlikely friendship between two individuals from disparate worlds.

Though Roy Moxham and Phoolan Devi had little in common, their rapport was instant when they met following her release from jail. Disarmed by her warmth, the diffident Englishman would end up as her guest on that particular occasion and on subsequent ones, sportingly adapting himself to her chaotic household of numerous and noisy family members. It was a golden opportunity to observe the former bandit at close quarters.

Full review here Hindu

Gautaman Bhaskaran's book releasing on Sept 17

Popular journalist, writer, columnist, and film-theatre critic Gautaman Bhaskaran's book Adoor Gopalakrishnan: A Life in Cinema, based on the life of renowned Malayalam director Adoor Gopalakrishnan, will be released on September 17 by the Alliance Française of Madras in association with the Courtyard by Marriott.

Adoor Gopalakrishnan: A Life in Cinema is the first authorized biography of the Dada Saheb Phalke Award winner.

"Gautaman Bhaskaran traces the ebbs and flows of the life this enigmatic director. From his birth during the Quit India movement to his lonely childhood at his uncles’ house; from life at Gandhigram, where Adoor studied economics and politics, to his days and nights at the Pune Film Institute; and from his first film, Swayamwaram, to his latest, Oru Pennum Rantaanum, Bhaskaran’s lucid narrative tracks the twists and turns of Gopalakrishnan’s life, finding an uncommon man and a rare auteur," a press release said.

Full report here Galatta

Some light on Adoor

Are only 200-odd pages enough to describe the life and work of one of India's most well-known auteur-directors? That's the first quibble with this “authorised” biography of Adoor Gopalakrishnan, but then it is also a fact that like his minimalist films, Adoor is a reluctant speaker. Many years ago, at screenings of two of his best films, Elippathayam (The Rat Trap) and Mukhamukham (Face to Face), at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, fellow director Mrinal Sen did all the talking, with Adoor preferring to let his films talk. So, in that, it's an achievement on critic Gautaman Bhaskaran's part to draw out Adoor for a discussion on his life and work. In a brief foreword, Adoor writes: “Even a detailed and painstakingly written book on an author or artist can fall short of being complete in every respect as there is always scope for further probe and understanding.” The director is happy that the book “will throw some light on my life and work. And I am happy it does as much.”

Adoor arrived, feet first, during the Quit India Movement, and developed very early in life a “strong attraction of Gandhian ideology and a fascination for khadi.” He is still seen wearing his trademark khadi kurta. When Gandhi was killed in 1948, Adoor, around seven, was inconsolable. This scene appears in one of Adoor's best known films, Kathapurushan. What Bhaskaran succeeds in doing is give us little bits and pieces from Adoor's life and tying it to his celluloid portraits.

Full report here Financial Express

Niradbabu framed

Well, this should be worth waiting for: a new biography of Nirad C. Chaudhuri by his eldest son, Dhruva, with a treasure trove of photographs “complementing” the text.

“The famous author and family friend, Sardar Khushwant Singh, has been kind enough to write the foreword,” Dhruva tells me.

He has also included “many interesting reproductions of documents bordering almost on a scoop”.

“The name of this biography has been finalised as Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Many Shades, Many Frames,” says Dhruva, who has been working on the project since 2006 when his last book, Delhi, Light, Shades, Shadows, was published.

This time, too, the book will be published at the end of October by Niyogi Books, whose managing director, Bikash D. Niyogi, appears to have an emotional involvement in its publication.

Dhruva adds that his daughter, Satarupa, an editorial manager at Oxford University Press India, “is doing the very last chapter, a reminiscence about her grandfather in Oxford from 1979 when she was 11 till the fixing of the Blue Plaque in 2008 (outside 20, Lathbury Road)”.

Full report here Telegraph

Unmatched innings

With his fourth biography to be published soon, actor Dilip Kumar looks back at his seven decades in Bollywood.

Uttam Kumar was watching a trial show of Sagina Mahato in 16mm print at NT1 Studio, Kolkata in July, 1972.  Later he told director Tapan Sinha, “Tapan da, thank God you did not cast me as Sagina. It would have been a blunder as I could not have matched Yusufda who has brought Sagina alive on screen.”

This is one of the stories in thespian Dilip Kumar's fourth biography, written by his wife Saira Banu.  This comprehensive biography of one of India's greatest actors has initiated a lot of curiosity since it was announced five years ago.

Films like Andaz, Jogan, Daag, Foot Path, Devdas  and Ganga Jumna stand testimony to his versatility.  Even today viewers remember his ro Nina ro in Andaz, as he shows Nargis the photo of her late father and helps her get over the shock of his death.

President unveils centenary edition of Mother Teresa's biography

President Pratibha Patil unveiled an updated edition of Mother Teresa's biography on the occasion of her 100th birth anniversary here on Thursday.

The book, which was first published in 1992 and subsequently translated in many languages, has been updated by its original author Naveen Chawla, a senior bureaucrat who also served as Chief Election Commissioner.

Nuns from Missionaries of Charity sang prayers to mark the occasion, which was also attended by some of the leading figures from art and literary circles.

The Managing Editor of The Hindu, N Ram, said the occasion was also a celebration of India, the country that embraced the white-saree clad nun.

Full report here Sify

PM's daughter to write 'biography' of parents

Daman Singh, the writer daughter of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is planning to write a book about her parents which will "explore the experiences that make them what they are".

"I see this (the book) as a way to try and understand them as individuals, not merely as my parents," says Daman, the second of Singh's three daughters.

For Daman, whose second novel "The Sacred Grove" released last week, her father is her favourite politician. "I admire his integrity the most," she told PTI in an interview.

Asked whether her father reads her books, she says, "We are three sisters, and all three of us have written books. My father has certainly read portions of them, but he does not have time to read them from cover to cover. I am quite sure he thinks our work is wonderful. Of course, he is biased."

Full report here NDTV

Boys turn bookworms

Cricket is their first love but our men in blue have other passions too. In a bid to take their minds off the stress of playing the game in Sri Lanka, members of team India are glued to their laptops or hooked to their iPods. But it’s not all about song and dance, some senior players like Rahul Dravid are voracious readers. Dravid favours biographies and Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not Just About The Bike is one of his favourites.

Yuvraj Singh is currently reading Shantaram. He says, “I thought I’ll complete this book by the end of this tour but it looks difficult.” Dinesh Karthik likes fiction and self-help books. “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma changed the way I perceived things. It left a huge impact,” says the TN captain. His colleague R. Ashwin has just read My Name is Rajnikanth by Dr Gayathri. “I have been a huge fan of his and wanted to know more about his life. The book has been quite inspiring,” he says.

Full report here Deccan Chronicle

Gaps in the montage

This adulatory work offers insight into the fashioning of Adoor’s credo, but mostly apes his minimalist approach

I find the tag “Authorised Biography” on this book intriguing. As if veteran filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s life is some kind of a classified document that he has to ‘authorise’ veteran film critic Gautaman Bhaskaran to write it. On a first reading, the book appears like a straightforward set of lists on Adoor’s family, theatrical background and his films. Was it meant to serve some other, deeper, purpose?

Perhaps to steer clear of controversy, this hagiographical book avoids reflecting upon the tumultuous days of the Indian New Wave starting in the mid-’60s. Adoor was one of the vanguard filmmakers who instilled youngsters like me at the FTII (Film and Television Institute of India) with the essential energy to challenge the tenets of mainstream cinema. Despite his cool demeanour, Adoor was, for all of us, the angry young rebel. The new wave movement praised and abused him with equal vigour. Yet, the chapter dealing with his days at the FTII focuses more on his connection with maestros like Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak than on the influence he had there, both as a student and later as the chairman of its governing council.

Full report here Outlook

Contested legacy

ON the wall of Roy Moxham’s flat in Neal Street near Covent Garden, one picture stands out among the old family photos.

It shows the author with his arm around a small, smiling woman swathed in textiles. She is Phoolan Devi, Moxham’s friend, the mention of whose name still sparks anger in some parts of India and admiration in others – even now, nine years after her life was ended by an assassin’s bullet.

Popularly known as “The Bandit Queen”, Phoolan fought for the rights of women and the poor during her time as an MP in India’s parliament.

She came from a poor family and her early life informed her politics. As a youngster she was married off to a man in a distant village who beat and abused her – and when she returned to her family, one of her relatives arranged for her to be kidnapped.

For years she marauded the countryside with a gang of bandits – until she was captured by a group of landowners, who confined her to their village, Behmai, and continuously raped her. She escaped and carried out Robin Hood-style raids that earned her folk hero status. The police offered a reward to anyone who could bring her in, dead or alive.

full report here Camden New Journal 

Of a lost game!

Victoria Gowramma – The Lost Princess of Coorg digs deep into the past to tell stories of intrigue and desire. The book is an interesting story of Veera Rajendra, the exiled raja of Coorg, and his 11-year-old daughter Gowramma. Belliappa's research reveals that he was the first Indian royal to land in Britain.

If Alice were alive, she would have been jealous of Gowramma, and her wonderland – the royal palace and spaces of Queen Victoria of England – though now she is remembered as the “Lost Princess of Coorg”, in the book that tells her enticing story.

Published by Rupa & Co., the 235 page book, that has just hit the stands, is written by C.P. Belliappa who is considered an authority on Coorg. The book titled Victoria Gowramma – the Lost Princess of Coorg was recently launched at British Council by Veerappa Moily, Union Minister for Law and Justice who belongs to this picturesque coffee town of Karnataka.

The book is an interesting story of Veera Rajendra, the exiled raja of Coorg, and his 11-year-old daughter Gowramma. Belliappa's research reveals that he was the first Indian royal to land in Britain (in 1852). The exiled raja's journey to England is an intense tale of intrigue, scheming and a desire to gain lost attention and wealth.

Full report here Hindu

The Red Saree and other disasters

It's too hot and muggy to dwell on any subject at length. Which is why I'm merely jotting down my impressions of recent events. They may not be exactly riveting, but I can assure you that they're not as deathly dull as the book of the month: The Red Saree.

I finally got access to a few chapters of this highly disputed book on the Internet: Javier Moro's The Red Saree. I hasten to assure Sonia Gandhi that she needn't worry - no one will take it seriously. If you don't believe me, check out the opening sentences: "Sonia Gandhi simply cannot believe that the man she loves is dead, and she will no longer feel his caresses or the warmth of his kisses. She will never again see that sweet smile that one day swept her off her feet."

Moro then goes on to give tedious descriptions of hairstyles and clothes, down to the large sunglasses she wore to Rajiv Gandhi's funeral, and the colour of Rahul Gandhi's spectacle frames as well. Moro is meticulous, if nothing else. Even an idiot can tell that it's not a biography - it's a soppy Mills & Boon! Written by a man at that - eek!

Full report here Hard News

Anne Frank’s story turned into graphic novel

The Anne Frank House Museum launched a graphic novel version of the teenage Jewish diarist’s biography on Friday, July 9, hoping to bring her story and death in a Nazi concentration camp to a wider audience.

Spokeswoman Annemarie Bekker said the publication is aimed at teenagers who might not otherwise read Anne Frank’s diary, already the most widely read document to emerge from the Holocaust.

“Not everyone will read the diary,” she said. “The one doesn’t exclude the other.”

Using the style of comic books to illustrate serious historical topics, even genocide, is not new. Maus, Art Spiegelman’s graphic biography of his father, a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp, won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992.

Full report here Hindu

Gandhi's sex life laid bare in new book

A new book on Mahatma Gandhi has delved into the intimate life of the Indian icon whose famous vow of chastity did not prevent him sleeping with naked women and conducting bizarre sex "experiments". Gandhi: Naked Ambition by British historian Jad Adams sheds new light on the spiritual leader and independence hero whose spartan existence and resistance to earthly pleasures are an integral part of his popular image.

The book has been released in Britain and will be available soon in India where it is bound to make waves in a country where Gandhi's image is fiercely protected and a source of national pride. That his attitudes to sex were censorious and unusual is well known. He wrote of his disgust at himself for having intercourse with his wife Kasturba, aged 15, when his father died in 1885.

In later life, having fathered four children, he forbade even married couples in his ashram retreats from having sex and lectured men on the need to take a cold bath when they felt lustful. More than 60 years after Gandhi's death, Adams has gone through hundreds of pages of his writings and eyewitness accounts to build a behind-closed-doors picture of a man considered both a saint and the father of the nation in India. "One of things you find about Gandhi is how much he wrote about sex," Adams said.

Full report here AFP

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.
============

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.

Reinterpreting Gandhi

Jad Adams wrote a book on the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to go with a four-part BBC programme by the same name in 1997. It was then that the idea of writing a biography of Gandhi occurred to him. When Quercus approached him a couple of years ago and asked what he would like to work on, he proposed Gandhi: Naked Ambition. Edited excerpts from an interview with Adams:

When so much has been written about him, why did you decide on another book on Gandhi?
Yes, there is quite a bit of Gandhi literature out there. One of the things I noticed was that everyone was looking at the previous biographies of Gandhi and reporting from what they had seen in the things written in the last decade or two. I was interested in looking at what Gandhi himself had actually said and what people close to him said when he was alive and immediately after his death. So I was looking at original source material and I thought that was a strategically different approach to justify a new biography.

In the book you reveal that the picture of the Dandi march that was released was not the one that was clicked on the day. Tell us more about Gandhi’s penchant for symbolism.
It’s not so much that the photograph was faked—Gandhi did go to Dandi and he did pick up salt. But the images of Gandhi at Dandi beach weren’t very good. The images that were used and went around the world were, in fact, taken at a later date. The point is, people like to see Gandhi conforming to a certain image and this was a better picture to demonstrate that image.

Gandhi himself knew very well what his image was. In England he wore a top hat. In South Africa, at the height of his success, he started to dress like the Indian labourers who he was fighting for. Back in India he started using khadi. And once he got everyone wearing khadi, in 1921, he appeared at a Congress meeting wearing almost nothing himself and it was met with disbelief at the time that he was clothed this way. He never encouraged anyone else to do it. It was his personal image. It was a brilliant PR move.

Gandhi was already a very famous man, but after this he was represented in newspaper cartoons, newsreels and pictures as this almost naked man challenging the empire. It’s a very powerful image and it made him one of the most recognizable people in the world.

Full interview here Mint

Jaswant Singh launches book in Islamabad

The function organised by Oxford University Press (OUP) at a local hotel in Islamabad on Wednesday, April 14, to launch former Indian foreign minister and Bhartia Janta Party leader Jaswant Singh’s book – Jinnah – India, Partition, Independence – turned out to be a gathering of galaxy of politicians, intellectuals, historians, journalists, diplomats, foreigners, human rights activists and Foreign Office officials, who put questions to the author, lauded his efforts for bringing the two neighbours closer, and believed that role of Pakistan’s founder needed to be reassessed.

Poor sound system, especially frequent interruptions in the proceedings due to faulty microphone, coupled with lack of seating arrangements marred the function. Also, the banner put up on the stage fell on ground many a time.

Full report here Daily Times

Oprah lied about her past, poverty and affairs

Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey lied about her past by exaggerating accounts of her poverty and making up instances of sexual abuse, according to a new unauthorized biography.

 The book by celebrity biographer, Kitty Kelley, which is already on sale in the US, reveals details about Oprah's past relationship with John Tesh, a popular media personality and claims that the talk show host paid money to keep her lesbian affairs under wraps, The New York Post reported.

The book also claims Oprah, 56, sold her body to earn extra money and has even described herself as a teen "prostitute" while her relatives claimed that a large part of her empire was built on manipulation.

It also stated that Oprah's claims of being very poor and having pet cockroaches are lies. One of her cousins Katherine Carr Esters described her as being slightly "spoilt."

"Where Oprah got that nonsense about growing up in filth and roaches I have no idea," Esters is quoted in the
book.

"I've confronted her and asked, 'Why do you tell such lies?' Oprah told me, 'That's what people want to hear. The truth is boring'," Esters added.

Full report here Hindustan Times 

Binodini’s mentor

A poet, a dramatist, an actor…he threw himself into everything with the utmost vitality… he was also exceedingly sensual, his sex life was much discussed… he drank enormously, took opium and so forth” says Christopher Isherwood in his lecture used as an introduction to Girish Chandra Ghosh: A Bohemian Devotee of Sri Ramakrishna. The book by Swami Chetanananda recently published by the Vedanta Society of St Louis presents, among other things, many lively accounts of the women who came in contact with Girish Ghosh.

So what was the writer of Prafulla, Balidan, Bilvamangal, Jana and many more like in real life? Was he a womaniser or a passionate lover? Was he a guide and a teacher moulding actresses to fit the roles in his plays or was he himself drawing inspiration as a dramatist? What, for instance, was his relationship with Sister Nivedita?

The book records that the deaths of his first and second wives Pramodini and Suratkumari had left Girish distraught with grief and repentance for having wasted so much time on theatre. He had even tried to give it all up.

Full report here Telegraph