Books

unforgettable-divas-of-bollywood-book-review-a-encyclopaedia-on-women-in-hindi-film-industry

Mon Oct 28 15:48:17 IST 2024

A century of Indian cinema has been shaped by stellar performances; emotions portrayed on screen like colours on a canvas. From Madhubala’s Anarkali to Alia Bhatt’s Gangubai Kathiawadi, women in cinema have played an instrumental role in emerging as strong voices, at times, mirroring the societal realities of the time and at times, setting an example for others to follow. When Anarkali danced fearlessly to 'Jab pyar kiya toh darna kya’ in the 1960 film Mughal-E-Azam, in a show of dissent to Salim’s father, Emperor Akbar, she singlehandedly broke the caging norms of the society. Till date, she stands as an inspiration to women facing the tyranny of conservative minds, notes ambassador Surendra Kumar (retired) in his book Unforgettable Divas of Bollywood, published by Har-Anand Publications.

The former diplomat, who has previously also written Legends of Indian Cinema: Pen Portraits paints a rather detailed narrative of women in Indian cinema, cataloguing journeys of the likes of Meena Kumari, Nargis, Nutan, Sridevi, Sadhana, and from the recent times, Madhuri Dixit, Kajol, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Alia Bhatt, Kriti Sanon and others. Detailing each actor’s journey from Madhubala to Sridevi, Kajol, and Bhumi Pednekar, among others, he roughly divides the book in four parts—the actors of the golden age of cinema (1950s-60s), actors of the 1970s-80s, modern actors from the 1990s-2010s and the young new next generation of actors.

As the book progresses, with each actor’s journey and time, one witnesses the maturing of India cinema, with reference to the treatment and portrayal of women, the ranges of roles offered, and instances that show how the retro Indian cinema was way ahead of its time.

For Surendra Kumar, Sharmila Tagore is the ‘bridge between Bollywood and Tollywood’, Shabana Azmi is an award winner, he calls Alia Bhatt the ‘Meryl Streep of Bollywood’, plauds Vidya Balan’s choices for ‘off-beat, women-oriented roles’ and calls Madhuri ‘more than the Dhak Dhak girl…’ referring to her popular sound track from the film Beta.

While the author discusses all significant women who have shaped the film industry and those who continue to do so, the book refrains from critiquing actors and maintains a positive outlook overall, concluding with the mentions of the possibility of bright futures for the recent launches in the industry, including Suhana Khan and Khushi Kapoor, who received flak for their performance in the Netflix film The Archies. Unforgettable Divas of Bollywood is an important encyclopaedia of sorts for compiling and discussing female actors and their respective contributions to the industry.

Unforgettable Divas of Bollywood

Author: Surendra Kumar

Published by: Har-Anand Publications

Pages: 192

Price: 900

in-memoir-congress-leader-sushil-kumar-shinde-recollects-his-close-bonding-with-bal-thackeray

Tue Oct 22 15:15:12 IST 2024

The Congress and the Shiv Sena, albeit the faction headed by Uddhav Thackeray, are allies in the coming Assembly elections in Maharashtra. However, till some years ago, the Congress and the Sena were political opponents, ideologically poles apart.

Former Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde recounts such a time in his memoir ‘Five Decades in Politics – as told to Rasheed Kidwai’, as he remembers his friendship with then Sena chief Bal Thackeray, the relationship often raising eyebrows but surviving the political differences between the two leaders.

Shinde recollects in the book that he first met Thackeray senior just after he had joined politics and was a member of Sharad Pawar’s inner circle. “While many other leaders distanced themselves from him for various reasons, I remained a friend of the Sena chief... He would often acknowledge, publicly, that I had been unfairly denied the chief ministership because I was a Dalit, despite being the most suitable for the job,” he says.

ALSO READ | These books will help you see the world in a new light

He recounts an incident, which he says brings out Thackeray’s sensitivity, that not many politicians from a rival camp may be capable of. The backdrop of the incident was that their parties were headed for a tussle against each other in an election.

Shinde was contesting against the Sena-BJP candidate, and Thackeray had come to Solapur to campaign for the alliance. Shinde wanted to meet him and hoping that no media person would be there, he went to Thackeray’s hotel suite. However, the place was swarming with television crews. Thackeray made sure the media left them alone. “Thackeray noticed that the media photographers were zooming in on me. Another leader might have caused havoc by making me stand by his side for a photograph, but Thackeray told the journalists not to film us together, lest someone misused the visuals for political purposes,” Shinde recollects.

The veteran Congress leader also remembers that there were quite a few eyebrows when Thackeray attended his daughter’s wedding in Mumbai. The Sena-BJP alliance was in power then.

ALSO READ | ‘@75 As I Saw it’ gives first-hand feel of ‘golden era of Indian journalism’

In 2003, when Shinde contested an assembly by-election to validate his stay in office after he was appointed chief minister, the Sena did not contest. “Nobody bought Thackeray’s argument that he was not interested in the by-election because the term of the winner would be a short one (twenty-one months, as it turned out),” says Shinde.

Shinde says although he had cordial relations with Thackeray, he could not justify his politics or the tools he adopted. He refers to Thackeray’s sharp tongue and his views about Muslims. But Shinde adds that Thackeray was different in private. “One of my bodyguards was a Muslim and Balasaheb cared a lot about him.”

Uddhav, as per Shinde, has taken his father’s legacy forward but will take time to learn. He says the Congress-Sena alliance was necessary and he sees a fruitful partnership between the Sena, Congress and the NCP. “The MVA alliance also led to a softening of the Sena’s Hindutva plank. As far as I am concerned, it was an astute political move.”

Five Decades In Politics

By Sushil Kumar Shinde – as told to Rasheed Kidwai

Published by Harper Collins

Price Rs 599

Pages 219

an-olympians-tryst-with-soldiering-review-an-army-colonels-hockey-memoirs

Fri Oct 18 22:34:41 IST 2024

In a cricket-crazy nation, the love for hockey runs deep among its followers. During the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the Indian men's hockey team won a bronze medal, ending its four-decade-long medal drought. They carried this momentum into the Paris Olympics, winning another bronze, igniting hope for the gold during the next games.

Remarkably, ten players from the winning team in Paris hailed from Punjab, four of whom were from Jalandhar, a city known for producing hockey talent.

Sansarpur, a village in Jalandhar, is particularly renowned as a nursery of hockey, having produced 14 Olympians and hundreds of national players. The enduring love for hockey in this region is deeply embedded in its culture.

One of Sansarpur's illustrious sons, Colonel Balbir Singh, has documented his journey as a hockey player and army officer in his memoir.

Titled ‘An Olympian's tryst with Soldiering: From Sansarpur to Saragarhi Battalion (4 SIKH)’, the memoir, published by the Browser, chronicles the life of a dedicated regimental soldier and an internationally acclaimed sportsperson. Balbir Singh belongs to a family of army men and even his son, Sarfaraz Singh, is also in the army.

The memoir is filled with engaging anecdotes, some of which offer vivid descriptions of key matches during hockey's golden era. Balbir Singh’s candid recollections take readers back to a time when the world was opening up. In one amusing anecdote, he recalls the fascination Spanish women had with Sikh players, whom they had never encountered before. Despite the language barrier, some of the players were lucky enough to make connections, he humorously notes.

The author also draws a connection between Sansarpur and the Saragarhi Battalion, which was raised in Jalandhar. The battalion, later known as 4 SIKH, was where Balbir Singh served, having been recruited for his hockey skills.

The battle of Saragarhi, in 1897, is legendary. The piquet was defended by 22 soldiers under the command of Havildar Ishar Singh. Twenty-one of the soldiers were Jat Sikhs, and they held off a much larger Afghan force, taking down 450 enemies before being killed. For their bravery, each of the 21 soldiers was awarded the Indian Order of Merit, the highest gallantry award for an Indian soldier in the British Army. Such an award, given to so many in one day for a single battle, was unprecedented.

As for Sansarpur's hockey legacy, Balbir Singh attributes it to the village's unique socio-cultural, economic, and educational environment, as well as its proximity to the Jalandhar Cantonment. He credits the British for establishing infrastructure and cultivating a love for hockey.

“The villagers, always short of recreational avenues, took to the game like ducks to water,” he writes. The army cantonment, with its sports grounds and easy access to the Parade Ground, provided a rare outlet for their energies. The availability of a hockey ground further nurtured the sport in the area.

The village’s hockey legacy began in 1926 when Naik Thakur Singh Kular from Sansarpur was part of the first Indian Army team to visit New Zealand. This opened the floodgates for hockey talent from the village.

Balbir Singh’s memoir does not shy away from sharing some lesser-known stories. He recounts how Indian players shielded a Pakistani player on the field after his shorts tore during a match against Poland in Pakistan. In another instance, he describes how three senior Indian team managers were locked out of their camp and spent the night in the cold.

He also recalls the heartbreak of the 1968 Mexico Olympics, where the Indian men’s hockey team failed to reach the Olympic final for the first time since 1928. Although India eventually won the bronze medal, the semi-final loss cast a pall over Sansarpur.

“The famous five of the squad—Colonel Balbir, Balbir (Punjab Police), Jagjit, Ajitpal, and Tarsem—who hailed from the same village and brought back bronze medals, were afraid to set foot in the village,” he writes. The disappointment was so profound that they feared the backlash from the hockey-loving villagers.

“When we finally did go home, even our parents were furious. They asked if this was what we had learned after all those years of playing hockey.” Singh laments the indifference that has since grown, with the village no longer reacting as strongly to the national team's failures.

In another notable anecdote, Singh recalls how then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi remarked on the team's loss to Australia, attributing it to indiscipline.

Through these pages, the spirit of hockey truly comes alive. Balbir Singh’s memoir is a valuable record for future generations and researchers. More sportspeople should document their experiences to preserve history and inspire future athletes.

the-number-you-are-calling-is-switched-off-review-a-perfect-blend-of-crime-and-mystery

Thu Oct 17 17:46:56 IST 2024

Tushar Srivastava’s debut novel ‘The Number You Are Calling is Switched Off’ is a captivating crime thriller that grabs readers’ attention from the very start and keeps them on the edge of their seats. Written by a former crime reporter who jostled the bustling streets of Delhi, the book skillfully weaves together the intricate dynamics of law, crime, and politics, offering a unique insider’s perspective.

The narrative revolves around a phone that mysteriously goes silent—switched off—but surprises law enforcers with its activity in various locations throughout the city. As the police scramble to trace the phone and its elusive owner, they become ensnared in a dangerous game where time is of the essence. To the surprise of those who deal with such cases daily, what seemed like a simple investigation rapidly unfolds into a complex web of unanswered questions. Each new call deepens the suspense and erects a task that even the most experienced cops had never anticipated.

Srivastava, drawing from his experience as a crime reporter, infuses the story with an authenticity that enhances his portrayal of police operations and the intricate power dynamics at play. The characters are vividly depicted, adding emotional depth to the plot.

The twists and turns in chapters and the relentless plot make it nearly impossible to put the book down. The game of chase between the police and the antagonist keeps readers engrossed, and by the novel's midpoint, you might find yourself oddly sympathizing with the villain—a testament to Srivastava’s skill in creating morally ambiguous characters.

Additionally, the novel seamlessly blends elements of crime and mystery. The book exposes the hidden intricacies that investigations entail and appeals to the readers for it brings out what transpires behind the scenes. While the title is eye-catching, the story itself is even more engaging.

‘The Number You Are Calling is Switched Off’ marks an impressive debut for Tushar Srivastava, showcasing his talent for storytelling. For those seeking a thrilling experience filled with unexpected twists and turns, this novel delivers on every front. With this remarkable introduction, Srivastava establishes himself as a promising voice in the realm of crime fiction.

the-cemetery-of-untold-stories-review-harrowing-stories-that-live-forever

Wed Oct 16 14:21:56 IST 2024

This latest novel by Julia Alvarez from the Dominican Republic reads like an autobiographic work. I have read six of her novels which bring out vividly the vibrant culture of her homeland and juxtapose it with her immigrant life in the US. The tragedies suffered by Dominicans, including her own family, during the terrible dictatorship of Trujillo are portrayed poignantly in all her novels.

In this latest novel, Alma, the protagonist is a successful Dominican writer in the US. Towards the end of her life, she gives up writing and goes back to her homeland. She takes all her manuscripts and her heavy heart is filled with untold stories, stories, so many stories. Alma has nowhere to put them except on the ground. So she decides to build a cemetery to bury her manuscripts with the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her. Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. The stories of Alma’s father (Papi) and Bienvenida, the first wife of the dictator Trujillo stand out among the untold stories and insist on coming out. Alma recollects them through the course of the novel.

Alma buys a piece of land in a slum area next to a garbage dump. She builds a small house, a large graveyard and a high compound wall. The cemetery has several parts for different kinds of stories. Sometimes the characters in the stories come out and roam the cemetery ground making sounds in the night.

Some of the boxes containing manuscripts "catch fire, crackling and sending up sparks, as if the flames are hungry for stories, even unfinished ones. The stories are released, their characters drifting off to the sea, to the mountains, into the dreams of the old and the unborn, seeping into the soil. A lucky few find their way into books by other writers. Sometimes the fragments are blown back, liberated from their plots".

The puzzled and curious slum dwellers want to know what is happening inside the property. A sign goes up on the wall at the main gate. El cementerio de los cuentos nunca contados (A cemetery for untold stories). The only way to enter is to speak into a small black box at the front gate. Cuéntame, a woman’s soft voice requests. Tell me a story. The door opens only if the story is good.

The first to gain entry is Filomena, a poor spinster and ex-maid. "She has no living relatives, no former husband or lover who left her for another woman, no kids gone to el Norte for opportunities. It happens with women: they close down before they ever open up. Some flowers never bloom. Or bloom too soon or late in life".

Filomena pours out her story finishing with the incantation "Colorín colorado, este cuento se ha acabado". a Spanish phrase used to indicate that a story has reached its end. The first part is just a colourful expression with no specific meaning, the second part means 'this story is over.' This is similar to the Tamil way of saying "கதை முடிந்தது கத்திரிக்காய் காச்சத்து." It means, literally, 'the story is over, the eggplant is ripe'.

Es verdad, ( this is true) Filomena adds, since it is her real-life story.

Alma employs Filomena as a caretaker to bury the manuscripts and look after the cemetery. She also makes her listen to the stories of those who want to enter as well as the sounds of wailing from the buried characters.

The graveyard attracts drifters, beggars, street orphans and drug traffickers. "Each group has its preferred territory: the smaller boys congregate around the markers for the children’s books, folktales and legends; the older ones gravitate to the burned drafts about lusty revolutionaries never liberated into story form; beggars take the ashy crumbs of whatever is left, lines of poems, rejected essays. There are open stretches with no markers where drug traffickers have sown marijuana seeds".

The haunting of dead characters is no deterrent to lovers from the slum who jump over the wall to have sex over the cool stone beds. "After satisfying their hunger, they tell stories. Boys and several girls protectively disguised as boys recount what happened that day, what was filched, who was kind, where they roamed, exact locations left vague to protect territory, and curb competition. Old-timers tell of hurricanes, massacres, and dictators, as well as of golden times. The young men boast about their exploits, girls they spied on, bathing behind plastic, see-through shower curtains, throwing buckets of water over their beautiful soapy bodies. The laughter dies down. The younger boys yawn. The night wears on. The groups disperse to their posts, sometimes searching out new locations, as some markers have been known to stir up nightmares. Others incite wonderful dreams. There are stories of transgressors waking up with a tail between their legs or horns on their heads.

Julia Alvarez ends the novel saying, "Eventually, storied and unstoried join in mystery. Nothing holds anyone together but imagination".

75-as-i-saw-it-gives-first-hand-feel-of-golden-era-of-indian-journalism

Sun Oct 06 23:04:16 IST 2024

“The prime minister’s face lighted (sic) up,” Mahendra Ved writes in his just-released memoir ‘@75 As I Saw it’, “From a distance, standing at the back, I could see her left profile. A lump rose in my throat. I am sure I couldn’t be the only one feeling overwhelmed.”

Ved’s autobiography is a mix of both the personal and the profound, but nowhere in the course of telling his story does this veteran journalist lose sight of the guiding principles of his ‘old school’ journalism — the what, why, when where, who and how and always being the outsider who tracks the news, not the opinion maker who becomes part of the narrative.

Rather quaint, perhaps today’s new age ‘content creator’ might say. Does that make Ved an ‘outsider’ and out of step with the new world where legacy journalism intermingles with multimedia journalism, where learning to get a story on video camera becomes as quintessential as being part of a ‘camp’ (his words). Perhaps just as well, because as he himself notes, he has no complaints since that affords him the luxury of “being an old hand with some credibility”

That also gave him a ringside view of some of the epochal events of the past half century, right from the tumultuous assassination of Bangladesh’s founding father and president Sheikh Mujibur Rehman (the recently ousted Sheikh Hasina’s father) to the first Indian in space (the incident mentioned in the intro where Mrs Gandhi, as well as Ved and everyone in the room with the PM, felt overwhelmed when the first Indian in space, Rakesh Sharma, told her via satellite link up from space that India looked ‘sare Jahan se achcha’, meaning ‘better than the whole world’), to the power struggles on Raisina Hill in the late eighties and early nineties and an inside look at the ‘Dilli Durbar’ and the wheelings and dealings there that shaped the destiny of the nation in its first half century — they all find a space in the book, fresh from Ved’s mind and scribble pad as if it all just happened yesterday.

Of course, it’s also the story of Ved himself, as he recounts his family history, and his early days in Mumbai before moving to Delhi on work (a cute nugget includes a mention of how Devji Bhimji Khetsi from his community in Kutch migrated and started Kerala Mithram in Kochi, whose founding editor was Kandathil Varghese Mapillai, the founder of Malayala Manorama, the parent organisation of ‘The Week’). The personal story is interesting more for its insights into the way life used to be, say, in 1960s and 70s Mumbai or 1980s Delhi than for any inspirational life lesson.

But it is in his recounting of the stories of Indian politics and neighbourhood history that sets the book apart, as he imparts a fly-on-the-wall feel of events as they unfolded in the era before mobile phones, broadcast journalism, let alone podcasts, news portals and influencers irrevocably changed the face of news and news breaks (Ved, after finding out the Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and family were assassinated, had to smuggle out his news story with two passengers flying to India, as regular communication links were blocked).

Part nostalgia and part pure history gold — and not just for today’s media professionals to get a first-hand feel of what the ‘golden era of Indian journalism’ was like, but for everyone to get to read and relive up close the way it all used to be.

@75 As I Saw It: A Reporter Recounts

By Mahendra Ved

India Netbooks

Pages 401

Price: 625 (Paperback)

in-pursuit-of-freedom-travels-across-patriotic-lands-review-a-portrait-of-changed-india

Wed Sep 25 15:05:18 IST 2024

The places associated with India's freedom struggle are often confined to history textbooks, but they are far from the idealised notions we carry about them. In the book, 'In Pursuit of Freedom - Travels across Patriotic Lands', author Pradeep Damodaran embarks on a journey through these historic sites, revealing a country in flux.

Through vivid portrayals of contemporary India, Damodaran juxtaposes the present with the historic significance of these locations. During his year-long travels, he interacts with locals and uncovers a nation that is both contradictory and inspiring. His journalistic rigour shines as he finds compelling people to tell the stories of these places. As Damodaran himself says, he "used travel writing as a tool to explore the idea of freedom, recording my observations and conversations with the people I encountered along the way."

The book is divided into four sections. The first explores Gandhi’s enduring relevance as Damodaran travels through Sabarmati, Godhra, Dandi, and Dharampur. The second takes readers to the Hindi heartland, from Jhansi to Unnao and Gorakhpur to Motihari. The third section unearths forgotten narratives of the freedom struggle that helped shape the India we know today. The final section dives deep into the origins of dissent in the south, particularly in Tamil Nadu, where people’s resistance movements took root.

Damodaran observes with empathy, painting a vivid picture for readers, leaving them with haunting images and probing questions. It’s a journey of discovery for those who may never visit these places while encouraging readers to seek out the stories behind the historic monuments.

In Gujarat, his observations at Sabarmati Ashram raise questions about how Gandhi is perceived by younger generations. He notes that many visitors left disrespectful and abusive comments in the visitors' register. When the author posed this to Atul Pandya, the ashram’s director, Pandya remarked that Gandhi fought for the very freedom that allows people to criticize him openly. "Let them try and openly criticise today’s leaders and see if they can get away with it," he quips.

Throughout the book, Damodaran intertwines the contemporary setting of these places with their historical past, highlighting societal fissures that remain post-riots, allowing readers to judge whether healing has taken place. His encounters with locals, like Niranjana Ben in Bardoli and a young boy, Gulab, in Dharampur, reassure readers that Gandhi’s relevance endures.

Damodaran’s visit to Bilga village in Jalandhar exposes the obsession with migration in Punjab’s Doaba region. He meets the family of Ghadarite Bhagat Singh Bilga and asks Kulbir Singh, Bilga’s son, whether the revolutionary spirit of their forefathers has left with those seeking fortunes abroad. Kulbir responds, "Bilga is no longer a village for us, it's a state of mind. Wherever we go, we take Bilga with us," as he recounts his involvement in farmers' protests both in India and abroad.

When the journey takes Damodaran to Jhansi, the stark contrast between the legendary Rani of Jhansi and the current state of rural governance becomes evident. The author encounters "pradhan-patis," men who unofficially take on the role of village sarpanch, as elected women remain confined to their homes.

In Chauri Chaura, he discovers that the government still pays pensions to the families of both the freedom fighters and the policemen killed during the infamous 1922 incident in Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement. However, the families of the policemen, derisively called "angrez ke naukar" (servants of the British), are viewed with disdain.

The book’s final section highlights Damodaran's interactions with activists SP Udayakumar and Prof. Fatima Babu, who led movements against a nuclear plant and a copper plant in Tamil Nadu.

'In Pursuit of Freedom' also lays bare the stark realities of modern Indian society. Damodaran captures the spirit of change agents—ordinary people striving for progress against a backdrop of historical significance.

This book is an engaging exploration of India’s diverse mindsets, blending personal stories with historical insights. It invites readers to ponder the complexities of freedom and identity in a rapidly evolving nation.

*Published by HarperCollins

*344 pages, Rs 699

these-books-will-help-you-see-the-world-in-a-new-light

Tue Sep 24 12:49:40 IST 2024

Here are short takes on the three new books.

Glimmers

You can admire those for whom happiness comes easy—those with private jets, expensive pets and wind-proof hair. But, in your trouble, you can only lean on those for whom it was hard work. Those like writer and poet Cailin Hargreaves, who was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease at the age of 10. She learnt to thrive, perhaps not despite the chronic pain, but because of it. That is why, when she leads you through the grammar of happiness, you know it is a language that she speaks fluently. Through her poetry and her journaling prompts in Glimmers, she helps you find a joy that is precious because it has been hard-won. “Life is full of hardships and dark moments that can leave scars,” she writes in the book. “Yet, in those moments, we often find ‘glimmers’—small yet shining moments of hope and happiness that lift us up....” Whether in a child’s laughter or in a riotous sunset, these glimmers can thaw your gloom in a way little else can.

Glimmers

By Cailin Hargreaves

Published by Penguin Random House

Price 499; pages 197

Chicanery

What would prompt an exiled prime minister to return to his homeland knowing he is going to be executed? When asked, he has one answer: Love. But in a country fuelled by power, hatred, suspicion and despotism, love is like a tin of biscuits which is past its expiry date—you can almost imagine how it tasted once, but you know that it is too late to consume it now. Chicanery is a tale of contrasts—of freedom versus slavery, of loyalty versus betrayal, and of hope versus bleakness. And contrasts showcase in a way nothing else can. Light cannot be appreciated without darkness and life cannot be appreciated without death. Set in a fictional country, if Chicanery is outwardly a parable of our times, it is inwardly a search of our hearts. Even in a world that tries to quench it, the book inspires introspection with meaningful social commentary. Our reflection, after all, is as important as our reality.

Chicanery

By Timeri N. Murari

Published by Niyogi Books

Price Rs695; pages 423

Our Stories, Our Struggles: Violence and the Lives of Women

Her travels around the world for 30 years inspired Mitali Chakravarty—one of the editors of Our Stories, Our Struggles—to ask a question for which there is no easy answer: “Why don’t women in South Asia enjoy the same freedom that women in many other parts of the world do? That was the starting point for this book—a collection of narratives and poetry by South Asian women that addresses themes of rape, domestic violence, acid attacks and suicide. From the lives of the Chakma women in Bangladesh to the state violence faced by those in conflict zones like Manipur, the book is a wide-angle pan on women’s predicament in these countries. “I no longer care if anyone thinks I’m making things up,” states a sexual abuse survivor. “I have pulled up the carpet, and my truth is out there.” At a time when the Malayalam film industry has been shaken by the Hema Committee report and protests over the gang-rape of the RG Kar trainee doctor refuse to be subdued, the truth is leaking as from a damp glass ceiling. It just might be Advantage Women.

Our Stories, Our Struggles: Violence and the Lives of Women

Edited by Mitali Chakravarty and Ratnottama Sengupta

Published by Speaking Tiger Books

Price Rs599; pages 329

this-new-book-on-indian-political-prisoners-describes-their-agony-and-the-states-apathy

Thu Aug 29 17:02:38 IST 2024

Courage is a strange quality; it seems to grow the more it is quenched.

Take the case of student leader and activist Afreen Fatima, whose father – Welfare Party of India leader Javed Mohammad – was detained on false charges on June 10, 2022, and arrested the next day, following the protests by the Muslim community against two BJP leaders who made derogatory remarks against Prophet Muhammad. Fatima’s mother and sister Sumaiya were also detained on June 11. Fatima and her sister-in-law refused to go to the police station. On June 12, the authorities razed their home to the ground, ensuring that Fatima’s mother and sister were present to witness this. Amidst such cruelty, I ask Fatima a question that puzzles me: Where does she get the courage to fight on when she has so much to lose?

Her reply is almost sardonic. “As a Muslim, I can say that we have nothing to lose anymore,” she says. “On the face of it, everything looks ok, but that is not the case. Every time Muslims step out of their home, they are taking a huge risk. They might be lynched on the street or arrested on false terror charges or framed for being part of a protest. They can be charged under the UAPA [Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act] or the NSA [National Security Act]. The burden is on us to prove our innocence, not on the state to explain why a person is considered a national security threat.”

Fatima is part of the Polis Project, a New York-based research and journalism organisation with a focus on South Asia. In March 2020, at the Polis Project, a series on political prisoners called ‘Profiles of Dissent’ was launched, which evolved into the book How Long Can The Moon Be Caged? by Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia, with Fatima as one of the researchers. “The publication of 27 profiles made us understand how urgent it was to articulate a more complex and nuanced understanding of the situation of political prisoners,” Recchia tells THE WEEK over Zoom.

She is right, because the book truly is an eye-opener. One might have known the rough outline of what happened to these political prisoners, from the 16 accused of abetting the violence that broke out in Bhima Koregaon in 2018 to those arrested in the anti-CAA protests of 2019. Yet, the true extent of their agony is intricately fleshed out in the book. It is like the writers have coloured inside the black-and-white images of a sketch book, lending the images depth and vividness.

***

Courage, as the writers posit in the book, is also something that increases when it is shared.

On January 15, 2021, when Father Stan Swamy, one of the 16 accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, completed 100 days in jail, he wrote: “First of all, I deeply appreciate the overwhelming solidarity expressed by many during these past 100 days behind the bars. At times, news of such solidarity has given me immense strength and courage especially when the only thing certain in prison is uncertainty.” He describes how the 16 co-accused had not been able to meet each other, as they were lodged in different jails or different ‘circles’ within the same jail. “But we will still sing in chorus,” he writes. “A caged bird can still sing.”

A recurring theme in the book is the solidarity among the prisoners. Vijayan and Recchia describe how most of their conversations with prisoners and their families started with long discussions on the status of other prisoners. As the news of their meetings went around, people started asking them for an update on others and made them carriers of information in this wider network of people, “who may or may not have met before, but who are now connected by a shared destiny”.

“Something that we heard constantly from the families is how keeping the discussion alive outside jail is important for the prisoners, and how it gives them great strength,” says Recchia.

One part of the book is the letters and poems written by the prisoners themselves, and something that comes through is the resilience of the human spirit. In each of the prisoners’ stories, there is a turning away from the self and turning toward a cause larger than themselves. Even when inner reserves of courage seem to ebb away, they draw from an outer source – the strength of their conviction. It is a source that can replenish the spirit even when the body is tortured, a fact that the state does not realise, even as it beats, bruises, and starves the prisoners.

***

Above all, courage continues when its presence seems redundant. Even when, with all their courage, the prisoners’ cause seems to be a lost one.

According to the writers, the Narendra Modi government has been growing more despotic, and has systematically defanged institutions like the judiciary, the media, and the police. They say that vigilante squads, lynching and communal violence have become the norm.

After Modi returned to power in 2019, the UAPA was amended to give authorities the power to unilaterally designate anyone as a terrorist, without having to provide evidence. The funds allocated to the intelligence agencies have also increased, along with the scope of their powers. Last year, the Law Commission of India widened the scope of the sedition laws and increased the punishment that could be imposed from three to seven years. Under the proposed new definition of sedition, a mere ‘inclination’ and ‘tendency’ to incite violence or cause public disorder was enough for a person to be charged; proof of actual violence was no longer required.

The writers say that the state has been brutally quenching dissent with such laws. According to them, things are especially bad for Muslim political prisoners, so much so that one of them, Sharjeel Usmani, says that no one speaks about it because they all expect it and take it as a given. The wife of Khalid Saifi, who was arrested in 2020 for protesting the lack of religious freedom, told the writers that he was beaten with a lathi, urinated upon and waterboarded. The mother of Athar Khan, who was arrested during the Delhi pogrom of 2020, said that he was once beaten so badly that even his shoes broke. Poet and activist Varavara Rao recalls an incident when he had a urinary ailment for which he needed a catheter that had to be changed every two weeks. The jail authorities ignored his requests and kept the same catheter for two months, which led to an infection that left him in a prolonged state of delirium and hallucination. He lost his memory and control over his body and consequently had to wear a diaper. His family had not been informed of his condition and when they were finally able to see him in hospital, he was on a bed with soiled sheets, semi-conscious and incapable of recognising even his wife.

After all this torture, what bewilders is how the prisoners go back to their activism once they are let out. Those like Usmani have been relentlessly active in his grassroots work since his release. When Nodeep Kaur was asked whether she was afraid of possible repercussions after returning to her struggle for the dignity of daily-wage labourers upon coming out of prison, she said she now fights with renewed energy, because she owes it to those who supported her work and agitated for her release.

Perhaps what Natasha Narwal, a student activist who was arrested in 2020, wrote about glimpsing the moon from their barracks window best explains the courage of these political prisoners to fight on, clinging to a hope which is lodged too deep for the reaches of a lathi stick:

“[The moon] is caged in the grills but the moonlight is coming to us filtering through them,” she writes. “Before coming inside our ward to be locked, I managed to see some stars as well giving the moon some company. I don’t know when one will be able to see the night sky without these grills and bars. How long will or can the moon be caged, Hum dekhenge (We will see).”

How Long Can The Moon Be Caged: Voices of Indian Political Prisoners

By Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia

Published by Westland Books

Price Rs599; pages 282

book-review-for-racy-money-sex-and-power-tales-binge-house-of-dragon-bower-s-the-house-of-beckham-is-a-drag

Mon Aug 26 17:25:13 IST 2024

"A really nice guy... in a profession of a***holes"

A football journalist who followed Brazil's great Kaka's career once famously talked about the iconic midfielder. Openly God-fearing, charming and humble, Kaka was divorced by his childhood sweetheart after 10 years of marriage because "he was too perfect" a husband.

For author Tom Bower, the former Real Madrid star may seem like everything David Beckham never was, apart from being charming before the opposite sex, of course. His wife Victoria "Posh" Beckham's life would have been less miserable if the former England captain, who also donned Real's famous white shirt for years, had more in common with his Brazilian contemporary.

"Repeatedly, Beckham's transgressions have been ignored by billions of football fans," he says in his latest, 'The House of Beckham: Money, Sex and Power.' The master investigative journalist and biographer he is, Bower should know that addiction, attitude and scandals are all common among football superstars. Most of them become super-rich from a young age, date supermodels and hold unthrifty parties. Roaming in private jets to meet kin, the sky is the limit for them -- literally. A guy like Kaka is the black sheep amongst them, not the other way.

To begin the review of a book on a footballer by talking about another should get the message through. Promising fresh reveals into the much-canvassed life of the celebrity English couple, it falls flat. The man who has churned out life stories of Richard Branson, Jeremy Corbyn, Prince Charles and Boris Johnson among others, has now produced a weak, boring and at times childish.

Try this. In this almost 400-page "revelations", Bower accuses Beckham of drinking Coca-Cola when being paid to promote Pepsi, taking a stroll down Manchester to enjoy public gaze and most diabolic of them all, claiming to have eaten fish fingers as a child "disputably" because "Neither Beckham nor his mother had ever mentioned him eating that particular food.” Got a better way to explain this? Well, be my guest.

And Bowers rarely say nice things about the couple. They are self-centred, image-obsessed, greedy and most of all mediocre talents, for most of the book. While Beckham is a tax-avoiding serial womaniser, Posh is a cunning parasite who keeps trying to rebrand herself using her husband's cult. Her addiction to fame means she needs to turn a blind eye towards his affairs and exploit his love for the children, Bowers claims. David Beckham was recruited to be part of the 'Galacticos' (During Florentino Perez's first term as president of Real Madrid, the club aggressively pursued a recruitment policy that prioritised the signing of superstars who were galactic talents) for his looks and marketing side... He was not at the same level as Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo Nazario or Luis Figo, Bowers argues.

And his findings are all based on kilos of tabloid articles from the last three decades. Every gossip story ever published on the couple seems to have been quoted, serving no particular purpose. Their marriage is not perfect, we get it. But Bowers is in no mood to stop. In the era of Google Advanced Search, the author stuffs the work with old tabloid headlines that got no better info than a basic Wiki article.

PR tragedies or sex scandals keep hitting the Beckhams in each chapter. Every 40-odd pages or so, Posh goes into troubleshooting mode by showing off their love for the public to see. Every time they hit a roadblock, she arranges for a photo shoot, holding hands LOL with her man in public. Bower tells you it was almost always a Sun photographer who was entrusted to save their marriage before the public. This becomes a repetitive pattern so much so that halfway into the book, you'd be able to tell when a photo stunt is imminent.

Beckham's deals in Madrid, Miami, Dubai and England are mentioned with monetary details running several pages. But even this is over-the-head financial details with too many numbers and signs for the average Spice Girls or Manchester United fan. Beckham hated paying taxes -- it is stated with painstaking recycling of reports available online.

Bower should know that there are many interested in a tale of 'Money, Sex and Power.' But they are likely to trade 'House of Beckham' for 'House of Dragon.' Targaryans and their beastly rides would beat his redundant file of tabloid rehash any day.

unpartitioned-time-review-rajkotia-offers-readers-an-intimate-glimpse-into-sikh-life

Tue Aug 20 16:10:05 IST 2024

“Get up and look at your Punjab in pain,

Someone has poisoned the five rivers”

-Aaj akhan Waris Shah nu

Amrita Pritam

Malavika Rajkotia’s ‘Unpartitioned Time’ is a compelling exploration of her family’s history and lineage. She introduces the nuances of Punjabi life and how her family continues as they deal with a fractured identity after one of India’s deadliest carnage- the partition. Through masterful storytelling, greatly helped by the inclusion of Punjabi dialogues, Rajkotia offers readers an intimate glimpse into Sikh life as she seamlessly integrates regional Punjabi prayers and Persian poetry, allowing readers to understand the profound impact of partition on her family and community.

Rajkotia pays tribute to her father, lovingly called Jindoo, who moved from Pakistan to India and had to start his life all over, as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. He spends his twilight years reclining on his sofa, accomplishing little, a Bartleby-esque sort of protest against the forces that uprooted him from his motherland. Through Jindoo's experiences, Rajkotia offers readers a profound understanding of the collective trauma and resilience of an entire generation.

Rajkotia details the lives of three generations – life in Karnal during her grandparents’ time and her parent’s childhood, their fleeing from Karnal by train, and how she and her sister dealt with their parents and their unresolved traumas. How as a parent the process of passing down culture became an issue of give and take, and her children would lack the experiences of living as Sikhs in their hometown, Malavika seeks to rectify that through this book.

She also mentions the Sikh riots after Indira Gandhi’s death, written with a chilling effect in this memoir, Malavika mentions how friends turned against her by clubbing her with Sikh extremists and asking her father to cut his hair and beard to avoid being suspected, and lastly, the large scale migration of Sikhs abroad on account of the constant fear of social exclusion, harassment and risk of a painful death.

In just a few pages, Rajkotia brings alive the horrors and genocides which are now a blurring memory in the contemporary context. The author's meticulous attention to detail brings the characters to life, allowing readers to share in their joys, sorrows, and triumphs. By the end, we feel as though we have become integral members of the Rajkotia family, deeply connected to their history and heritage.

a-m-naik-the-man-who-built-tomorrow-review-an-inspiring-account-on-entrepreneur-extraordinaire

Sun Aug 18 13:23:54 IST 2024

How does one define a legend in business? A short answer: A. M. Naik. The long-serving boss of multinational conglomerate Larsen & Toubro (L&T), who recently stepped down, is more than just a success story. He is an exceptional entrepreneur, a humanist and most importantly, a nation-builder.

From the shop floor of L&T to its helm, Naik's rise was meteoric. With every leap, Naik took the firm with him. His contributions to L&T can be encapsulated in his own words: "92 per cent of the L&T you see around you was not there in its present shape and size before I stepped in." His colleagues agree. "To the last decimal," they add.

As unjust as it would be to confine the contributions and characteristics of this colossal figure in 223 pages, the book 'A.M. Naik: The Man Who Built Tomorrow', throws light on the genius. Authored by Priya Kumar and Jairam N. Menon, the work focuses on Naik's qualities, both innate and acquired, and work ethic that contributed to building L&T's and India's future.

Naik's stint with L&T began on a sombre note. His boss Gunnar Hansen thought he was too cocky. Nevertheless, he got into L&T, rising through the ranks and becoming the CEO in 1999.

His go-getter attitude and foresight fueled L&T's upward trajectory. A trouble-shooter, Naik found an answer to every problem. When L&T encountered logistical issues transporting heavy machinery from its manufacturing facility in landlocked Powai, Naik took it upon himself to find a solution. He zeroed in on a marshland at Hazira, where L&T's mega engineering complex stands tall today.

The book has another vignette on how Naik solved the firm's high levels of attrition in the IT domain. L&T had begun implementing the enterprise resource software SAP and those trained in it were much sought after in the IT sector. To the dismay of the top leadership, the trained employees kept moving to greener pastures. Naik devised a strategy, he would set up the "greenest pasture going." L&T's own IT company, the LTI was born.

Of his many successful corporate battles, one stands out. In the mid-1980s, as L&T under A M Naik began flourishing, it attracted the eyes of corporate raiders. The firm, however, had a weak spot; it was a loosely-held one with dispersed shareholding. But, Naik didn't. His gumption and passion pushed him to fight for L&T through the corridors of power to avert a takeover. He also made the firm a majorly employee-owned one, protecting it from future takeover bids, a brilliant move that went on to preserve the firm's legacy, ethos and values.

A shrewd businessman, Naik's adeptness at cross-selling was renowned. He is always prepared for one or the other. The book notes an interesting anecdote about a meeting he had with the chairman of Kuwait National Petroleum Corporation (KNPC).

Minutes into the meeting, Naik knew L&T wouldn't bag any turnkey contract in the hydrocarbon sector. He didn't waste time. He told the KNPC chairman: "Let me tell you frankly, your IT systems, such as they are, seem to be outdated. Let me send my IT team and help you modernise."

No mention of Naik's eminence would be complete without talking about his nationalist spirit. In the book's foreword, NSA Ajit Doval describes Naik as a man who "wears India on his sleeve." He was adamant that the company he works for should contribute to nation-building. Be it in Chandrayaan-3, or the making of INS Arihant, India's maiden nuclear-powered submarine, L&T under Naik left an indelible mark.

His commitment to the country was reflected in his equations with national leadership too. Naik's friendship with Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray was proof not only of his rapport with leaders but also his advocacy for diversity and inclusion.

The events that solidified their relationship happened during Naik's early days with L&T when the firm ran the industry's first apprentice training schemes. Those who completed the programme were in demand in the industry. All was well until it came to notice that all apprentices who cleared the entrance tests came from a single region of the country. Ironically, none from Maharashtra where the facility was located entered the programme.

This soon came to the notice of Thackeray, who rang up the L&T co-founder. The task fell on Naik to unravel this mystery. His wisdom and troubleshooting skills helped Naik find out how the system was being gamed to accept applications from only a section of people. The issue was sorted in no time and Naik went on to form a good bond with Thackeray, and later his son Uddhav Thackeray too.

As L&T's former finance head, N Sivaraman puts it: "Mr Naik is more than a teacher; he is a syllabus." This book, a summary of Naik's six-decade-long career, asserts those words.

padma-bharatis-ordinary-indians-extraordinary-triumphs-review-fascinating-stories-of-12-padma-shri-winners

Tue Aug 13 21:51:09 IST 2024

As we approach the 78th Independence Day celebration, its an occasion to commemorate the sacrifices and contributions of numerous Indians who got us the freedom. Its also an occasion to recognise the work of several ordinary people who though born in the Independent India, contributed their bit for its progress.

A new book on some of those who have received country’s fourth highest award, Padma Shri, narrates the fascinating stories of several winners in the recent years. Titled, Padma Bharatis: Ordinary Indians, Extraordinary Triumphs, the book curated by Jay Jina highlights the strength and resilience of people who brought sustainable change while honouring their cultural traditions and experiential knowledge passed down through generations.

Take for example, the story of ‘Beej Mata’ (the seed mother) of India, Rahibai Popere, who belongs to a village in Ahmednangar district of Maharashtra. Affected by the ill health of a family member, she resolved to find a solution, even though she never received formal education. She realised the shift to natural farming bereft of pesticides and fertilisers could do the trick. And it did. She pioneered the preservation of native varieties and even motivated self help groups to adopt them. Former Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research Dr Raghunath Mashelkar, gave her the honorific name Beej Mata, the mother of seeds.

The book published by Blueone Ink has 12 essays on the lives and work of dozen people who received Padma Shri in the last a few years.

Subhasini Mistry is a social worker who set up Humanity Hospital to provide health care to the poor. Her hospital had even featured in Aamir Khan’s popular TV show ‘Satyamev Jayate’. Her son, Dr Ajoy Mistry, who got his MD degree in general medicine from Kolkata Medical College in 1997, is now the Chairman of the Humanity Hospital. THE WEEK had covered Dr Ajoy Mistry’s work during the Covid pandemic.

It was then he had told THE WEEK, “My mother’s hard work has always been my strength. But the hospital was the result of my relentless struggle, through torture and insult. I have felt poverty and humiliation. It prompted me to try and make a difference in society.” He asked his mother to stop selling vegetables due to her advance age.

In 2017, Meenakshi Amma, a living legend of Kalari, received the Padma Shri award. This was also, perhaps, first time that a martial art form had been recognised in such a manner. Another essay tells the story of Sukri Bommanagowda, a folk singer belonging to the Halakki Vokkaliga tribe in Ankola, Karnataka.

Another essay is on Tulsi Gowda who is only the second person from the Halakki Vokkalu to get Padma Shri for her work to save environment. She is known as the "Encyclopedia of the Forest" and by her tribe as the "tree goddess" because of her knowledge of the forest. When both had come to receive the award dressed in their traditional dress, they had attracted a lot of attention.

Among other profiles, K.K. Muhammad stands out. He is a known name in the field of history and archaeology. He is credited with undertaking some of the most significant excavations and restorations projects in the country. An essay on him encapsulates his journey from Agra to Chennai, Goa, Raipur and Bhopal and eventually to the ruins of Bateshwar, before retiring from his role as Regional Director at the New Delhi ASI office in 2012. In Fatehpur Sikri, he excavated a site from 1981 to 1983 to reveal Ibadat Khana from the days of Akbar. Also called KK, he would also go on to discover the location of the first Christian chapel in North India.

“The Christian fathers invited by Akbar for the conferences at the Ibadat Khana were housed near the palace and a chapel was built. KK pinpointed a potential location, and the chapel was fully excavated. The Archbishop of Agra confirmed this to be consistent with historical records,” the book records.

In Goa, his work had subsequently led to the recovery of the remains of Queen Ketavan, the patron saint of Georgia, which had been carried to Goa. His restoration of Bateshwar, Madhya Pradesh is hailed in the archaeological circles.

The book will interest students, scholars, activists and will be a good addition to the libraries for reference for the next generations of readers.

the-japanese-in-latin-america-review-exploring-the-roots-of-immigration-in-the-continent

Mon Aug 12 21:10:01 IST 2024

A Japanese monthly magazine 'Chou Koron' (Public Discussion) wrote in 1917, 'Brazil is an enormous country, 21 times bigger than Japan and can accommodate hundreds of millions more inhabitants than now. In South America, the Japanese are welcomed, the soil is rich, and many of the customs of the people resemble ours. There is plenty of room for millions of Japanese in this part of the world".

The Japanese took this report seriously. Today, there are over a million people of Japanese descent in Brazil, which has the largest number of Japanese outside Japan. Peru has the second largest, followed by Mexico and Argentina. There are an estimated 1.5 million Japanese descendants in Latin America.

'The Japanese in Latin America (Asian American experience)', a book published in March 2024, brings out interesting and comprehensive information on Japanese immigration into Latin America, their experience in the new continent, their trauma during the Second World War and their impact on Latin America. The author Daniel M. Masterson is a professor of history in the US. He has got collaboration with a US-Japanese scholar Sayaka Funada-Classen who has done research and interviews with people of Japanese descent in Latin America.

The Japanese had come to Latin America as contract labourers to work in agriculture, mines, infrastructure projects and industries. They suffered hardship and racial discrimination. During the Second World War, they were persecuted and some of them were deported to internment camps in the US. However, the Japanese have survived and integrated into Latin American society. They have blended the Japanese qualities of stoicism, teamwork and seriousness with the light-hearted Latino and Samba and Salsa-loving life.

The Japanese people did not emigrate on their own. They were encouraged to do so by the strategic policy of the Japanese government which sought to populate other parts of the world with their people. The government of Japan had signed a series of commercial treaties with some Latin American nations in the 1880s which facilitated immigration to the region. The Japanese government supported emigration with subsidies for travel costs and credit for colonizing projects. There were over fifty private emigration companies sending out Japanese abroad in the 1900s. They recruited and transported contract immigrants, extended loans to the immigrants and invested in colonisation projects abroad in collaboration with the government. They operated training Centers with courses in Portuguese and Spanish languages.

Japanese immigrants went first to Mexico and Peru in the late 1890s. In 1897, the Japanese established an immigrant colony in Chiapas, Mexico. This was organised by the former Japanese Minister of Foreign Relations and ardent proponent of immigration, Takeaki Enomoto. His enterprise purchased 160,550 acres of land for the project. But this experiment failed. In 1899, a group of 790 Japanese male labourers arrived to work in the coastal sugar plantations of Peru. A small group of 126 Japanese arrived in Chile in 1903, while Cuba and Argentina recorded their first few arrivals in 1907.

In 1907, the US restricted Japanese immigration with the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” signed with the Japanese government. Canada followed suit. The US also put pressure on Mexico and Central America to restrict Japanese immigration since some of the immigrants started moving illegally to the US. After this, the Japanese targeted South America more seriously and systematically for emigration.

In 1908, about 800 Japanese immigrants, mostly in family groups, arrived in Brazil to work in the coffee plantations in Sao Paulo State. In the next three decades, the Japanese moved in large numbers to Brazil and in smaller groups to twelve Latin American nations.

Two individuals namely Tanaka, an official of the Morioka Company and Augusto Leguía, a prominent sugar planter and future president of Peru were primarily responsible for initiating Japanese immigration to Peru under the contract labour system in 1899. Subsequent negotiations between the Japanese and Peruvian governments led to the issuance of a decree by President Nicolas Pierola that permitted Japanese contract labour under an initial four-year agreement. This decree stipulated that the recruits were to be primarily experienced male agricultural workers between twenty and forty-five years of age who would work ten hours a day in the cane fields or twelve hours in the sugar mill.

Japanese immigration to Brazil differed from that to Spanish America in that it was heavily subsidised and accompanied by significant capital investment by the Japanese. An agreement for Japanese immigration to Brazil was signed in 1907 by Ryo Mizuno, president of the company Toyo Imin Gaisha with the Brazilian President Jorge Tibirica to bring 3,000 Japanese immigrants to Sao Paulo. These immigrants were to be "agriculturalists fit for farming" and were to consist of families of three to ten members each. They were to be paid on a piecework basis at a rate of 450 to 500 reis (25 to 50 US cents) for every fifty kilos of coffee beans picked.

The Japanese established an administrative agency called as the Federation of Immigration Cooperative Societies under a law passed by the Diet in March 1927. They had created 44 societies in Japan’s 47 prefectures by the mid-1930s. The government extended about $800,000 in loans to the federation to acquire 541,112 acres of land in Sao Paulo and Parana states for colonization. They established another company Sociedade Colonizadora do Brasil Limitada (Brazilian Colonization Company) under Brazilian law to administer the Japanese colonies. This company was used to acquire real estate and construct the infrastructure of roads and common facilities.

In 1926, the Japanese Overseas Development Company (KKKK) purchased 500 acres of land in the province of Cauca, near Cali in Colombia to set up a colony. The company paid for the colonists’ passage as well as their initial local expenses in Colombia. Later, they allowed the colonists to buy their own land.

According to the Japanese foreign ministry, a total of 243279 Japanese had migrated to Latin America from 1899 to 1941 with the following break-up: Brazil 187681, Peru 33067, Mexico 14566 and Argentina 5398.

The Japanese entry into the Second World War and their devastating defeat caused trauma for the Japanese Latin Americans. The Latin American governments interned or removed the Japanese from their homes to more secure areas. They froze the bank accounts of the Japanese, confiscated their radios and phones, banned publications in Japanese, restricted their travel and prohibited gatherings of more than five. They deported about 2000 Japanese to the United States for internment, as requested by the US government. The vast majority of these deportees were Japanese Peruvians.

After the end of the War, the Japanese resumed emigration in 1952. About 50,000 went to Brazil and a few hundred to Bolivia and Paraguay. Many of these post-World War immigrants were from war-torn Okinawa, which was administratively separate from Japan and under direct U.S. military rule. The U.S. government strongly encouraged this immigration because of the economic difficulties of the Okinawan people and the need to acquire land for the military bases on the island. The US administration provided loans and subsidies to these emigrants.

Under an agreement between the Japanese and Bolivian governments, the immigrants were to “dedicate themselves to professions in agriculture and animal husbandry and to demonstrate industry, honour, and aptitude for work.” The Bolivian government granted 87,198 acres of land with a share of 110 acres for each Japanese household.

The Paraguayan dictator Strossner actively encouraged Japanese immigration in his home region of Encarnacion on the border with Argentina. In 1956, he gave land for two colonies to be settled by the Japanese. The Japanese government extended to the colonists credit for tractors, vehicles and construction equipment.

Strossner’s example was followed by the Dominican Republic dictator Trujillo who had invited Japanese immigrants to settle near the border with Haiti in a clear effort to discourage further Haitian immigration in this sensitive area. After Trujillo’s assassination in May 1961, most of the Dominican Republic’s Japanese left.

The first-generation Japanese immigrants worked as labourers in agriculture, rubber plantations, sugar mills, mines, and road and railway projects, apart from taking up low-level jobs as carpenters, and barbers (there were more than sixty Japanese-owned barbershops in Cuba by the mid-1920s), waiters, taxi drivers, dry cleaners (The Japanese operated more than 500 dry cleaners out of the total 800 dry cleaners in Buenos Aires city in the early 1950s) and even as domestic helpers. They suffered enormous hardship, racial discrimination and abuse in Latin America. The Peruvians called the Japanese Chino macacos (Chinese monkeys) equating them with the Chinese who had come earlier as coolies.

The first immigrants to Latin America were overwhelmingly male contract labourers who sought to better themselves financially and then returned to Japan. Only a few returned to Japan. Later, during the periodic economic crises in Latin America and after the emergence of Japan as a prosperous country, Japanese immigration reversed. Some third-generation Japanese have gone back to Japan temporarily and a few permanently for better jobs and economic stability.

But most of the descendants of Japanese immigrants have stayed and become full citizens of Latin America. They have steadily climbed up the social ladder into the middle class with education and entrepreneurship. The Japanese Brazilians have even entered politics at the local, regional, and national levels becoming ministers, mayors and members of legislative bodies. Alberto Fujimori became the President of Peru in 1990 and continued for ten years till 2000. His daughter Keiko Fujimori is head of a political party which has a number of seats in the Congress. She contested the presidential elections three times but lost narrowly. She has a chances of becoming President in the future.

President Alberto Fujimori started off in 1990 as a Meiji reformer by ending the guerilla insurgency, taming hyperinflation and transforming the economy. But in the end, he turned out like a typical Latino Caudillo (strong man) trampling democracy, abolishing the Congress and ruling as an autocrat. He got elected for a third time in 2001 by manipulating the constitution and rigging the elections. But he faced strong public protests. When the criminal and corruption scandals erupted in November 2001, he fled to Japan from where he sent in his resignation by fax, in a bizarre way.

The Japanese government gave asylum to him, issued a Japanese passport and refused the Peruvian request for extradition. But Fujimori did not want to fade into quiet retirement. He came to Chile with the intention of entering Peru but was arrested and extradited to Peru in 2005. He was sentenced to 25 years in jail for human rights abuse crimes. He was released in December 2023. On 14 July this year, he announced his candidacy in the Presidential election to be held in 2026, when he would be 88 years old. On 9 August 2024, the Peruvian government issued a law against the prosecution of crimes against humanity committed before 2002. Fujimori is the most important beneficiary of this.

The Fujimori story is like one of the Magical Realism novels of Maria Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian Nobel Prize winner for literature. Fujimori beat Llosa in the 1990 Presidential election. Since then, Llosa has become a permanent enemy and fierce critic of Fujimori. The juicy story of Fujimori is an ideal material for a Llosa novel. It is surprising that Llosa has not ventured to write a novel based on the story of Fujimori. Maybe because Fujimori the Japanese macho, has outdone the typical Latino Caudillos, beyond the Latino imagination of Llosa.

at-the-heart-of-power-review-ups-political-journey-through-its-cms

Fri Aug 09 23:31:42 IST 2024

No other state has exerted as much influence on the country’s polity as Uttar Pradesh. Getting a stamp of approval from the state is important for anyone to rule the country. The state has given nine out of the 15 prime ministers. So, those who get to rule Uttar Pradesh must have special skills to survive.

Journalist Shyamlal Yadav’s book ‘At The Heart of Power - The Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh’ encapsulates the journey of Uttar Pradesh’s 21 chief ministers.

From the first CM, Govind Ballabh Pant to the longest serving, Yogi Adityanath, and everyone in between including Mayawati, with a maximum of four tenures and also the first one to last a full term, two CMs who went on to become Prime Ministers - Chaudhary Charan Singh and V.P. Singh - and some like Mulayam Singh who missed the PM’s post by a whisker, the book tells the fascinating story of all.

In the process, the tumultuous journey of the state has been captured, in the book, through the governance styles and key decisions, some hits and many missteps, of these main protagonists. In fact, the key events of the state shaped the nature of national politics. To make sense of national politics, it is necessary to understand the state.

Since the last Congress government led by Narayan Dutt Tewari in 1989, the politics and power have oscillated between Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Party and the BJP. Mayawati, the second women Chief Minister of the state after Sucheta Kripalani - the first ever women CM in the country - was the first CM to complete a full tenure in the state since she was elected in 2007. After her, Akhilesh Yadav completed his full tenure and Yogi has become the first CM to hold the post for two consecutive posts.

The OBC-driven caste politics of the state defined by the likes of Kalyan Singh, Mulayam Singh and Akhilesh Yadav, which showed its impact during the last Lok Sabha polls as the issue of social justice promised through a caste census resonated in the polls.

The Dalit resurgence and consolidation under Mayawati has made them a potent vote bank that the parties cannot ignore.

The emergence of Hindutva sentiment started with the Ram Janambhoomi movement, which started with the appearance of Ram Lala’s idols in Babri Masjid during the tenure of first CM, Govind Ballabh Pant to firing on karsevaks during Mulayam’s tenure to the demolition of the mosque during Kalyan Singh’s tenure culmination with the building of grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya under Yogi government. Yogi’s free rein, police-criminal encounters and use of bulldozers have found resonance in many other states, especially ruled by the BJP.

Uttar Pradesh overshadows other states through its politics, which thus is reflected through the books written on the state and its leaders. This book stands out as it captures the entire political landscape of the state through all its chief ministers.

The amount of research which Yadav has done to present the story of UP’s CMs shines through the pages of the book. Peppered with anecdotes and some key slogans of the time captures the spirit of Uttar Pradesh and its politics. The book is a must-read for those who want to understand the political history of the state in a concise and chronological manner. It is a valuable addition to political literature on Uttar Pradesh and would be useful for students of politics, researchers, and social scientists.

breaking-rocks-and-barriers-review-geologist-and-mountaineer-sudipta-sengupta-narrates-her-adventures-in-memoir

Wed Aug 07 15:49:22 IST 2024

Sudipta Sengupta became a geologist almost by accident. She had decided to study physics after passing her higher secondary exams in 1962. At her interview for admission to Jadavpur University, she was asked what she liked to do most in her free time. “Travel,” she replied. “Then why choose physics?” asked one of the professors. “You should study geology. You will be able to travel a lot during your course and later in your work, too—geologists travel all their life.” Her course in life had been set. She immediately struck off physics and wrote geology in the application form. Thus began her love affair with geology, what she calls “the music of the earth”. She soon found the second love of her life—mountaineering. It came naturally to her, she writes, perhaps because of her childhood practice of running down slopes in Nepal and Kalimpong.

In her new book Breaking Rocks and Barriers, Sengupta describes the adventures she has had as a geologist and mountaineer—from “unexpected encounters with snakes in the Jaduguda mines of Bihar and trekking across a ‘black glacier’ in Norway to being engulfed by a thundercloud in Sweden and being greeted by a flock of penguins in Antarctica”.

Doing what she does is difficult, but doing it as a woman is near impossible. In India, she writes, geology was never a preferred subject of study for girls. When she started her undergraduate course in geology there were only two girls in her class of 25 students. But the struggles, she says, have been worth it, both in geology and mountaineering.

“Since my childhood, I had observed those peaks from a distance and they had seemed so far away, out of reach,” she writes about her first mountaineering experience. “Now I was standing in their midst, taking in their grandeur and feeling so far away from the mundane existence of everyday life. I felt small in front of such greatness. It was the same sort of wonder I feel even now when I look at the clear night sky with its innumerable shining stars.”

The book is narrated simply and conversationally. There is no need for Sengupta to adorn her writing. Her adventures speak for themselves.

Title: Breaking Rocks and Barriers

Author: Sudipta Sengupta

Published by HarperCollins

Price: Rs499

Pages: 272

shikwa-e-hind-review-tracing-the-legacy-of-shaheen-bagh

Sat Aug 03 18:27:15 IST 2024

"For some, Shaheen Bagh is dead. For others, it is alive and kicking – at least in thoughts, in memories, and imagination. And there is politics in thoughts, in memories and imagination. Shaheen Bagh is the protest movement that unleashed fresh air in a country that was feeling acutely suffocated by the unprecedented domination of the Hindu Right," writes Mujibur Rehman in his book on the political future of Indian Muslims.

The noted academician, who teaches at Jamia Millia Central University, New Delhi, has in his book 'Shikwa-e-Hind – The Political Future of Indian Muslims', dealt with the significance of the protest held at Shaheen Bagh against the Citizenship Amendment Act and writes about how it is symbolic of the question about the political future of the Indian Muslim at this juncture.

He writes that the Shaheen Bagh agitation left behind an enduring legacy of a protest movement that challenged stereotypes regarding Muslim women, and aspirations for equal citizenship for people regardless of their class, creed, and gender.

The protest and its immediate political context provide the issue that the book deals with, which is the political future of Muslims in India, a sense of contemporariness. The author describes the backdrop. He says Indian Muslims are currently living under pervasive fear in an India that is increasingly embracing Hindu majoritarian politics. "Finding themselves as targets of lynching, bulldozer justice, frequent riots for trivial or often for no reason, and subject to random violence in this new majoritarian state, they have started asking if they have any rights at all as citizens in India," he writes.

Rehman notes that two political events have played a crucial role in shaping the present predicament of Indian Muslims – the partition and the Ayodhya movement. He assesses that if the partition made the Muslim identity vulnerable and provided the Hindu right to raise questions about Muslim loyalty forever, the Ayodhya movement has made the Muslim identity undesirable in modern electoral politics.

According to Rehman, for Indian Muslims, challenges regarding their future or political future are an internal issue and they have to deal with them by crafting strategies on their own.

“They have a lot to learn from Dalit activism or activism of the African American community as well, among others. India is an electoral democracy, and likely to remain so despite possible distortions under Hindu majoritarian regimes,” he writes.

Book: Shikwa-e-Hind – The Political Future of Indian Muslims by Mujibur Rehman

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Price: Rs 999; Pages 360

sinema-review-knives-behind-hugs

Sun Jul 28 09:51:39 IST 2024

In this rollercoaster ride through the innards of Bollywood, we see all that we have sniggered at, salivated over, rumoured roguishly and gossiped about – everything in fact that we will turn our up nose at, and still be eager for more. Sinema is the debut novel of Vikram Singh, a Bollywood insider, who knows enough about the industry to let a litter of cats – snarling and yowling – out of the bag.

The story of a film producer whom Lady Luck has ditched is craftily plotted. So craftily in fact that you don’t realise it is a long clothesline to hang everything that is sensational about cinema. While ostensibly we are following the trajectory of a blighted film being made, un-made and re-made, we are actually seeing the industry ruthlessly caricatured. Stars throw tantrums, starlets do what is expected of them, sidekicks willingly – almost masochistically – accept whatever is their lot, the director mimics Satyajit Ray and the producer lords it over all until the ominous underworld cramps his style.

The narrative moves at a frenetic pace with as many twists, turns and somersaults as Nitish Kumar on steroids. It is a crazy world but, in some ways, no crazier than the world we inhabit. Pretence, professional incompetence and hypocrisy are everywhere but in Bollywood, they come flashily dressed. When rivals run into each other at an awards show, they respond with effusive arm clasps although they may have been plotting blue murder the previous minute. We have come to realise by now that the film business has more hugs per capita than any other. As expected, there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies in cinema circles (are things any different in real life?). As the protagonist confessed about a fickle colleague: “…he is my friend when convenient.”

While the story is engaging, there are passages towards the latter part of the book where you feel the author is indulging himself. Perhaps the services of Mavik – the indefatigable editor of the film being produced — would have come in handy.

Although there is much that is wrong with the dream factories of Mumbai, Singh is no whistle-blower. He doesn’t climb the moral high ground. If a whistle did indeed come to hand, my guess is he would do no more than whistle an appropriate number from ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’.

Books about Bollywood are legion but this one stands out because the author is able to distance himself from the goings-on. He also has the sense of humour to laugh at himself. He is not going to be alone; many of his readers will join in.

Book title: Sinema

Author: Vikram Singh

Publisher: Speaking Tiger

Price: Rs 499; pages: 351

destination-delhi-review-tale-of-a-migrants-dream-of-making-the-city-his-own

Fri Jul 26 22:53:34 IST 2024

To ask what it means to be a Delhiite is to open a Pandora's box of questions- there are simply too many things that define those who live in the capital city. History has recorded people migrating to “Dhillika” (the earliest recorded name for Delhi by the Tomar dynasty) as early as the 12th century for official business, religious visits, or to pay respects to the ruler. Although it has had several names, the city has maintained its importance as a happening hub for educational and career prospects among others.

In his book, “Destination Delhi: A Migrant’s Tale” Tomojit Bhattacharya describes several stories of his adventures in Delhi. From battering the Delhi heat after being kicked out from his rented flat to learning an important life lesson from a young shoe polish boy, Bhattacharya’s stories are laced with humorous observations and insightful musings. The migrant experience in Delhi is of several shades: the busy streets, loud people, big supermarkets, extensive line of bus routes and a rich history that resides in every red-brick.

Bhattacharya’s stories echo the anxieties and dreams of all those who leave their towns and villages in hopes of building a life in Delhi. In the chapter- “Saala Main To Sahab Ban Gaya” he talks about the lesser-talked-about art of ordering food at upscale restaurants and hotels after a penne-fully (painfully) embarrassing fiasco. He also touched poignant points about the lack of appreciation for North-Eastern food (beyond the much-loved momo) when Bhattacharya and his flatmates attempted to cook an Assamese delicacy, shidol and were immediately reprimanded by their landlady for its smell.

The book's second half introduces Pratik, a character whose journey through the city is marked by a series of unexpected encounters, including a supernatural experience, a budding romance, and a sorrowful exploration of the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

So grab a cuppa and read along to this joyful train ride of a book which is nothing less than a wholesome and easy read. Packed with heartfelt anecdotes as well as painfully honest accounts of making a living in Delhi, the book attempts to describe the migrant who dreams of making the city their own. After all, Delhi is a city built by dreamers.

raid-tales-a-saga-from-macau-to-lisbon

Thu Jul 25 15:56:50 IST 2024

“What we had in common - our restlessness, our impassioned spirits, and a love for the open road.”

Che Guevara

The road stretched before them was a 22,000km open artery connecting distant lands. Their three Pajeros —aptly named Macau, Taipa, and Coloane—embarked on a mission: to celebrate Macau’s culture and commemorate the 500th anniversary of Portuguese maritime exploration.

It all felt like watching a movie, as they knitted tales of laughter shared at roadside diners, the quiet moments under star-studded skies, and the camaraderie forged in adversity. They encountered the unexpected: a forgotten village, a hidden oasis, a melody carried by the wind.

Each mile etches memories into their souls, and every border crossed leaves its mark.

As they traverse landscapes, they echo Che’s words: “I now know, by an almost fatalistic conformity with the facts, that my destiny is to travel.” And as they transcend geography, it gradually becomes a pilgrimage—a quest for understanding, compassion, and connection.

And so, dear readers, fasten your seatbelt. The road awaits, and the book II Raid Macau-Lisbon beckons. Let us ride together, guided by great feelings of love, echoing the spirit of Che Guevara—the revolutionary who understood that revolutions begin within, fuelled by the rhythm of wheels on asphalt and the heartbeat of shared dreams.

The book recalls the II Macau-Lisbon Raid of 1990, a trip led by ten multi-national lovers of off-road and adventure who decided to take a land route between Macau and Lisbon, crossing several countries in Asia and Europe, just with 4x4 SUVs.

Among the intrepid travellers were Joaquim Correia, a librarian at the University of Macau; Mário Sin, former president of the Macau Automobile Club; António Calado, a technician at the Macau Sports Institute; Fernando Silva, a doctor; and António Teixeira, a Macau Grand Prix mechanic. The group was also joined by Filipe Kuan, Ha Son, TDM's (Macau Broadcasting) image reporter, and James Jacinto, TDM's director.

The adventure unfolded with a traditional Dragon Dance ceremony at Portas do Cerco, by the Macau government representatives and the Chinese community. Guided by Sin, they travelled across China—Zhuhai, Canton, Xian, Beijing—following the Silk Road’s ancient path. The Gobi Desert whispered secrets, and the Chinese Air Force jets roared overhead.

Into the Soviet Union, they ventured, joined by Russian journalists Igor Lomakin and Serguei Moizeev. Alma Ata marked their border crossing, and Radio Moscow chronicled their journey.

The Soviet Union’s tourism department generously covered their expenses, from food, and lodgings to fuel.

They travelled 21,246 km between Asia and Europe, having crossed two deserts and lived with “the demonstrations that animated Moscow at the time of Perestroika”. The crew even endured temperatures close to 50 degrees.

“Overcoming these obstacles was the first sign to the navigation that this group would not give up easily, it was more likely to break than to give up. If there was madness in the enterprise, it needed the stubbornness of well-tempered steel to be successful,” says journalist João Figueira.

Wreckage, resilience and memories

On August 18, the II Macau-Lisbon Raid entered the Soviet Union, travelling through Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan, with a brief halt in Baku.

The journey to Georgia was particularly challenging, culminating in an early morning arrival after over 11 hours of driving. The team's late arrival was due to two flat tyres and a near-fatal encounter, says Mário Sin. He vividly described the terrifying moment when he almost drove off a cliff in the dark, narrowly avoiding disaster by instinctively manoeuvring the jeep away from danger.

Reflecting on the incident, Sin was reluctant to undertake such a perilous journey

again, emphasizing the fine line between bravery and recklessness. The experience left him deeply shaken, as he realized how close they had come to catastrophe. The night in Georgia, marked by fatigue and near tragedy, was a turning point for Sin and his comrades, highlighting the extreme risks of their adventure.

The team's resilience was continually tested throughout their journey in the Soviet Union. They faced numerous challenges, including the exhausting drive and the critical situation in Georgia. Despite these obstacles, they persevered, with the cooks waiting to nourish the weary travellers upon their arrival in Georgia.

Their journey continued through Hungary, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, France, and Spain. Each trip brought its own challenges, including a daring 370-kilometre drive through Germany without sleep.

Homecoming

Finally, on September 12, the expedition reached Portugal, entering through Vilar Formoso and resting in Guarda. They made a mandatory stop in Bairrada for a gastronomic treat of succulent suckling pigs before heading to Lisbon. The gruelling journey had transformed them, with fatigue dampening their initial eagerness to drive.

They developed coping strategies, such as using cold beers at lunch as an excuse to share driving duties. The adventure had left an indelible mark on them, teaching them to appreciate the balance between ambition and caution.

But reflexes prevailed, and the II Macau-Lisbon Raid culminated on September 13, next to the Monument to the Discoveries in Belém, Lisbon. And as the memories of the great voyage fade, Joaquim Correia and Fernando Silva’s daily chronicle echoes across social media, the expedition’s doc-film also graced global screens, etching their triumphs into the annals of adventure. And now the book will immortalize their 21,246-kilometer odyssey along with a 72-pg—comic book. The II Macau-Lisbon Raid—a saga etched in roads, camaraderie, laughter, exhaustion and shared experiences now finally ends its final chapter.

the-other-valley-review-a-gripping-fiction-that-explores-time-travel

Fri Jul 05 14:26:39 IST 2024

Time is perhaps the one thing we take for granted in this life. The fact that it is fixed, even as it moves, is the bedrock of our existence. It is the one certainty that guarantees all other certainties. But what if it weren’t? What if it were possible for three different versions of ourselves to exist simultaneously, one in the past, present and future? This is the premise of Scott Alexander Howard’s novel, The Other Valley, in which life exists in valleys separated not by distance, but by time. Each valley is set 20 years ahead of the one before it. So, in the valley to the east, you are 20 years older, and in the one to the west, you are 20 years younger.

The borders of each valley are heavily patrolled by the police force or the Gendarmerie, because if someone crosses to the west or east and changes something there, the whole flow of time is altered, and the ripple effects could be disastrous in your valley. The only body that can decide whether people can travel to other valleys is the Conseil, which assesses each petition to see if it has merit. The petitioners allowed to cross are only those who want a last glimpse of a loved one who is no more, but is still alive in another valley.

Sixteen-year-old Odile’s future as a Conseillere is all but a foregone conclusion, if only it were not for Edme, the boy she likes. A chance encounter with visitors from the east convinces her that something’s about to happen to him. Is any alternate reality that includes him still within reach? If so, to what lengths will she go to reach it?

The Other Valley’s greatest strength is its plausibility. Howard crafts his world with such meticulous care that one can almost forget that it does not exist. The dusty odor of the chalk in Odile’s classroom; the small fort in the backwoods behind her school where she meets Edme and the others; the conservatory where Edme practices his violin; the Grand Ecole, where classes are held for those vying for Conseil apprenticeships – all are described in brilliant detail.

Later, as a grown Odile’s life starts unravelling, it is almost as if the changes are not just happening inside her, but outside in the landscape as well, which turns dull, uncaring, soulless. Gone are the sun-pooled lakes and hilltops, the bluff’s edge where Edme plays for her, the promenade by the sea, suffused with the “summery smell of sunscreen and fried dough”.

Howard so skilfully builds up Odile’s character that in the end, her disillusionment is almost tangible. In one passage, as she sits in her ramshackle quarters and turns on the radio, she hears a composition by Edme, and its haunting beauty is the perfect counterfoil to her own emptiness. Howard poignantly describes her experience of listening to the music. “It did not sound like the work of a child,” he writes. “There were sections I had found sad when it was just his violin, but together with the other instruments, the piece acquired a wistfulness, sometimes even touches of sly humour. There was the rushing middle section he had struggled to perfect: this adult violinist did it effortlessly. The quickness crested and fell again, like flung leaves floating back to earth, and then it was over.”

After a slow build-up, the story tips into a climax that I did not see coming. It seemed to suggest that in the end of every story lies the beginning of another. And if there are cracks between the two, time will always find ways to paper them over.

BOOK DETAILS

The Other Valley

By Scott Alexander Howard

Published by Atlantic Books

Price Rs699; pages 290

bitter-fruit-the-story-of-the-american-coup-in-guatemala-review

Tue Jul 02 13:43:43 IST 2024

Banana, a sweet and common fruit, became a bitter fruit for Guatemala.

United Fruit Corporation (UFCO), an American company, was the monopoly producer and exporter of bananas from Guatemala in the first half of the twentieth century. The company became more than a banana monopoly. It functioned as a state within a state. It was the largest land owner in the country with about 550,000 acres.

The company controlled the main port Puerto Barrios and the town around it. Any business seeking to export or import goods through the port was at the mercy of the company for charges, terms and conditions.

UFCO owned the IRCA rail line, the only means of moving products to and from Puerto Barrios. IRCA was charging the highest freight rate in the world.

UFCO was running the telegraph and telephone service of the country.

UFCO was the largest employer in the country.

In essence, the company had nearly complete control over the nation’s international commerce and domestic economy.

The company had used its clout to get the best deal from the country’s corrupt ruling establishment who had granted the company exemption from taxation, duty-free importation of goods and a guarantee of low wages and restrictions on trade unions.

But the company faced challenges from the leftist President Jacobo Arbenz who assumed the presidency in March 1951. He was a nationalist with ideals of helping the poor and reducing the exploitation of the country by UFCO and the local oligarchs. He initiated policies for poverty alleviation, protection of labor and better educational system. He started land reforms by expropriating uncultivated land from the rich (after compensating the owners with government bonds). During the first eighteen months of the program, his government distributed 1.5 million acres to some 100,000 peasants. The properties expropriated included 1,700 acres owned by President Arbenz himself and another 1,200 acres owned by his friend and later Foreign Minister Guillermo Toriello.

In 1953, the Arbenz government seized 209,842 acres of the UFCO’s uncultivated land. The government offered $627,572 of compensation in bonds, based on UFCO’s declared tax value of the land. But UFCO had undervalued its property in official declarations in order to reduce its already insignificant tax liability. But now that the declared value was being used to determine compensation, the company howled in protest. On April 20, 1954, a formal complaint was delivered to Guatemalan authorities, not by the company but by the U. S. State Department. The note demanded $16 million in compensation basing its claim on international law, which, it contended, required fair compensation for lands seized from foreigners despite domestic laws. The amount offered by Guatemala averaged about $2.99 per acre, while the State Department wanted over $75 per acre; the company had paid $1.48 per acre when it bought the land nearly twenty years earlier. In the negotiations, the United States ambassador took the lead on the side of the company. Guatemalan Foreign Minister Guillermo Toriello refused to accept the State Department note, branding it “another attempt to meddle in the internal affairs of Guatemala”.

Many influential members of the American establishment had personal interest or stake in UF. These included Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and John Moors Cabot, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, whose family owned stock in the company. His brother Thomas had served as president of the corporation in 1948. American ambassador to UN Henry Cabot Lodge was a stockholder. He had been a vigorous public defender of UFCO while he was senator from Massachusetts. The wife of Edmund Whitman, UFCO’s public relations director, was Eisenhower’s personal secretary, Anne Whitman. Undersecretary of State Bedell Smith was seeking an executive job with UFCO while helping to plan the coup against Guatemala (he later was named to its board of directors). Robert Hill, ambassador to Costa Rica during the coup, was close to the UFCO hierarchy, having worked for Grace Shipping Lines, which had interests in Guatemala. In 1960, he became a director of UFCO.

The US State department, CIA and UFCO started a coordinated malicious propaganda campaign against President Arbenz calling him as a communist and falsely accusing that Guatemala was becoming a beach head for Soviets. UFCO appointed a PR firm which lobbied with the American Congress and the media feeding them fake news and lies. The firm produced a 94-page study, called “Report on Central America 1954” according to which Guatemala was ruled by a Communist regime bent on conquering Central America and seizing the Panama Canal. The US media such as New York Times carried such propaganda and amplified it through their own reporters sent to Guatemala as guests of UFCO.

The United States Information Agency cranked up a more sophisticated crusade. Its propagandists wrote more than 200 articles, made twenty-seven thousand copies of anti-Communist cartoons and posters and distributed them to US and Latin American newspapers. The agency shipped more than 100,000 copies of a pamphlet called “Chronology of Communism in Guatemala” throughout Latin America. It produced special movies and radio commentaries and distributed them across the hemisphere.

Even the American Catholic establishment collaborated with the CIA. Cardinal Spellman of New York arranged clandestine contacts between Guatemalan Archbishop Mariano Rossell Arellano and a CIA agent. The Guatemalan priests read a pastoral letter in all the churches calling the attention of citizens to the presence of Communism in the country and demanding that the people should rise against this enemy of God and country. The CIA air-dropped thousands of leaflets of the pastoral message all over Guatemala.

The Americans started preparing a ‘regime change’ operation and initiated talks with Guatemalan army officers to overthrow President Arbenz. They chose Colonel Castillo Armas as their man for the job. He was in exile in Honduras after he lost out in a coup attempt earlier. The American ambassador and the CIA officials sorted out the rivalries among the rival presidential contenders from the army and forced everyone to line up behind their man. They used the right wing dictatorship regimes of Honduras, El Salvador and Dominican Republic to establish bases there for supplies to the rebel army. The CIA arranged arms and aircrafts. American planes flew over Guatemala throwing bombs and leaflets causing panic among the public. UFCO provided logistics support through its port, ships and railway lines. The American ambassador bullied the Guatemalan president and openly instigated the army officers to rebel against the government. Finally, the Americans succeeded in overthrowing President Arbenz in June 1954 and sending him out on exile. They made their man Col Armas as President. The American president Eisenhower celebrated the American victory and felicitated CIA and State Department officials involved in the Guatemalan coup. UF rewarded some of the CIA and State Department officials with plum posts.

This Bitter Fruit story of Guatemala is not a Magical Realism fiction by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The book “Bitter fruit: The story of the American coup in Guatemala” is the work of two American authors namely Stephen Schlesinger (Director of the World Policy Institute, a foreign policy think-tank at the New school in New York) and Stephen Kinzer (a journalist who has written extensively on Latin America in media such as New York Times and became Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University) They have done a thorough research of the unclassified US government and CIA documents and interviewed some of those involved in the story from both sides. They have used the research materials themselves to narrate the events, like in a novel. They published this book in 1982 and updated it in 2005.

Guatemala was the first case of “regime change” operation by the US. It was a guinea pig and test laboratory for CIA. It was this success in Guatemala which encouraged the Americans to try regime changes in other countries of Latin America and the rest of the world. The US followed the same formula to overthrow the leftist President Allende in Chile in 1973.

The US installed military dictator Castillo Armas was succeeded by other military regimes in the next three decades. These regimes in collaboration with the local oligarchy had ruined the country with their oppressive policies and atrocities. Naturally, people rose in revolt and leftist guerilla groups sprang up. The US came to the help of the dictators to counter the insurgencies. They trained of Guatemalan military and police in counter insurgency operations and supplied arms. The US posted their own military officers in Guatemala to direct and advise the Guatemalan security forces. The US planes, based in Panama, dropped napalm bombs on areas suspected of being guerrilla haunts.

Guatemala suffered more than two hundred thousand killings during the civil war. The Guatemalan military was responsible for ninety-three percent of the murders. The indigenous people of Guatemala, who constitute the majority of the population but have been historically excluded and marginalized, suffered the worst. The death and destruction of the civil war made people to migrate to the US. The end of the civil war and restoration of democracy in the late nineties had not given any relief to the people. The civil war has been replaced by gang wars which have made Guatemala as one of the countries with the highest murder rates in the world.

El Salvador and Honduras neighboring Guatemala have also suffered the same fate. The American supported military dictatorships of these countries destroyed their countries with oppression and unleashing civil wars. The Americans used all the three countries as bases for their “Contra Wars” to destabilize the Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the eighties. More destruction and death followed. The civil wars were followed by gang wars especially in the Northern Triangle of Violence which includes Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The continuing violence has made hundreds of thousands of people to flee and migrate to the US. The guns used for crimes and violence by the gangs are mostly American guns trafficked illegally through the thousands of gun shops in the border with Mexico.

The problem of immigration of Central Americans into the US is, therefore, an inevitable and logical consequence of the destruction of these countries by the US. It is a ‘No Brainer’ as the American would say.

The author is an expert in Latin American affairs

neerada-suresh-alignment-review-poems-that-celebrate-nothing-yet-everything

Tue Jul 02 11:08:14 IST 2024

There is nothing strikingly unconventional about the way writer Neerada Suresh pens her poetry in her latest collection ‘Alignment’. At times, she picks on gender roles, and at others, she talks about distances in relationships. She gives voice to the ‘Married Muteness’ and at other times, she reminisces about the past as she talks about aging parents.

The burden of ‘unmarried daughters’, their ‘mounting debts and migrant labour’ becomes a metaphor for the cost women pay for marriage while ‘In Retrospect’ is a reflection of ‘The Road Not Taken.’ ‘Falling Out with the Pigeons’, sealing open home spaces in order to ward off pigeons, thus, robbing them of their habitat.

It is the burden of domesticity that Neerada tends to explore in 'Alignment'.

‘When Rohan Kaul is away,
His house comes alive
in a disorderly way…’
‘But when Rohan Kaul is in,
Newspapers stand stacked…
Paintings, curtains, cushions, sofas
all tell a tamed tale.’
In “Sorrows”, she says,
‘Sorrows
like a newborn
arranged itself
in my arms
purring in content
as if to say
never let me go.’
Suresh’s “Of Anthropomorphic Androids”, says,
‘Rift is when a grown son
gets polite with you
on silent mode
drifting away from you.’

The poet picks up the nitty gritties of life, sometimes evoking memories, fantasies, regrets, emotional barriers, through her words. She does not elevate to the metaphysical nor romanticise her words – instead Neerada takes out pages from our everyday lives, looking at trivial events and their deep-scarring impacts within. She celebrates emotions as well as the fragmentation and simplification of relationships, ethics, morals and principles, ushered in by a digital era, which has brought along its companions loneliness and disconnect. It talks about the roles forced upon us, the unseen shackles that they tie us with, the vice of distance in relationships, the price women often pay and seeking validation outside.

Educator, translator and writer Neerada’s third volume of poetry ‘Alignment’ published by Current Books, an imprint of DC Books.

to-every-parent-to-every-school-review-life-is-a-marathon-not-a-sprint-says-the-book-on-parenting

Mon Jul 01 11:46:27 IST 2024

Parenting is a tricky business, and comes with no user manual on how to raise children the right way. Each child is different and there is no one-size-fits-all formula to ensure they grow up into mature, empathetic, and balanced individuals. Still, there are certain guidelines, and in this VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world that we live in, parents will be wise to pay them heed.

The first thing is to understand the times we are living in. For example, today there is undue importance given to competition over cooperation. The system rewards winners. The sense of competition is so acute that it extends even to possessions like iPhones and backpacks. If your neighbour’s child has the latest version, your child will relentlessly nag you for an upgrade. “There is a need to shift focus away from competition to cooperation, as life needs to be viewed as a marathon, where the primary competition is with oneself, rather than against others in a sprint-like race,” write veteran educators V. Raghunathan and Meena Raghunathan in their latest book, To Every Parent, To Every School – Raising Resilient Children in a VUCA world.

The authors are extremely qualified to write on this topic. V. Raghunathan is a prolific author and columnist who has written 15 books and was a professor of finance at IIM Ahmedabad for 20 years before taking over as the CEO of GMR Varalakshmi Foundation. Meena Raghunathan worked at the Centre for Environment Education for two decades, where she was involved in developing teacher material, children’s books and curriculum support material and policy documents related to education. Their vast experience in the field of education is reflected in the book, which gives insights and action points for parents, teachers, and schools to help prepare children for the various challenges they will inevitably face in life.

The authors highlight certain missing links in the field of education. For example, the concept of emotional quotient and leadership, which is considered important in the corporate world, is overlooked in our education system, despite research showing their indispensability as early as the 1980s. One of the large-scale studies was conducted in 1998 by Johnson & Johnson’s Consumer Companies (JJCC), which paved the way for emotional intelligence and leadership being included in corporate thinking. The same does not happen with education, which has a longer reaction time to changes, note the authors.

In the book’s 12 chapters, the authors discuss crucial challenges and strategies that can help the education system to make a smooth transition from a mere cognitive learning environment to one that empowers individuals to learn from errors and setbacks. According to the authors, the handicaps of our current education system are many, which fosters an environment ripe for bullying, stress, and suicide and child sexual abuse. They point out that India has the highest suicide rate among youth in Southeast Asia according to the WHO, with almost 2.5 lakh children aged 14 to 18 committing suicides between 2017 and 2019 in India.

“Research indicates that education-related stress can shrink academic achievement, shrivel general motivation and raise the risk of school dropout,” say the Raghunathans, emphasising the importance of concepts like Adversity Quotient – or the ability of an individual to think, manage, direct, and endure challenges and difficulties in life. There are certain things parents can do to promote this – like taking children out of their comfort zones and involving them in activities like trekking, camping, or volunteering.

The book is peppered with real-life examples and success stories, like that of P.C. Musthafa, the son of a daily wager who overcame many adversities to eventually become an engineer and found a Rs300-crore revenue company – ID Fresh Food India Pvt Ltd. It is paramount that children pursue education against all odds, write the Raghunathans.

Also important is inculcating resilience in children, which impacts their lifelong development. Resilient adults exhibit a greater degree of insight, sense of humour, creativity, and moral values, suggest studies. The spirit of never giving up can be instilled in children through real-life stories like that of former national volleyball player Arunima Sinha, who lost her leg after being pushed out of a moving train, but went on to scale Mount Everest with a prosthetic leg, write the authors. According to them, understanding ‘risk’ as a part of every aspect of life early on will help children deal with it better, rather than acknowledging it through trials and tribulations later in life.

Also important is mainstreaming the discourse on child sexual abuse. The global percentage of child sexual abuse is 20 per cent for girls and 8 per cent for boys. The risk of sexual predation cannot be overlooked and India is the sixth most unsafe country for children. “Parents should be vigilant of potential predators and minimise the risk of CSA though we cannot completely raise our children to grow mistrustful of all humanity. Troubled homes attract predators in the form of sympathisers, who promise affection, stability and security and may exploit the child. Lonely children with low self-worth fall prey to predators….,” warn the authors.

Another issue that the book deals with is bullying, citing the experiences of celebrities like Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Jessica Alba, Miley Cyrus, Elon Musk, Michael Phelps, and Muhammad Ali. In an age where academic grades are placed higher than any other accomplishment in life, schools should provide space for hobbies for young people, as they do in countries like Finland, which has one of the best educational systems in the world. Hobbies make people interesting and give an extra dimension to their personality, feel the Raghunathans.

Ultimately, children must be able to adapt to changing realities, because the world which they have inherited is utterly unlike the one in which we grew up, with its own set of challenges, threats, and advantages.

BOOK DETAILS

To Every Parent, To Every School – Raising Resilient Children in a VUCA world

By V Raghunathan and Meena Raghunathan

Published by Penguin Random House India

Price Rs 699; pages 353

unashamed-notes-from-the-diary-of-a-sex-therapist-review-a-book-that-tackles-the-taboo-around-sex-sexuality

Sun Jun 30 13:57:57 IST 2024

Neha Bhat's book, Unashamed: Notes from the Diary of a Sex Therapist, begins with a description of the rocks behind Bandstand in Bandra, Mumbai, which seem to offer some form of refuge to all kinds of people—from college students watching music videos and sharing tiffin to older couples stealing a quiet kiss. "In a morally-policed society like ours, where many of us are implicitly taught to live dual lives to avoid shame and judgement, these quiet rocks seem to offer honest solace for the city’s lovers," she writes.

According to her, our society is a silent catalyst to the shame that many of us feel when it comes to topics like sexuality, mental health and therapy. Bhat, a licenced sex and trauma therapist, posits that our shame is often illegitimate and a result of our culture's repression of anything to do with sex and sexuality. This is illustrated through the stories of her previous patients. Each chapter begins with one and concludes with exercises to help us reflect and deal with our own demons, whatever they may be.

Bhat tackles difficult subjects like sexual assault and trauma in a sensitive manner, offering something akin to a “safe space”. Her academic and professional heft gives authenticity to her views. At the same time, the fact that many of us have faced the issues she addresses makes her writing charmingly relatable. Perhaps this is also an indication of how pervasive this malaise of shame that our society so shamelessly instils in us.

At some point in your life, perhaps right now, have you wondered whether it is wrong to want to be touched by your wife in a way that feels good to you? Or whether you can ever be healed of the sexual abuse you went through as a child? Or whether you should tell your partner about it? At first glance, the answer seems pat. Yet, anyone who has gone through these experiences knows how shame clogs the channel for your healing, how it isolates you in your battle, and how it clouds instead of clearing your confusion.

In fact, shame is the running theme of the book, and she anchors it to the structural issues of Indian society and our communal backwardness. She elaborates on the different ways shame can be expressed or internalised and how it can stem from ourselves and our experiences. Her views on how to destroy it often take us on an introspective journey. Each chapter deals with this in different ways and while many of her insights are subjective, reading her own experiences gives a first-person perspective to certain issues. Through Unashamed, Bhat advocates breaking down the generational suppression of shame and developing a healthy relationship with ourselves and those around us.

Perhaps when we judge or silently shame those couples hanging out by the rocks, we are inadvertently expressing the shame that we ourselves are feeling. Perhaps this double standard is the only thing we need to be ashamed about.

fool-bahadur-review-a-fun-romp-through-colonial-bureaucracy

Sat Jun 29 11:02:34 IST 2024

When a nearly century-old book becomes a talking point, you know there is probably more to it than its prosaicness or sheer literary merit. Fool Bahadur, originally written by lawyer-writer Jayanath Pati in Bihar, Sharif of the British Raj during the early decades of the previous century, and recently translated into English by poet-diplomat Abhay K., is one such.

For Abhay, the effort has not just been translating a work of literature for a wider audience. Herein, the medium itself is the message. To be more precise, Magahi, the language in which Pati originally wrote Fool Bahadur.

Magahi ceased to be an independent language in India long ago. Subsumed by the overarching dominance of Hindi, or perhaps worse, the pop revival of Bhojpuri in recent times. Yet, the language which traces its roots back to Magadhi Prakrit, the official language of Magadha and the great Mauryan empire, and the very language believed to have been used by both Buddha and Mahavir to preach their sermons thus giving birth to two great religions, today struggles for its identity.

Translator Abhay, who hails from Nalanda in Bihar, ground zero for Magahi, intends to do his part, and it is evident from his detailed translator’s note that prefaces the book — it actually runs into a substantial part of the pocket paperback. He traces the long history of the language and the culture and society which faded over time, and the constant sense of a lack of literary substance in his own mother tongue (literally, as he notes how his mother spoke to him in Magahi while his father used Hindi), something he lamented in a poem, before being pleasantly corrected by those who read the poem and opened his eyes to a trove of work which lay undiscovered.

Or translated. This brought him to Fool Bahadur, which could well be counted as the first known Magahi novel (author Pati did write Sunandabefore Fool Bahadur, but no known copy exists).

It is clear why Fool Bahadur checks the right boxes. As a bureaucrat hailing from Nalanda (which was popularly called Bihar Sharif), it is clear that the translator would have found resonance with the cheeky goings-on Raj’s clerkdom with how some things probably haven’t changed much a century down the line. The story is a romp through the shenanigans of an ambitious social climber who aspires to bag the coveted title of “Rai Bahadur”, bestowed by the Brits on loyal and distinguished subjects, and how he moves men, mountain and more than a few tenets of morality in his efforts to get there.

Fool Bahadur, with its subtleties and unsaid plot twists, adds much more to the layers of what is, on the face of it, a fun romp through colonial bureaucracy. Think deeper, it bares the pretences to modernity that the British tried to bring to their subjects in the sub-continent. Or maybe, their well-meaning intentions couldn’t stand a chance against the deep-rooted bear-hug of patriarchy, corruption and one-upmanship that has been a perpetual feature of Indian babudom.

Title: Jayanath Pati Fool Bahadur

Author: Jayanath Pati, translated by Abhay K.

Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics

Pages: 65

Price: Rs 250

civil-servant-aman-deep-chatha-releases-seventh-book-ahbaab

Thu Jun 27 16:44:56 IST 2024

“Tere aane ki kabhi etebar nahi isliye bejhijhak intezaar karte hain” (I hardly believe you would oblige and come over. So my dear without batting an eyelid, I will wait for you).

This is one of the many compositions from Aman Deep Chatha’s latest book- “Ahbaab” (friends or dear ones), who steals time away from hard number crunching on a busy day at the office to writing flourishes in her free time. Chatha is serving as a Principal Accountant General (Audit) in Delhi but her love for poetry gives her a deeper human connection that shapes her outlook towards life. A passion that began in her early school days when she read out verses to school friends, soon blossomed into a lifelong "silsila" (tradition) of writing poetry. She first gave shape to her writing by publishing her first book in 2009. “Ahbaab” is her seventh book and is a compilation of couplets and haikus in Urdu and Hindi and carries an English translation. Evocative headings guide the reader through the book, allowing for a deeper connection between the couplets on facing pages and encouraging the reader to consider the poems not just individually, but also in conversation with each other, enriching the overall experience.

Her decision to translate her own Urdu poetry with the help of her family for "Ahbaab", ensured a profound connection between the original emotions and their English counterparts, making the book accessible to a wider audience. Poetry came naturally to the poet, and she felt a deep connection to capturing the essence of the human experience through her verses.

Chatha’s philosophy is simple, once she has exhausted all that she has to write, she wants to move from writing to a more reflective state of simply " bas mehsoos karte gaye” (to go on feeling). The book offers a glimpse into Chatha's literary world and sparks insightful discussion about her work within the Urdu poetry landscape. It is a celebration of human connection and experiences, written with warmth and intensity so that readers feel a sense of kinship as if it were addressed to them, as if they were Chatha’s "ahbaab".

Title: Ahbaab

Author: Aman Deep Chatha

Publisher: Ferntree Publishers

Pages: 120

Price: Rs 400

nimbu-saab-the-barefoot-naga-kargil-hero-review-home-they-brought-the-warrior-dead

Wed Jun 26 11:32:48 IST 2024

In every war, there are known heroes, and there are many unknown ones. This is a story of someone whose tale has not been told much, who battled poverty, lack of access to educational facilities, the remoteness of his homeland, made it to the elite Indian Army as an officer by sheer dint of strength of character, grit and sheer dedication and yet, laid down his life without even as much as a second thought in the service of his nation.

Captain Neikezhakuo Kenguruse—fondly called ‘Nimbu Saab ‘ by his men as they found his Angami Naga name too difficult to pronounce and ‘Neibu’ to his family back home in the Naga hills—was later awarded the Maha Vir Chakra (MVC). The country’s second highest military decoration after the Param Vir Chakra, the MVC is awarded for acts of conspicuous gallantry in the face of the enemy.

The time was about 2.30 am. It was June 29, 1999. The temperature would have been about 10 degrees below zero. The rocky surface beneath their feet was freezing cold. Yet the 12 to 13 men of Platoon 10 of D Company of 2 Rajputana Rifles—led from the front by Captain Nimbu—took off their shoes and slung them around their necks as they set off to climb a near vertical rock of 70-80 degrees incline. On Lone Hill lay a strong Pakistani position that could shoot at anything that moved below.

The aim was to take over Lone Hill from the Pakistanis, a crucial feature in order to control the commanding heights. A surprised enemy fought back. A bullet in his stomach, the young captain kept up with the attack as he goaded his men on, till another bullet hit his right eye and plunged him down the slope of Lone Hill, some threw him about 200 feet down.

'Nimbu Saab: The Barefoot Naga Kargil Hero' written by Neha Dwivedi and Diksha Dwivedi, daughters of Kargil hero Major C.B. Dwivedi in a narrative form in the words of Captain Neibu’s younger brother Neingutoulie Kenguruse is a book that incorporates several distinctive strands of narrative.

Weaving a rich tapestry of the Naga way of life, the growing up years in a big Angami family with its own unique set of dynamics, contemporary themes like use of drugs by youngsters, the ubiquitous backdrop of the Naga insurgency movement, the book focuses on the day-to-day struggles and aspirations of a Naga family with Neibu at the pole position who was determined to give it his all for a better life to his family.

Even joining the Indian Army came with its own set of dilemma’s for Neibu: “To serve a country that didn’t feel like home to many of his fellow Nagas, in exchange for a bright future for his family, or to stay back home with his family and be okay with their current standard of living?”

In his final sacrifice, Neibu set in motion a feeling much unknown to Nagas—that they were indeed part of the Indian nation. There were people lined up all along the street to look at their fallen son whose mortal remains were carried in a convoy even as a group of young Angami men gave their war-cry: “Neikezhakup, miche tuo heluo” roughly translating to “Neikezhakup, don’t be scared on your way, you are a real man.”

a-comprehensive-dictionary-of-bharatanatyam-review-a-dance-dictionary-for-the-uninitiated

Tue Jun 25 11:45:35 IST 2024

Mudras are the defining feature of Bharatnatyam - the gestures that convey specific meanings and emotions. These gestures are the intricate movements of the fingers and hands, which help the dancer express various emotions - happiness, love, sorrow, anger and many more. And, for each expression, the mudras differ and each mudra holds its own significance helping the dancer narrate a story or play a specific character or express powerful emotions.

For Bharatanatyam experts, the names of these gestures or mudras come easily. For some of them remembering the names of the mudras and adavus may be a task. For the audience or a layman who doesn’t know even the basics of Bharatanatyam, the names of these expressions will be completely new. What if there is a dictionary or a book to explain all the terminologies used in Bharatnatyam?

Meet danseuse Vidya Bhavani Suresh who had come out with ‘A Comprehensive Dictionary of Bharatanatyam. ’As we sit to talk, a few minutes into our conversation her hands move up in the air to take the form of a mudra. Her eyes emote and express. A musicologist, and a company secretary by profession, danseuse Vidhya Bhavani Suresh is an author of 45 books, delving deep into the art form.

Her latest book Vidya has curated the various aspects of Bharatanatyam. As the name suggests it is a dictionary for students or aspirants who want to master the art form, explaining various mudras, adavus and their names. The book puts together 115 Bharatanatyam-related terminologies related to the classical dance form along with short definitions and images illustrated by her daughters Harshita Suresh and Mahitha Suresh.

Vidya’s images are also in the book as she explains some of the significant mudras. The images facilitate easy understanding of the dance movements, expressions and emotions.

Every terminology has a single-line definition. From the most basic of Bharatanatyam - called as Araimandi or half seated posture to salangai - the anklet worn by the dancers the book explains in detail every aspect. It also talks about four types of abhinayas, aharyas and the ornaments used by the dancers.

"The joy in performing art is fulfilled only when the audience is completely informed. The book is part of my effort to tell the world about Bharatanatyam, right from the basics to its fullest. I have alphabetically organised the terminologies," Vidya says. Published by Skanda Publications it is priced at Rs 1,330.

riding-the-pale-horse-review-a-preparation-for-one-of-lifes-most-important-and-obscure-events

Fri Jun 21 15:46:51 IST 2024

Much like the author, our first encounter with death is typically through folktales and sugarcoated bedtime stories about the golden gates of Heaven, often shrouding the despondency surrounding it. The matter of mortality has often been courted by writers, poets, medical professionals, philosophers and men of religion. While each has tried to provide answers to death in tandem with their school of belief, George Paul takes a different approach in his book, Riding The Pale Horse: The Inevitable End to the Journey of Life where he does not seek to provide definitive answers but to prepare us for the inevitable.

Riding The Pale Horse: The Inevitable End to the Journey of Life is a heartwarming hug by its author in the form of a book. Through 16 chapters, he explores the concept of eternal rest from various angles: the process of dying, diverse cultural perspectives, and even legal considerations surrounding end-of-life decisions. Consisting of a generous sprinkling of real-life stories- from a grandfather's playful quip about kicking the bucket on Christmas Eve to a mother's tender grieving for her infant son. Narrated in a conversational and lucid tone, the book can be read by anyone interested in the subject. Through his exploration of death, Paul reveals a profound love for humanity, through touching accounts of deathbed humour, and testaments to the enduring human spirit even in the face of mortality. He also delves into the rich tapestry of death rituals across cultures, celebrating the diverse ways communities honour and remember their loved ones.

In a lot of ways, death is treated as taboo, unspoken of and when the time comes, most of us are quite unprepared to deal with it. From the right place to die and the ethics of life extension to organ donation, navigating difficult conversations, and the importance of palliative care, the book is a preparation for one of life’s most important and obscure events.

Paul gives a medical man’s view of death, from the operating room. He combines his medical expertise with a deep understanding of the human condition to guide us through the final frontier. Riding The Pale Horse: The Inevitable End to the Journey of Life is about confronting our mortality with honesty, knowledge, and perhaps even a touch of grace.

Title: Riding the Pale Horse: The Inevitable end to the journey of life

Author: George Paul

Publisher: Notion Press

Pages: 260

Price: 360

gangster-warlords-drug-dollars-killing-fields-and-the-new-politics-of-latin-america-review

Thu Jun 20 13:59:36 IST 2024

Ioan Grillo, the well-known expert on Latin American drug trafficking, gangs and violence starts off the book saying, “This book is about the move from the Cold War to a chain of crime wars soaking Latin America and the Caribbean in blood. But it starts in the United States. Latin American journalists complain that the US side of the equation is never examined. Where is the American narco?” The American politicians, media and Hollywood trash the image of Latin Americans with deceitful narratives. Drug is a demand and consumer driven business. The US consumers are happy to pay top dollars for suppliers from any country or domestic opioid manufacturing pharmaceutical companies. The US has not done anything meaningful to reduce consumption and demand. Instead, they had resorted to a war on drugs outside the US. This was started by President Nixon to divert attention away from the Vietnam war. The military-industrial complex and the spooks of US embraced the war on drugs enthusiastically to destabilize other countries, infiltrate the foreign security forces and sell arms.

Thousands of Latin Americans are killed every year with the guns trafficked illegally from the US to the Latin American countries. But when it comes to guns, the Americans use a wrong logic. They say "guns do not kill. It is the people who kill”. This same logic should apply to the drugs too. Drugs do not kill. It is the consumers who harm themselves by voluntarily, enthusiastically and happily consuming.

But unfortunately, Grillo does not go into the details of the US consumer market and elaborate how the drugs are delivered to consumers and money is collected. Instead he joins the American chorus of highlighting the crime and violence of drug lords and other criminal gangs in Latin America. He has covered the gangs of Brazil, Central America, Jamaica and Mexico. He brings out details of how the Brazilian and Central American gangs direct their criminal operations from prisons. In El Salvador, the government had arranged a cease fire between the rival gangs by bringing together their leaders in prison.

Grillo traces the origin of the Brazilian gangs such as Red Command and First Command to the time when the petty criminals were put in the same jails where the political prisoners were kept. The political prisoners had brainwashed the criminals who felt right in fighting against the social injustice in the country. While the rich people were getting richer, the poor and especially the blacks were condemned to struggle in the Favelas (slums) on the margins of the cities.

Grillo has brought out the fact that the criminal gangs in Central America were the consequence of the civil war in which the leftist guerillas fought against the US-supported right wing military dictators and their paramilitary death squads. The civil war had caused the migration of young people to the US. These young central Americans joined gangs and formed their own to survive in the gang-infested Los Angeles area. Later, the US deported these gangsters to Central America where they have been flourishing as groups such as Maras. The violence unleashed by the gangs make more Central Americans to flee to the US. It is a vicious circle in which the US plays the central part.

The US had distributed arms to the Contras who were formed by the CIA in Central America to fight against the democratically elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Afterwards, the ex-contras and the paramilitary death squads supported by the US got into the gang business of violence and crime.

Since Grillo is based in Mexico, he has given more information on the Mexican gangs who have taken control of certain parts of Mexico and bought off the local police and politicians. He has highlighted the cartel known as Knight Templars, who were lead by Nazario Moreno, known as El Más Loco—the Maddest One. He wrote a kind of holy book called as “Pensamientos” (Thoughts) which give Biblical parables, thoughts and advice. The narco Templars (Santos Nazarios ) worshipped the statuettes in the shrines built by their leader. The prayers went like this, “Give me holy protection, through Saint Nazario, Protector of the poorest, Knights of the people, Saint Nazario, Give us life”. Nazario also self-published his autobiography and distributed it to his followers. The 101 pages are fittingly titled "They Call Me The Maddest One.” Nazario portrays himself as a social bandit, subtitling his memoir “Diary of an Idealist.”

Grillo has concluded that the US war on drugs is a failure. This conclusion is now widely shared across the Americas, except by the vested interests like DEA, CIA and the military-industrial complex which profits from the war on drugs.

Grillo offers solutions to the drug and violence issues. He says the US and Latin American countries should legalize soft drugs. This has been done by Uruguay and 24 states of US as well as some European countries who have already legalized recreational drugs. Many Latin American countries are also planning to do so.

Secondly, Grillo has called for transformation of ghettos which breed gangs and violence. The city of Medellin has achieved commendable success in the outreach to the slums with metro transport, libraries and playgrounds. The slum dwellers have been made to feel as part of the mainstream. Gang violence has dramatically come down. Other Latin American cities can learn from this success story.

The author is an expert in Latin American affairs

taken-away-about-the-life-of-a-tibetan-monk-is-an-evocative-memoir-set-in-tumultuous-times

Wed Jun 05 13:43:33 IST 2024

"Learning about Dharma should be done in the same manner as starving people eat food. They put one piece in their mouth, hold another piece in their hand, and their eyes are on the third piece on the plate." This advice from Drukpa Kunley, the legendary Tibetan monk, captures the essence of Doboom Tulku’s memoir, Taken Away—a work that expounds on profound ideas in simple words and allegories.

Doboom Tulku’s life took an extraordinary turn when he was identified as the third reincarnation of Doboom Tulku and, as the title hints, "taken away" from his parents to begin his monastic journey. A tulku is a reincarnated lama believed to carry the wisdom and spiritual power of a previous life. The early separation set the stage for a life vastly different from that of ordinary children, one steeped in tradition, spirituality, and a quest for enlightenment. Yet, what makes this memoir stand out is not just the extraordinary circumstances of his early life, but the simplicity with which he narrates his experiences.

The book opens with how he was not prepared to meet his nomad mother a decade after he was taken away. His journey takes him from Doboom Ritro to the city of Lhasa in India and around the globe. His studies at Dargye Monastery and subsequent flight from Tibet during the onset of the Chinese invasion—a perilous expedition following the Dalai Lama’s exile—show the turbulence of his early years. His beloved horse, Dragyal, also joins the list of things taken away from him. Despite everything, Doboom Tulku recounts that he was always content, writing in the preface, "Every day has been the best day of my life". While some might find this difficult to believe, it shows his profound detachment.

Despite the grave historical context, Taken Away is filled with humour and heart. From Missamari in Assam, where the scent of Lifebuoy soap triggers nostalgic memories, to Buxa Duar in West Bengal, Loseling College in Karnataka, the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Varanasi, and The Tibet House in Delhi, Doboom Tulku’s journey through India and the rest of the world is a vivid recounting of rich experiences.

It is the charming anecdotes, like learning Hindi from a book picked up at a garage sale outside Drepung in Lhasa or receiving his first clock as a gift, or the sight of the Indian tricolour flag instilling hope in his uncertain future, that make this memoir one of a kind. Recalling childhood mischief and seemingly trivial details, like a fellow tulku pressing chewing gum on his bald head, add a bit of life and goofiness to the otherwise seriously imagined life of young monks.

The biggest turning point in his life was the opportunity to work in the private office of the Dalai Lama, a role he initially approached with trepidation, but came to view as a great learning experience. Describing his work at the office as a balancing act, he illustrates how he filled administrative gaps and assisted the Dalai Lama in countries like the US, USSR, Japan, and Mongolia, and contributed to the spread of Buddhism.

His experiences range from the profound to the simple, from being the director of Tibet House for thirty years (established to preserve Tibet's cultural heritage in Delhi) and working as a close aide to the Dalai Lama, to commenting that the most delicious momos he had was at the Ivolginsky Monastery—all within the same page.

While the memoir’s detailed recounting may come across as dry at times, Doboom Tulku’s genuine voice keeps the reader engaged. His unassuming narrative style accomplishes what he had been aiming for: “to demystify the life of a monk".

In a delightful coincidence, Taken Away shares more than just a similar title with Studio Ghibli's beloved film Spirited Away, about 10-year-old Chihiro who moves to a new neighbourhood only to get a taste of the spirit world. Like Chihiro’s journey, Doboom Tulku's memoir is one of separation from parents, self-discovery, and profound transformation.

Though he acknowledges that his English is inadequate, he manages to illustrate anecdotes from his life, with the help of Sudhamahi Reghunathan. "He was taken away by his multiple illnesses before the book was published", she writes. The very down-to-earth Tulku passed away this January.

The memoir is a worthy read for anyone interested in the lives of spiritual leaders and Tibetan culture. By sharing his journey with an almost childlike wonder, Doboom Tulku brings readers closer to Tibetan culture and spirituality.

BOOK DETAILS

Book: Taken Away: The Ordinary Life of a Lama
Author: Doboom Tulku With Sudhamahi Reghunathan
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Price and pages: Rs599; pages 350

fifty-year-road-review-a-personal-history-of-india-penned-by-an-intelligent-politically-conscious-indian

Sat Jun 01 20:57:20 IST 2024

The title is a little confusing. Fifty year road? Puzzling. Since the book was published in 2024, one tends to count back to 1974. What happened in 1974? The nuclear test? Or the railway strike? Why should Bhaskar Roy write about those? He wouldn’t have reported these events.

These were the thoughts that crossed my mind when I received a copy of Roy’s Fifty Year Road. But the sub-title makes things clearer – A Personal History of India from the Mid-Sixties Onward.

Unlike many of his (and my) tribe, Roy has not bothered to fill the book with boastful accounts of his scoops or even regretful misses that he suffered in his journalistic career. Rather, the book is an account of an intelligent and politically conscious Indian who experienced several of the events that defined India in the last fifty years.

Though claims to be a personal history, there is little about the author or his life in the book. Indeed, his college days, landing jobs, marriage, the birth of the child and such personal incidents are talked about, but all those are smartly juxtaposed in the political context. The story that he wants to tell is the story of those political contexts and not his story. He is only a small part of it, at times no part of it. Thus the book is a sweeping political history, part of which the author watched, a bit of it he experienced, and more of it he reported.

He watched the upsurge of Naxalism in West Bengal in the sixties and the seventies, but as a schoolboy who just was horrified yet amused. He watched, witnessed and experienced its tumultuous impact on society and the horror of its suppression, but he reported a completely transformed politics of India in the post-emergency era of the 1980s, 1990s and the early 2000s.

Most of the events are recounted more as anecdotes rather than boring narratives, and some of the anecdotes are personal. Thus the Gorkhaland agitation, the assassination of Indira, the rise and fall of Rajiv Gandhi government, the unleashing of the Mandal revolution, the roll of the mandir rath, the fall of the masjid, the rise of Kanshi Ram’s dalit politics, and the rise and fall of the Vajpayee all find mention in the book, more as political narratives and partly as the author’s experience of them, unbiased and honest.

The concluding chapters seem to have been written in a hurry. Details get a little sketchy in those chapters, unlike in the earlier part. Like a missile, the narrative coasts as it homes in on to the finishing point.

On the whole, a good read.

Title: Fifty Year Road

Author: Bhaskar Roy

Publisher: Jaico

Pages: 297

Price: Rs 599

a-nifty-handbook-for-those-interested-in-foreign-trade-and-polic

Wed May 29 19:08:03 IST 2024

Did you know that in ancient Greek mythology, the god of trade as well as diplomacy were both the same — Hermes (no, Birkin is not their offspring). Perhaps it is just as well, as international trade is today deeply intertwined with bilateral, and often multilateral, relationships that straddle the synergy between economic, political and strategic interests.

Independent India has been a dedicated learner of how both feed off each other. Right from first PM Jawaharlal Nehru who didn’t let his deeply socialist beliefs come in the way of making overtures to American big businesses and quid pro quo bag the affection of czars on Capitol Hill for the newly independent country, to PM Modi who wholeheartedly picked up the phone and called UAE President in the guise of a new year greeting call and smoothly passed on his keen interest for an Indian company (ONGC Videsh, in this case) to bag the contract for a 40-year oil drilling rights in Lower Zakum, New Delhi has been a quick learner and steady practitioner of the art of bridging diplomacy and trade.

The results are showing now, as the country, despite snubbing China’s grandiose RCEP, has been sowing free trade deals left, right and centre. More than that, India has emerged as a masterful artist in the genre, working out nimble agreements that benefit the state in the long run. Pradeep S. Mehta, founder of the Jaipur-based think-tank NGO Consumer Unity & Trust Society, better known as CUTS brings out all the drama and historical significance of how this has panned out over the years in his latest book Economic Diplomacy: India’s Ascendency in the 21st Century.

Mehta is helped out in the editing of this compendium of essays by former ambassador Anil Wadhwa and CUTS assistant policy analyst Advaiyot Sharma. The list of writers is heavy duty, almost reading like a roster of Raisina Hill regulars, ranging from Manmohan Singh’s advisor Sanjaya Baru to former foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and a plethora of former ambassadors, from Rajiv Bhatia to Gurjit Singh to Ajay Bisaria.

A nifty handbook for any IFS aspirant (or trainee) as well as anyone interested in foreign trade and policy, the strength of the book is the authoritativeness of the backroom information the hefty list of writers bring to it. Its drawback is the pedantic diplospeak used all over the place, as well as the urgency to sing too many paeans to the present dispensation and dwell too long on recent achievements. But here and there, gems of fascinating anecdotes pop out, like when Satish C. Mehta writes about the Jaipur Foot and how its supply to landmine-wreaked Africans wrote a new chapter in south-south cooperation, to the backroom look at the backroom lobbying that went on before India clinched the civil nuclear deal with the US in 2008, to even the piece by Ashok Sajjanhar on the strategic perspectives that set India-Kazakhstan ties apart. This book gives a life of its own to diplomatic backchannels and tells you why trade straddles all in the modern global order’s scheme of things.

Economic Diplomacy; India’s Ascendancy in the 21st Century

Edited by Pradeep S. Mehta, Anil Wadhwa, Advaiyot Sharma

Academic Foundation

Pages: 360

Price: Rs 1,495

indias-g20-presidency-was-not-a-moment-but-a-movement

Tue May 28 16:48:38 IST 2024

Over 220 meetings across 60 cities in all 28 states and eight Union Territories…It wasn’t an easy task. To hold a Group of 20 meeting at a time when the Covid pandemic just got over, a world was wracked by wars and conflicts, when mutual suspicion ruled supreme and questions were raised about the efficacy of global institutions to mitigate financial and environmental distress. But India did it and how!

For one thing, the summit went beyond the G20 mandate of accelerating Sustainable Development Goals, reviving economic growth and generating climate finance.

A collection of articles into a book ‘India’s G20 Legacy: Shaping a New World Order’ by none but those who were directly involved in the enormous task—diplomats, bureaucrats, academics and intellectuals, both from India and abroad—and ably edited by Manish Chand, a foreign affairs expert and writer, brings out the entire range of issues and viewpoints that made the Indian chapter of G20 a new benchmark worthy of emulation.

In his foreword, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, the chief coordinator of India’s G20 presidency sums it up succinctly: “The most important legacy of India’s G20 presidency was its overarching focus, not just in terms of priorities, but also through organization… India’s G20 leadership wasn’t just a moment, it was a movement”.

The gains from India’s presidency that ended on November 30, 2023, were quite a few: A new permanent member in the form of the African Union (AU), managing the serious ideological and bloc differences over the Ukraine war (by finding the middle ground between the G7 countries and Russia), and framing consensus on a range of issues.

With AU’s inclusion, writes Amitabh Kant, India’s G20 Sherpa: “India transformed the G20 into a substantially more inclusive institution, now encapsulating nearly 90 per cent of the global population…three-fourths of global trade.”

But most significantly, as Manish Chand writes: “India’s G20 presidency marks a turning point for the ascendance of the Global South in the multilateral agenda”.

The Green Development Pact was another feather in the cap of India’s G20 event, especially when viewed against the backdrop of the fact that 90 per cent of the total carbon space is already claimed by the developed world, at the cost of the space of the developing countries.

A noteworthy feature was the widespread civil society participation embodying grassroots participation. Cultural events roped in about 15,000 local artists, in a big boost to the tourism sector.

Articles by Vincenzo De Luca, Italy’s ambassador to India, and Kenneth Felix Haczynski da Nobrega, the Brazilian ambassador talk of continuing with the legacy set in New Delhi. In 2024, Italy holds the G7 presidency while the G20 presidency is held by Brazil.

In his article, former diplomat and strategist D.B. Venkatesh Varma writes: “The character of G20 has changed from a grouping dominated by G7 concerns to one that is now better prepared to address a more equitable international cooperative agenda that is sensitive to the interest of the Global South.”

What stands out in the end is the vital role that India played in bridge-building and consensus-building and the image of the nation being a problem solver and agenda setter is likely to endure.

retelling-a-great-victory-as-witnessed-by-the-nagas-book-his-majesty-s-headhunters-the-siege-of-kohima

Fri Apr 26 20:24:33 IST 2024

But the story of the battle that brought the world to Kohima can’t be told without the making of Kohima. And in telling Kikon writes poignantly about how Kohima came to being. “It did not tale exactly forty-six years for the British to establish the headquarters at Kohima. For the many who died in the vicious battles, it was a lifetime. For the villages destroyed as a result of the resistance of the British onslaught, it was a millennium,’’ writes Kikon.

The book has a list of the number of losses suffered by Nagas under the numerous expeditions led by British forces. This table has 48 entries beginning from 1827, in which 4 villages were ‘subjugated’ as punishment or in 1876 Captain Butler is killed in an ambush at Pangti and then Pangti burns—illustrates the attacks were routine. Compiled from Gordon P. Mill’s Tribal Transformation: The Early History of the Naga Hills these attacks were carefully noted, making deaths a normal part of bureaucratic procedure.

Vividly told, and evocative, Kikon has chosen to set the record straight. It is also the story of the defeat of the Japanese. So, there is Lt. General Kotuku Sato on a mission to capture Kohima within the shortest time. (He loved his baths in a bathtub). Sato fails and refuses to obey his superior Lt. General Mutaguchi. He had no ammunition, lost 3000 soldiers and had 4,000 wounded soldiers in his camp. Mutaguchi told him “If your hands are broken, fight with your feet, if your hands and feet are broken, use your teeth. If there is no breath left in your body, fight with your spirit. Lack of weapons is no excuse for defeat,’’ Kikon quotes Mutaguchi. Sato refuses to follow the directive, and goes back, risking court martial.

Littered with details from the other side. And memories of Subhash Bose in Nagaland as well as the stories of valour by Nagas—including General Yambamo Lotha’s attack on the Japanese forces where he took 78 or 87 heads, the book is essential for anyone who wants stories told by the Indian side. It was the Nagas, finally who threw their lot with the Allied forces that proved to be the secret ingredient for a win. Their stories that deserve to be told, their stories that need to be read.

Book: His Majesty’s Headhunters—The Siege of Kohima that Shaped World History by Mmhohlumo Kikon

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Price: 599

Pages: 193

smoke-and-ashes-review-tracing-the-original-drug-traffickers

Thu Apr 25 17:00:04 IST 2024

The US Administration has been requesting China to stop the supply of fentanyl and the chemical ingredients for opioids which kill thousands of American addicts every year. The US blames China and the Latin American cocoa farmers and drug cartels for the supplies although the main driver is the flourishing domestic consumer and demand involving billions of dollars of business. In this context, Amitav Ghosh has reminded the world that the Americans, the Dutch and the British were the original drug traffickers. Many Americans made fortunes by trafficking opium illegally into China. The West went even went to the extent of waging wars (Opium wars) and forced the Chinese government to legalize opium.

In his book “Smoke and Ashes: A Writer's Journey through Opium's Hidden Histories” Amitav Ghosh has given a vivid account of the criminal drug trafficking done by the American, British and Dutch businessmen in collusion with their governments. He has done extensive and meticulous research of British, European, American, Chinese and Indian sources and quoted from documents, statements and archives.

While there is public knowledge of the British drug trafficking, the role of Americans in the dirty business is not that well known. Ghosh has filled this gap by documenting the smuggling of opium by American businessmen who made huge fortunes. According to his research, the Americans were, by some estimates, smuggling as much as a third of all the opium consumed in China at the peak time. There were the big opium-trading clans of Boston—the Perkins, Sturgis, Russell, Forbes Astor, Cabot, Peabody, Brown, Archer, Hathaway, Webster, Delano, Coolidge, Forbes, Russell, Perkins, Bryant as well as the families of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and Calvin Coolidge. These families were all as intricately interrelated as the Sicilian Mafia. They called themselves ‘the Boston Concern’ and they became the single biggest opium-trading network in China. Many of the young Americans who became rich in opium trade had lived and worked personally in Guangzhou and boasted about the quick money they made.

The Americans were responsible for several important innovations in the nineteenth-century illegal opium trade. They set up a steady transportation channel between China and Turkey through the system of ‘floating warehouses’ at Lintin Island to facilitate the smuggling of opium. They designed the vessels called as Baltimore Clippers which played an important role in the opium trade. These clippers were fast enough to elude British warships which tried to stop non-British opium carriers in order to maintain the British monopoly. The Baltimore clippers were much in demand for the transportation of opium from India to China. Before, ships would have to wait for the turning of the monsoon winds in order to sail that route. But the schooner-rigged Baltimore clippers were able to sail against the wind, and so the opium trade went from being a seasonal affair to a year-round commerce.

The Opium fortunes were used by the Boston families to finance American railways, manufacturing, hotels and investment banking. Ghosh says, ‘Opium was really a way that America was able to transfer China’s economic power to America’s industrial revolution with the wealth generated by Indian poppy farmers who were forced to grow and the Chinese opium users who were forced to consume”.

Much before the British entry, the Dutch traders and colonialists had established opium trade in South East Asia. Even the Dutch crown joined the illegal business. In 1815, the newly crowned Dutch monarch, formerly Prince Willem Frederik of Orange-Nassau, founded an enterprise called the Royal Dutch Trading Company (Koninklijke Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij or NHM). Using its royal sponsorship, this company became powerful enough to take over the opium monopoly. Their opium business was consistently profitable and earned vast sums of money for the royal family. Ghosh says,“ it was the Dutch who led the way in enmeshing opium with colonialism, and in creating the first imperial narco-state, heavily dependent on drug revenues. Later British perfected the model of the colonial narco-state in India”.

The British started the opium trafficking to China initially to pay for the tea which they imported into UK. Chinese tea remained the British East India Company’s prime source of revenue. By the early eighteenth century Chinese tea was already an important article of trade for the British economy. The importation of tea was for centuries a monopoly of the East India Company and the customs duty on it was for a long time one of Britain’s most important sources of revenue. The duty ranged from 75 per cent to 125 per cent of the estimated value, which meant that the customs duty on tea fetched higher revenues for Britain than it did for China, which charged an export duty of only 10 per cent. The problem was that Britain had nothing much to sell to China in return. The Chinese had little interest in, and no need for, most Western goods. So the East India Company had a balance of trade problem with China. The company found the way to pay for Chinese goods with illegal supply of opium from India to China.

The first pivotal moment in the opium story was East India Company’s takeover of the opium industry in Bihar in 1772. The second big move occurred in 1799, when the company’s leadership decided to set up the Opium Department, a bureaucracy that was devoted entirely to the production of opium. This Department oversaw every aspect of the production and sale of the drug, from the planting of poppies to the auctioning of the product in Calcutta. The department determined which farmers could grow poppies, how much they could plant and what they would be paid for their harvest. The company paid low prices but the farmers had no other alternative and were forced to sell their The entire production exclusively only to the Opium Department. Cultivation of poppies required the labour of more than a million peasant households, probably some 5–7 million people altogether. The department had two geographical agencies, namely the Benares Agency in the west and the Patna Agency in the east. Each agency was presided over by a British official known as the Opium Agent, one of the most highly paid and most coveted posts within the colonial regime.

The East India Company forced farmers to cultivate opium in the lands where rice was grown earlier. Opium Department had stipulated that nothing else could be grown on land that had been earmarked for that purpose. This large-scale conversion of paddy fields for poppy cultivation was one of the major contributors to the famine in Bengal in 1770 which caused the death of ten million people.

China had officially banned the importation and consumption of opium since 1729. Because of these bans, the East India Company could not formally or explicitly acknowledge that its opium was intended for the Chinese market: doing so would have meant the loss of its trading rights and the end of its immensely lucrative tea business. So, the company resorted to an ingenious subterfuge. Opium from the Ghazipur and Patna factories was loaded on to heavily guarded fleets and sent to Calcutta, where it was auctioned to ‘private traders’. Thereafter the Company disclaimed all responsibility for its product, which was then transported by these traders to Whampoa (Huangpu) on the Pearl River, where they would sell the drug to Chinese smugglers. The money was collected from the smugglers secretly and transferred to London and India through agents.

1839, the Chinese put their foot down to stop the illegal supply of opium. They demanded that foreign merchants surrender all their stocks of opium. When the merchants refused, they were put under house arrest. After this, the merchants surrendered about a thousand tons of opium, which were publicly destroyed by the Chinese authorities. This loss gave the casus belli for war to the British government which attacked China in 1840. This was the First Opium War in which China suffered defeat and agreed to sign the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. Under this, the Chinese were forced to compensate foreign opium traffickers to the tune of 6 million silver dollars. The other conditions included the opening of four other ports to foreign traders (and smugglers) and ceding the island of Hong Kong to the British as a colony. The island thereafter became the main hub of opium smuggling in China accounting for three-quarters of the entire opium smuggling into China. After this, the Opium Department in India got the poppy acreage increased six-fold. An article published at that time in the US National Defense University mentioned that “the English merchants, led by the British East India Company from 1772 to 1850, established extensive opium supply chains, creating the world’s first drug cartel”. Besides China, the westerners smuggled opium into Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam also disregarding the ban in those countries.

Ghosh has concluded that “the British Empire’s opium racket was a criminal enterprise, utterly indefensible by the standards of its own time as well as ours”.

He has brought out the Chinese lesson to the west. When the westerners forced opium down the throats of Chinese at gun point, the Chinese turned the tables and beat the westerners in their own game. Unable to stop the illegal western supplies of opium, the Chinese started to produce their own and succeeded in import substitution. China’s domestic opium industry became the single largest producer and exporter of opium in the world, accounting for seven-eighths of global supply. The west has not learnt from this Chinese method and history. The western companies rushed into the Chinese market supplying products and technologies after the opening of the Chinese market in the eighties. The Chinese have simply repeated history by becoming the world’s largest manufacturer and exporter. The Chinese exports of 3.4 trillion dollars in 2023 is almost equal to the combined exports of US (2 trillion) and Germany (1.6 trillion). China has become the largest exporter of cars, solar panels and many other items, just as they became the largest exporter of opium. While the hubris-filled Westerners have failed to learn from the opium history, the Chinese have certainly learnt how to give it back to the west.

Book name: Smoke and Ashes: A Writer’s Journey Through Opium’s Hidden Histories

Author: Amitav Ghosh

Price: 1,765

heavenly-islands-of-goa-review-an-overview-of-the-states-biodiversity-and-heritage

Sun Apr 21 19:48:25 IST 2024

Did you know Goa hosts 482 of the total 1,360 endemic and migratory bird species found in India? Thanks to the colony of mangroves that has created an ideal and isolated habitat for birds they've made Goa their home. These mangroves in the Zuari and Mandovi rivers have in turn given rise to the Riverine and Estuarine islands which are a distinctive feature of the Goan landscape.

It will amaze many Goans to know that there once existed a Fort of Naroa, just across the road from Holy Spirit Church, very close to the Naroa-Narve ferry crossing. Today, just a high masonry wall of this fort remains.

“It might also be interesting to know that Estevao Island, one of the bigger inland islands of Goa is also known as the 'Island of the Dead'. It has to do with the battle between the Adilshahi forces and the Portuguese, when the latter having massacred most of the soldiers from the Adilshahi army left their bodies to rot all over the slopes of the island hillock.” This and much more interesting trivia and anecdotes are peppered in the latest book, Heavenly Islands of Goa, penned by P.S. Sreedharan Pillai, Governor of Goa.

The book was launched on April 20 and thereafter the next day, five more books written by him were launched, thereby taking the total number of books he's written so far, to over 220. As all of these books that were launched pertained to Goa's historical past, its natural heritage and abundance, the launch marked an important milestone at the Raj Bhavan in the state. The book, Heavenly Islands of Goa, was launched at the hands of Sri Sri Vidhushekhara Bharati Sannidhanam.

In the book, Pillai, the author, talks about the island in great detail, beginning with the etymology of its name to its heritage, caves and forts, temples and churches, biodiversity, tourist attractions, accessibility and testimonials of those who've been there.

It has high-resolution images of the Governor's visits to most of these islands, but to those which he could not personally visit "due to time constraints" the governor "ensured that the pictures of the islands were captured by the Raj Bhavan photographer and writing material gathered from books and experts.

The book, in the form of a monograph, aims towards facilitating and highlighting the tourism potential of the state with regard to its lesser-known facets.

"Through this, the governor has tried to get a closer look at the nine small and big islands in Goa and understand their flora, fauna as well as socio-cultural diversity. This will make readers want to explore the lesser-known Goa," writes Pramod Sawant, Chief Minister of Goa in the foreword.

About a year ago, Pillai announced that he would publish a trilogy related to Goa's natural heritage, Bonsai (art of potted trees), and its beautiful islands. The first two aspects culminated in two books viz, Heritage Trees of Goa and Discovery of Vaman Vriksha Kala, respectively, the third aspect on the beautiful islands of the state got covered in his latest book.

With this, the trilogy that the governor set to complete has been achieved. His latest book on islands "contains ten islands, of which four are big ones while the rest are small in size. All the islands have now been connected by modern-day bridges except a coupe that can only be accessed by ferry. One of them is Divar. Interestingly, the Diwadkars have openly declared that they do not want a bridge and that way they have so far managed to keep tourists at bay. A remarkable feature of most of these islands is the existence of a dense mangrove ecosystem that envelops them.

Speaking about the book to THE WEEK at the Raj Bhavan in Goa, Pillai said, "Goa is known for its sand and sea but not so much for its vast treasure of natural heritage. The role of rivers and islands in Goa in their present topographical conditions, with the challenges they face, calls for comprehensive research, a thorough anthropological study and detailed biodiversity documentation. This book addresses the unique island settlements, distinctive biodiversity and their habitats and the amazing traditional and cultural practices on these inland islands."

On April 21, four more books penned by the Governor, were launched at Raj Bhavan in the backdrop of a symposium on the traditional trees of India that took place at the Raj Bhavan. The books titled, Icons of My Literature, Cuncolim (Based on the Cuncolim revolt), Kaavi Art (Based on the ancient Goan art form), Vikshit Bharat, and Canacona, (about his experience at Canacona Taluka) were launched at the hands of Dr Kumud Sharma, vice president, National Sahitya Academi, New Delhi.

In attendance at this book launch were distinguished guests - Professor Harilal Menon, vice-chancellor, Goa University, C. Achalender Reddy, chairman, National Biodiversity Authority, Paipra Radhakrishnan, ex-secretary, Kerala Sahitya Academi and others who presented research papers on trees of India from the ancient to the modern.

From time immemorial, our motherland expounded that plants are sentient beings, though their faculties are dormant, dull and stupefied. The Rig Veda and Atharva Veda note consciousness in plants.

Speaking on the subject of the symposium, 'Traditional trees of India,' the governor said, "After I took charge as governor in July 2021, I had to visit Partagal Mutt in Canacona taluka. There I saw this 1,000-years old Banyan tree. It was then that I decided that one day I would return to Partagal Mutt to worship this great Banyan tree.”

“About a year later, I began the Saimik Daiz Yatra (journey to learn about heritage trees of Goa) and that’s when I learnt about 30 more heritage trees all of which were between 100 and 500 years, spread out over the length and breadth of Goa. Some amazing trees I discovered were 'Shidam,' 'Satvin,' 'Baobab,' and more. These trees constitute an integral part of people's socio-cultural association with nature and environment,” he said.

His yatra resulted in the writing and publication of Heritage Trees of Goa which was released by the governor of West Bengal last year.

beyond-binaries-review-a-fresh-perspective-on-india-china-relations

Sat Apr 20 13:13:28 IST 2024

Men trip not on mountains, they trip over molehills. Or goes the Chinese proverb at the beginning of Beyond Binaries: The World of India and China. In the India-China relationship, even molehills are mountains, and Shastri Ramachandaran’s book gives a clear-eyed view for peak gazing and aims the reader to skip past the molehills.

In an ever-expanding bookshelf on understanding China, Ramachandaran's book provides the much-needed reporter’s experience. “Most expats tend to assume censorship and restrictions even when they do not exist,’’ he writes about when he worked with the Global Times. He narrates an incident when he wrote a piece that centres on Chinese politics, pulled no punches, but found that the editors who kept an “eagle eye against transgressions’’ said that he was “not critical enough’’.

The anecdote is illustrative of the kind of fresh perspective that Ramachandaran offers in his book. In India, he writes China is like the proverbial Indian elephant ‘seen’ by five blind men. What you don’t see is what you get. And in this space of “a threat’’, “enemy’’, “rival’’, “competitor and rising power” “itching for a war’’, Ramachandaran has chosen to introduce another—a fly-on-the-wall journalist, with old-fashioned curiosity. His book which traces the relationship through the ages, does so from the perspective of this journalist covering the beat.

His first trip to China was in 2008 when he travelled with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for an economic summit with Premier Een Jiabao—a defining moment, as he writes—and then, he worked in Beijing with China Daily and Global Times. This experience gave him a ringside view of China—from newsrooms—that is a vastly different view.

“India and Indians need to face up to the fact that we are not in China’s sights as much as we think,’’ he writes. In short, India does not matter, much. During his first months in China Daily, India figured prominently only a few times. India does not matter that much. Then, why China’s Global Times, is in the news in India for its anti-Indian comments, he asks. His explanation is “to feed the frenzy’’. Or in short, fun. The idea, he says, is a powerful one—that all publicity is good. And on the net that usually spells provocative. During his stint with the paper, for a year, there was only one India-related editorial that was carried. The Global Times English launched in 2009 but became popular. The Chinese edition had been coming out for decades. But it was a year later, that it went viral. As they were meant to be export products for a foreign audience, what appeared he believes is not necessarily the view of the Party, but often also to provide red herrings of what can be said.

If busting the first two myths is not reason enough to read on. Here is another. The 1962 war. It is a war that the Indian army can’t forget. But “few in present-day China hark back to it,’’ he writes. His book aims to push boundaries, fill in silences and add a new view. If there was ever a time to make sense of the Chinese whispers to hear a high-top note, it is now.

Title: ‘Beyond Binaries- The World of India and China’

Author: Shastri Ramachandaran

Publisher: Institute of Objective Studies

Pages: 275

Price: Rs. 750

2024-india-in-freefall-review-sanjay-jha-stood-on-the-burning-deck

Sat Apr 13 20:17:27 IST 2024

The prologue of 2024: India in Freefall begins with a quote from maverick American writer Edward Abbey: “The patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government”. That’s exactly what Sanjay Jha tries to do across 292 pages of his angsty, aggrieved, vitriolic, satirical, and always eminently readable book about the state of affairs in 2024. It’s a book that stands apart from the clutch of publications that crowds the market in election season. It’s different because its author is more erudite and a bit of a maverick himself. Ideologically opposed to the BJP, Jha is also disliked by the Congress–making him an excellent de facto third umpire.

You can hold this book like you hold the bag in a tambola game into which you can dip in and pull out a scam. The first one he pulls out is the management of the COVID-19 crisis at the start of this decade. This official response to the pandemic is like modern art - susceptible to many interpretations. According to the BJP supporters, it was a Modi masterstroke. But Jha quotes WHO to say that the casualties in India at 47 lakh were among the world’s highest. Whom do you believe?

Let me tell you what I do. I believe both in turns. It’s the same thing with crony capitalism. Jha uses it as a euphemism for Mr Gautam Adani who features across many pages (he is a busy businessman). There are airports and ports which Adani has targeted, and fall into his lap just days after being raided by the tax and enforcement authorities. Sheer coincidence no doubt, and there were many more such wonderful concurrences of events! But Indians with long memories will know that the BJP, for all its other misdeeds, did not invent crony capitalism. It has been part of India’s economic history since the good old days of Haridas Mundhra - no known relative of the Mundra port in Gujarat which Adani owns. All along, scams have carried the Congress stamp until the BJP stepped in for its share of the spoils.

Jha is also unsparing of his own team, the Congress, and accuses it of sleeping on the job (the chapter is titled ‘Rip Van Winkle…’) instead of getting up and going for the jugular. But the sins of the Congress, in Jha’s telling, are venal—being woolly headed, slow and missing opportunities. When there was a ‘six’ for the asking, the Congress timorously permitted a dot ball.

Painstaking research has obviously gone into the book. Facts and figures have been assiduously collated across the years and turned into powder kegs. Jha’s prose is fervid and he is so fluent that he can say the same thing using different words before you begin to realize it. Writing at the pace that he does, there is the forgivable lapse into what can be best described as Shashi Tharoor territory, as for instance in the course of damning Modi’s speeches with soft praise, he says: “Modi has mastered the art of skilful persuasion…Forget the frequent prestidigitation (‘conjuring tricks’ for the unversed) of his speeches…”.

At a time when so many Congress supporters across the country are jumping ship, this former party spokesperson is maintaining his lone vigil on the burning deck. Despite his valiant act and despite the facts he has culled and the arguments he marshals, one wonders if it will lead to the results he seeks. But that’s neither here nor there. As writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel said: “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice but there must never be a time when we fail to protest”. Sanjay Jha has protested, vociferously and brilliantly.

Title: 2024 India in Free Fall

Author: Sanjay Jha

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India

Pages: 292

Price: Rs 599

nonsense-file-by-the-colonel-review-a-delightful-and-captivating-read

Thu Mar 28 17:46:20 IST 2024

Can one find humour in a stressful, morbid and strict military life? Lt Colonel (retired) Jose Vallikappan could. In oodles. Not the dark and sardonic type, but delightful ones.

Try this: As a Second Lieutenant in the 1960s, Colonel Vallikappan recalls being given the task of looking after a General and his wife who were visiting his unit. The enthusiastic novice he was, young Vallikappan jumped at the task. But, he had a rather challenging chore at hand: "Finding a loo for the fussy lady."

In his hallmark deadpan style, Colonel Vallikappan recounts the rigour with which he went about his task, arranging a 'thunder box' type lavatory and a team of scavengers to clear the night soil. He narrates in detail the clockwork precision he adopted to avoid the "embarrassing encounter between the depositor and the drawee", which impressed the General's wife. Thanks to his work, Vallikappan became a hero overnight.

He wryly puts it: "I was the uncrowned king in toilet training".

Such hilarious vignettes from his military days make Colonel Vallikappan's book 'Nonsense File by the Colonel' a delightful and captivating read. A proud Army veteran with an exceptional career, Colonel Vallikappan's innate sense of humour and impeccable writing skills have created an impressive page-turner.

Most of it may be set in the military barracks, but 'Nonsense File by the Colonel' comes with a disclaimer. The author says his only aim is to offer sober entertainment and no lofty ideas. Nevertheless, remarkable characters, like Major Joshy, the cantankerous official who is a stickler for military discipline, and General Jacob, a short and stocky war hero, vow the reader with their might.

Colonel Vallikappan's encounter with Major Joshy starts on a bad note after the latter lambasts the Second Lieutenant for his "not-so-smart salute". The duo later strikes a good friendship after Vallikappan bravely asks for his shaving set. Through their funny encounters, the author paints an admirable picture of the Major, whose formidable reputation and dedication make him a hero.

The Colonel also recalls funny moments involving his colleagues. Like the story of Lieutenant Kuldip and his second-in-command Risaldar Sohan Singh, nicknamed Kat Kata Singh. Kat Kata wasn't a popular officer among his troops, thanks to his bossy nature. During a patrol mission led by Havildar Balbir Singh in Wagah, the men found a huge pitcher of ghee. Lieutenant Kuldip ordered his men not to eat the ghee as it could have been poisoned by Pakistanis. The order was adhered to until a week later when Lieutenant Kuldip found his dal floating in ghee! When queried, the Havildar replied: "Sahibji, it is not poisoned."

"What makes you think that it is not poisoned?" Kuldip asked.

Promptly came the reply: "Sahibji, we have been over-feeding Kat Kata Singh with this ghee for one whole week, and he is still alive and kicking."

Rather than blast at the reply, the Lieutenant appreciated the sense of humour.

A veteran with a decades-long career which also saw him take part in the 1965 and 1971 wars, Colonel Vallikappan's account of his encounter with the famous General Cariappa, too, leaves us impressed. Vallikappan was riding horseback at Ahmednagar cantonment when he saw the illustrious General taking an evening walk. He promptly saluted the General and introduced himself. The General acknowledged his gesture, only after lavishing his attention on the horse. Interestingly, General Cariappa spoke to Vallikappan in Malayalam. The General deducted that Vallikappan was a Malayali from his accent and appearance.

'Nonsense File by the Colonel' is, however, more than just military stories. The author takes us through his boisterous childhood days in Teekoy in Kerala's Kottayam, rebellious college days and even his post-army life with Malayala Manorama and THE WEEK—he was a columnist for 15 years in the newsweekly.

His admiration for his family, especially his wife, is reflected in his words as he pays tribute to admirable women he met in his life.

As much as 'Nonsense File by the Colonel' is a book of funny anecdotes, this is also Colonel Vallikkappan's tribute to the many people who enriched his life.

Nonsense File by the Colonel

By Jose Vallikappan

Publisher: Manorama Books

Price: Rs 290

Pages: 183

a-look-into-the-lives-and-works-of-great-masters-of-cinema

Fri Mar 22 21:29:41 IST 2024

'Modern Masters of Cinema' is an exploration of the world of cinema, offering readers an in-depth look at the lives and works of some of the most influential figures in the film industry.

The author’s keen observations and insightful commentary provide a fresh perspective on these cinematic icons – from Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, and Kevin Spacey to Quentin Tarantino, Woody Allen to Amitabh Bachchan, highlighting their distinctive storytelling techniques and cinematic vision. Penned by Dhiraj Singh, a serving bureaucrat in the government of India, the book is an act of love showcasing his intense interest in the films and their craft that has spawned over decades.

A short book of less than 200 pages, with over 30 chapters, this will interest film enthusiasts who look at them as more than just entertainment. If you have seen the classics and have them etched in your memory, you would connect with the book at a cerebral level.

“Every great actor is good at playing almost everything but his or her greatness lies in a few selected zones where he is in full sync with his brilliant core. Al Pacino’s restless showmanship, menace or his exasperation, Di Niro’s pinpointed rage, Michael Douglas’ lovable rogue, Brando’s rebellious surliness come to mind. They are good or even great in other situations also but here they are home, hitting the sweet spot of their limitless talent,” the author writes in the book.

In the author’s own words, “When I started thinking about why something feels so nice, I felt like documenting the points of appeal. It made me a better audience for my preferred art form... (book) is a commentary on my favourite practitioners of cinematic art.” He packs the book with his critical analysis, and anecdotes, and of course, peppering his reviews with questions like whether should films serve an ideological agenda or be politically correct.

The author does not limit his analysis to Hollywood but also includes stalwarts of Bollywood like Amitabh Bachchan, Dilip Kumar, and Rishi Kapoor. This broad scope gives readers a comprehensive understanding of cinema as a global art form. He hails the advent of directors like Anurag Kashyap, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Dibakar Banerjee, who have caught the emotion and idiom of the cow belt in its most natural way.

The ‘Modern Masters of Cinema’ offers a wealth of information and unique insights, but also demands a high level of engagement from the reader to navigate its narrative.

Book: Modern Masters of Cinema

Author: Dhiraj Singh

Publisher: Notion Press

Price: Rs 275

Pages: 190

she-the-leader-women-in-indian-politics-review-a-fitting-ode-to-women-politicians

Mon Mar 11 18:14:23 IST 2024

For Indian women, 2023 was a momentous year. After languishing in the halls of Parliament for decades, the Women's Reservation Bill finally cleared the lower house on September 18, 2023. Hailed as a historic move, the act grants reservation to women on one-third of seats in Lok Sabha and state assemblies with near unanimity.

To gauge the bill's significance, one needs to construe the fact that the current Lok Sabha has only 82 women members, which ironically is the highest ever. One can, however, draw solace from the fact that this is a three-fold increase in women’s representation in 67 years of India’s parliamentary election history.

In such a discouraging scenario, celebrating and honouring the women who graced our political scene is imperative, for how they fought inequalities and patriarchal politics to make their mark.

Nidhi Sharma's She, The Leader: Women in Indian Politics does exactly that. Through the profiles of 17 women politicians who have been groundbreakers, the book pays an ode to 'Nari Shakti'.

In four sections - Part- I: The Pioneers, Part- II: The Inheritors, Part III: The Lone Warriors, and Part- IV: The Future Leaders - Sharma traces the journey of women leaders who, according to her, "create their own brand of politics in the national discourse".

'Part- I: The Pioneers' focuses on the first woman Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the first female Chief Minister of an Indian state, Sucheta Kripalani, a deserving start to the book. It documents their entry into politics, eventful reign and behemoth political legacy they left behind for independent India.

'Part- II: The Inheritors' has Sonia Gandhi, J. Jayalalithaa, Vasundhara Raje, Sheila Dikshit, and Mayawati gracing the pages, all sharing the common thread of inheriting their political careers from a male member of the family or a political benefactor.

'Part III: The Lone Warriors' is about Pratibha Patil, Sushma Swaraj, Mamata Banerjee, Brinda Karat, and Ambika Soni while 'Part- IV: The Future Leaders' follows the journey of Smriti Z. Irani, Supriya Sule, Kavitha Kalvakuntla, Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, and Ampareen Lyngdoh.

The book documents the lives of these leaders, who managed to break the ceiling while battling the everyday challenges of home and family, to reshape Indian politics. It also doubles up as a motivational guide which inspires women and documents the convoluted Indian political sphere.

She, The Leader: Women in Indian Politics

By Nidhi Sharma

Published by Aleph Book Company

Price: INR 723

Pages: 392

trust-by-hernan-diaz-an-unconventional-and-thought-provoking-work

Mon Mar 11 14:22:28 IST 2024

‘Trust’ is not a simple story for the passive pleasure of reading. It is a complex and unconventional novel that provokes the readers to think, detect, imagine and question. Within the book, there are four different books written by different fictional authors in disparate genres and styles. There are multiple characters at different time periods.

The author describes ‘Trust’ as a polyphonic novel. The first section is a novel written by a fictional writer Harold Vanner about New York financier Benjamin Rask and his wife Helen who patronizes arts and culture. Although Harold Vanner is one of the central characters in the book he never appears in it. Vanner opens the book and triggers everything that happens in it: several people in “the real world” react to Vanner’s book, setting the whole plot in motion.

The second part is a memoir of Andrew Bevel, a Wall Street tycoon who wants people to believe that his pursuit of profit was always aligned to the social good. His wife Mildred is a connoisseur of music and a lover of literature. They live together physically but live apart mentally.

They find that the living together improves by the vast distance between their minds of which one is obsessed with money and the other arts. At times, Mildred dabbles in stocks and gives valuable advice to her husband which he uses to make more money.

The third part is about Ida Partenza a writer who becomes secretary to the tycoon and ghost-writes his autobiography. Her father is an anarchist and an immigrant from Italy. She is caught between the anti-capitalist rants of her father and working with the wealthy financier who wants her to help with his autobiography spinning a positive image of his business and the cultural activities of his wife who becomes mentally ill.

Diaz says in an interview, “ I enjoyed particularly writing the character of Ida. She is like my hero—she’s fearless, effective, crafty, and very bold. I made her all the things that I wish I were. She’s also a very different writer from me, so I had to learn to write like her”.

The fourth part is the personal diary of Mildred, the tycoon’s wife “that is also a sort of a prose poem and a love letter to modernism”, in the words of the author. Midred writes about music, art, philosophy, her illness, the stock market and Swiss mountain slopes among which she convalesces in a clinic.

The connecting themes in all the four books are the Wall Street money-making and the world of art and literature. The author has juxtaposed the two themes with provocative pronouncements challenging the conventional American narratives and myths about money. He has chosen the boom years of the Wall Street in the twenties and the bust in 1929 followed by the years of depression for context.

Diaz says he wanted to write about the labyrinth of capital, how it works and distorts the reality around itself in the American value system. He is fascinated by the ‘transcendental and mythical place of money in the American culture’. He explores how wealth creates isolation for the wealthy while giving the person extraordinary outreach to the world of art, culture and politics. According to Diaz “money is also a fiction. It is just that we have all agreed on the terms and conditions and agreed to play it as a game. There is nothing that ties money to real value other than a narrative. Or the trust that we invest in that narrative”.

In another interview, Diaz says, “Reading is always an act of trust. Whenever we read anything, from a novel to the label on a prescription bottle, trust is involved. That trust is based on tacit contracts whose clauses I wanted to encourage the reader to reconsider. As you read Trust and move forward from one section to the next, it becomes clear that the book is asking you to question the assumptions with which you walk into a text. I would even say that Trust aims, to an enormous extent, to question the boundaries between history and fiction”.

Here are some vignettes from the novel:

-He became fascinated by the contortions of money—how it could be made to bend back upon itself to be force-fed its own body. The isolated, self-sufficient nature of speculation spoke to his character and was a source of wonder and an end in itself, regardless of what his earnings. He viewed capital as an antiseptically living thing. It moves, eats, grows, breeds, falls ill, and may die. But it is clean. This became clearer to him in time. The larger the operation, the further removed he was from its concrete details. There was no need for him to touch a single banknote or engage with the things and people his transaction affected. All he had to do was think, speak, and, perhaps, write. And the living creature would be set in motion, drawing beautiful patterns on its way into realms of increasing abstraction, sometimes following appetites of its own that he never could have anticipated—and this gave him some additional pleasure, the creature trying to exercise its free will. He admired and understood it, even when it disappointed him.

-The root of all evil, the cause of every war—god and country.

- History itself is just a fiction—a fiction with an army.

-Every life is organized around a small number of events that either propel us or bring us to a grinding halt. We spend the years between these episodes benefiting or suffering from their consequences until the arrival of the next forceful moment. A man’s worth is established by the number of these defining circumstances he is able to create for himself. He need not always be successful, for there can be great honor in defeat. But he ought to be the main actor in the decisive scenes in his existence, Whatever the past may have handed on to us, it is up to each one of us to chisel our present out of the shapeless block of the future.

-Every single one of our acts is ruled by the laws of economy. When we first wake up in the morning we trade rest for profit. When we go to bed at night we give up potentially profitable hours to renew our strength. And throughout our day we engage in countless transactions. Each time we find a way to minimize our effort and increase our gain we are making a business deal, even if it is with ourselves. These negotiations are so ingrained in our routine that they are barely noticeable. But the truth is our existence revolves around profit.

Hernan Diaz’s cerebral perspectives, intriguing plots and unconventional literary tools reminds me of Jorge Borges the famous Argentine writer. Diaz says, “Borges has shaped me not only as a reader and as a writer but also as a person. His playfulness with genre, his joyful disregard for taxonomies of any kind and his obsession with framed narratives are some of the aspects of his work that have influenced me”. Diaz has written a book “Borges, between history and eternity”.

Diaz believes that "fiction has palpable effects on reality. A lot of the power constraints that we feel in our everyday lives are based on fiction. Think of something that is as inherent and powerful to you as your nationality. That is, at the end of the day, a collection of ideological fictions. There's nothing in it. Nothing. Think about it for a second. There's nothing that makes you American or Belgian or anything aside from what you ascribe to that identity, and that is a series of narratives”.

Diaz is a voracious reader. In interviews, he quotes so many writers and points out parts of his novel which have styles similar to some of the writers. After having read 29 books of P G Wodehouse he says, “ I love Wodehouse. Ever-surprising in his repetitiousness, never failing to delight, always making us safe in his breezy world. It is paradoxical that Wodehouse should give me so much comfort when he also makes me feel how mean and shabby my life is each time I emerge from one of his novels”.

Some authors write well but not impressive in speeches and conversations. Diaz is spectacular and mesmerizing both in writing and talking with his spontaneous thoughts and reflections. I have read some of his interviews which are as fascinating and inspiring as his book. He revels in abstract concepts and subversive thoughts. He calls writing as a monstrous act because it implies a metamorphosis.

Diaz says, “I write with a fountain pen (received as gift twenty years back) in large format notebooks. I enjoy the feeling of flowing ink and the rumor of the pen on the paper. With a pen, you create your own geography, with its islets of thoughts and streams of associations”.

‘Trust’ has won the 2023 Pulitzer prize for fiction. It is the second novel of Diaz. I cannot wait to read his first novel “In the Distance”.

Hernan Diaz is a potential candidate for Nobel Prize.

nikhil-j-alvas-debut-novel-if-i-have-to-be-a-soldier-weaves-history-and-fiction-expertly

Fri Mar 01 10:36:23 IST 2024

The Air Force bombers zoomed in low, dropping bombs and strafing anything in sight in the thickly populated town. Hutments, market areas, alleyways and buildings groaned to the ground in a plume of fire and smoke, even as terrified locals ran helter-skelter for dear life. Hundreds of innocent natives, including women and children, were killed, many trapped under the rubble of buildings. The people could only watch as their homes, livelihoods, places of work and worship, all went down in a hailstorm of fire power from above.

If the above description sounds like a terrible episode from, say, the Second World War, or a slice of timeline from a tinpot dictator’s banana republic from deep within the African continent, well, think again. It is a true incident from a less-talked-about part of India’s contemporary history, when then prime minister Indira Gandhi ordered the armed forces to crush the rebellion of the people of present-day Mizoram who called for independence.

Unthinkable in a modern society, you might say. Yet, considering the increasing narrative of muscled-up governments and chest-thumping leaderships around the world, not exactly implausible still, even in the 21st century — that is very much the contemporary relevance and urgency of Nikhil J. Alva’s just-released debut novel, If I Have To Be A Soldier. The paperback weaves history and fiction to come up with a potboiler that is easily a page-turner as well as a stark reminder of the unsavoury blood-soaked foundations on which our much-prided Union is built on.

It was exactly 58 years ago, on March 1, 1966, that Mizo leader and former Indian Army soldier Laldenga (Mizoram and most of northeast was then part of the state of Assam) declared independence from India, declaring the existence of the independent state of ‘Greater Mizoram’. Indira Gandhi, who had just taken over as premier and wanting to show off, especially to the syndicate of entrenched male Congress party leaders that she had mettle, ordered India’s defence forces to crush the secession. The result was a series of massacres and mayhem that did not stop with India bombing its own citizens five days later, on March 5 (The Mizo insurgency came to a close only with a peace accord in the mid-eighties, and Laldenga becoming the first chief minister of the federated state).

Author Alva’s fictional characters Sammy, an Indian soldier forced to return to the land he grew up and the dark past he thought he had left behind, and ‘Che’ Sena, Sammy’s childhood friend-turned-insurgent, give a human face to the travails that visited these hill regions in the mid-sixties that is very much a part of India, yet, often ignored with the collective ‘northeast’ terminology. As inculcated doctrines of a national narrative, jingoism and military discipline stare at identity, friendship and, above all, love, in the face, often there are no victors, only victims. That is the reality the Sammy-Sena combine has to come to terms with when they get swept away in the great power play in motion, even as it forces them to confront demons both personal and the political, along the way.

Considering that it is his first book, Alva surely does impress with his descriptive prowess and free-flowing prose, and the way he has packed in enough action across 300-odd pages. This book is equally a fast-paced airport read as it is an eye-opening vista into the multiple layers of Mizo life and history.

The author, who is the son of Congress veteran Margaret Alva who was also instrumental in the recent social media makeover of Rahul Gandhi, is a well-known TV filmmaker. This eye for the visual comes through not only with the way he brings the landscape and culture of Greater Mizoram to light, but also in the not-stopping-for-breath speed with which the story progresses, once Sammy and Sena go on the run.

Alva himself says he first wrote a screenplay on these characters and the backdrop, but then “decided that only a novel could do justice to them”. He thought right as he successfully manages to give life and heft of history to the characters he created. And knowing his background in TV, who knows, it is a tale perfect for the plucking for an OTT series. What say, Mr Alva?

If I Have To Be A Soldier

By Nikhil J. Alva

HarperCollins Publishers India

Price: Rs 499

Pages: 318

the-yamuna-memoir-from-an-admirer-of-the-river-to-its-custodian

Sun Dec 31 19:45:07 IST 2023

Every year, the images of devoted women stepping into the toxic froth-laden waters of the Yamuna for Chhat Puja in Delhi exude pain for both people and the river which has been bearing the brunt of rapid urbanization and industrialization in the city.

Of the many initiatives to clean the river, the most recent one was helmed by lieutenant-governor of Delhi, Vinai Kumar Saxena, which he has documented in Racing to Restore: the Yamuna Memoir. As many as 3792 unauthorized structures were removed and 273.5 acre was repossessed in the floodplain through the programme Saxena led, both as the LG and chairman of the high level committee (HLC) constituted by NGT. However, he had to leave the work “unfinished” after the Supreme Court stayed his HLC chairmanship in July 2023.

Saxena sketches his journey from being an admirer of the river to its custodian. He grew up on the banks of the Paishwani, a tributary of the Yamuna in Banda, the home town of Goswami Tulsidas, the author of the Ramcharitmanas.

“I used to swim and see through the water, the rippling sediments on the river floor,” he recalls.

His personal and professional sojourns in Mathura, Prayagraj, Farrukhabad, Gotan, Bhal and Ahmedabad kept him around rivers, especially the Yamuna, working for them, and learning from them. At some instances, he quietly made his contribution towards protection of rivers, on other occasions, he stood against stalwarts. He eloquently discusses his “David vs Goliath” battle with Narmada Bachoa Andolan supremo Medha Patkar in exposing the “farce being run” in the name of river protection.

“When waters of Narmada came gushing into Gujarat, I had a hand in making them flow,” he writes.

In 2015, he was appointed the chairman of Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC). His new office on Yamuna’s bank brought him closer to the river. He walked along the river, reflecting on its history, not knowing that the responsibility to do something for its polluted waters – first as the LG, Delhi and then as NGT-constituted HLC chairman – would soon beckon him.

“I took it more as an opportunity than an appointment,” he says. Unsurprisingly, among the first tasks he embarked on as LG, Delhi was to clean the Yamuna. And one of the first actions he undertook was to revive river Sahibi, once a tributary of the Yamuna, which had turned into a 57 km long “stinking, gas-emitting, marsh of putrid wastewater” – Najafgarh drain.

“I personally visited the entire stretch of the drain that carry millions of cusecs of dirt, silt, sewerage and enters Yamuna largely unhindered,” he writes. “I took a boat trip into the stinking Najafgarh drain, probably the first by an LG”.

Like anyone, he was also taken by surprise by the startling statistics. The outfall of sewage, mostly untreated, was about 744 Million Gallons per Day (MGD) against 930 MGD. This meant that 80 per cent of water supply in the city turn into sewage and much of it is drained directly into the river. Expressing his disbelief, he writes:

“I was appalled that about 85 percent of the pollution in the city is due to domestic sources.”

As fate would have it, his authority to work on the Yamuna strengthened when National Green Tribunal (NGT) “requested” him to chair the HLC for Rejuvenation and Restoration of Yamuna. As he took the “authority and opportunity to take ownership of the task” with both hands, visible differences, he claims, began to emerge as a result of development of 40 new de-centralized sewage treatment plants, rehabilitation of Kondli, Rithala STPs, partial gravitational de-silting, tapping of drains, upgradation of 13 CETPs and other activities to rid the Yamuna of pollution.

“Though not satisfactory, year on year data with regards to several parameters started showing improvement in baby steps,” he writes. Project Baansera, Delhi’s first bamboo theme park and Project Vatiika, an initiative to recreate wetlands through effective plantation, are cases in point evincing the impact his work brought and appreciated by G-20 envoys during a visit to ASITA on the Yamuna banks in March 2023. His role was also instrumental in adoption of O-zone in the Master Plan 2041 as an “area of no construction” and a regulated O(R) zone with “only essential utilities”.

However, to LG’s dismay, Supreme Court stayed the NGT directions appointing him as the HLC’s head in response to a petition filed by the Delhi government in May 2023 arguing that the river rejuvenation work should be invested with them. “The order stalled the initiatives that were being taken on a war footing for about a year,” he woefully writes. “The appeal was to disempower a person and not to strengthen the programme.”

Taking an apparent jibe at the ruling Aam Admi Party in Delhi, he says: “Yamuna is yet again getting inundated with the confusion of ownership. The framework is ready, the soldiers were ready but it is just that in proving a political point, the plot is getting lost.”

For political reasons or not, several programmes and millions of rupees have not been able to rid Yamuna of pollution, yet.

revolutionizing-business-operations-review-change-the-way-you-think-about-and-run-your-business

Fri Dec 22 16:31:29 IST 2023

A must-read for anyone who wants to learn how to transform his business operations and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in the digital age, Tony Saldanha and Filippo Passerini's latest book, Revolutionising Business Operations: How to Build Dynamic Business Processes for Enduring Competitive Advantage, provides a cutting-edge strategy for competitive advantage.

The authors are seasoned experts in the field of global business services and information technology, and they share their insights and experiences with a lot of clarity in an engaging way. They present a comprehensive and practical framework for dynamic process transformation, which involves three key drivers of change: open market rules, unified accountability, and dynamic operating engine. They explain how these drivers can help businesses create a culture of continuous improvement, innovation, and agility, and how they can align their processes with their strategic goals and customer needs.

Saldanha and Passerini also provide real-life examples and case studies from various industries and geographies, as well as tools and templates that readers can use to apply the framework to their own situations.

The book is not only informative, but also inspiring and motivating. It challenges the readers to rethink their assumptions and paradigms, and to embrace change as an opportunity rather than a threat. It also offers a vision of the future of business operations, where artificial intelligence, automation, and human creativity work together to create value and impact.

Revolutionizing Business Operations is a book that will change the way you think about and run your business, and will help you achieve a level of excellence that is hard to match.

Revolutionizing Business Operations: How to Build Dynamic Processes for Enduring Competitive Advantage

Author: Tony Saldanha and Filippo Passerini

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

review-the-greatest-malayalam-stories-ever-told

Sat Dec 16 22:26:59 IST 2023

David Davidar and his publishing startup Aleph has done yeomen service to Indian literature and writing over the years, grooming ‘bubbling under’ talents as evidenced in the sheer brilliance that was last year’s A Case of Indian Marvels, an anthology curated short stories by some of India’s finest new writers. Aleph has also been bridging the gap between wider world out there and the dazzling gems languishing in the depths of vernacular Indian literature by its ‘greatest stories ever told’ series, which helps regional masterpieces find a larger audience with their English translation.

In fact, it is actually surprising that the series ventured into Malayalam only in its 13th edition, considering how refined and evolved Kerala’s literary scene has always been. The short story genre was perfected as back as the nineteenth century in the Malayalam speaking regions of Southern India, with not just translations of European masters, but a coming-of-age of this literary form through uniquely nuanced writers from Kesari Vengayil Kunhiraman Nayanar (believed to be the first Malayalam short story writer) downwards to the Padmarajans and Zacharias celebrated in recent times.

The stories were selected and translated by A.J. Thomas, who was, amidst many other illustrious milestones in his CV, the editor of the Sahitya Akademi’s bi-monthly journal Indian Literature. The selections seem comprehensive enough, give or take a few, subjective as such a selection is always likely to be. All the big names of Malayalam literature are there, almost as if referenced according to the social evolution of Malayali society itself. So there is Thakazhi’s short story The Farmer which talks about the travails of rural toils, to Kesavadev’s (wrongly spelt in the inner flap) The Oath. O.V.Vijayan, much celebrated outside Kerala as well, makes an appearance with his The Hanging, which pulls you so realistically into the grief of a father over his son. Moving on, the stories reflect the progression of Kerala as it transformed from an agrarian economy into a consumerist ‘modern’ society, stories tracing the arc through women’s empowerment and angst (stories by M.T.Vasudevan Nair and Madhavikutty), tribal rights (P. Vatsala) to sexual abuse (M.Mukundan’s haunting Photo) and even caste and class divides, with the stunningly relevant Sweat Marks by Sara Joseph.

What especially works for this book is that it not only lives up to the expectation of being an authoritative compendium of some of the best known short story works in Malayalam, it also offers a nifty intro to the nuances and mastery of some of the best known literary giants in the language. This is especially useful not just for literary aficionados, but especially for the increasing number of Malayalis, either inside or outside Kerala, who hold their identity dear, yet, don’t have proficiency in the language or its rich history beyond the picture-postcard-perfect 'God's own country' campaigns on YouTube.

With all of Thomas’s impressive works behind him (he’s even won best translator award at Crossword Awards), one does get a nagging feeling here and there that the nuances and ethos of the original do not get precisely translated into English. Thomas resorting to a formal and ‘high’ English feel a bit grating at points and deficient in bringing out the rustic background or social subtext of a plot or the intricate intensity of the moments the protagonists are going through. Basheer’s satiric classic Mookkan (The World Renowned Nose) is a classic case in point, which I relished reading in its Malayalam original years ago – in comparison, the translation felt clumsy at points. Perhaps this anomaly is only to be expected, since idiosyncracies of cultures, contexts and language markers are often next to impossible to convey perfectly in a different language and in a different time. Hopefully, shouldn’t be a big deal.

The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told

Selected & translated by A.J. Thomas

Pages 438

Rs 899 (hardbound)

Aleph

chitra-govindrajs-new-poetry-collection-essence-speaks-to-universality-of-human-condition

Tue Dec 12 12:24:16 IST 2023

Chitra Govindraj’s poetry collection, Essence, is a tribute to the universality of the human condition. We are all different, yet in some ways, we are all the same. All of us are searching for meaning, happiness and purpose. Voltaire once said that God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. No matter how joyful, sad, conflicted, or questioning we individually are, collectively we are all part of Voltaire’s audience.

That is why Chitra’s poems – alternatively contemplative, wise, whimsical, and hopeful – will speak to each of us. Because we are all on this adventure called Life together. It is not many people who will give you an all-access pass to their innermost fears and convictions. But deep calls to deep. Some of the most charming poems in the collection are the ones where we get glimpses of her vulnerability. In the poem ‘Honesty’, for example, she writes, “Do we all have our own truths and different versions? How do we know which is the right one for certain?” In ‘Social Media and Me’, she writes about the deceptiveness of social media, and the way it weaves a “web of lies”. But the clincher for me was the last line: “I need to find out if I am who I am.” The depth of that sentiment goes beyond the boundaries of social media. We are selling so many versions of ourselves to the world that we are in danger of mixing up our real self from the counterfeits.

The poems address an array of other contemporary issues as well, from addiction, overparenting and binge-eating to domestic abuse and depression. Life does not always come with a ‘how to’ manual, and too often, we are left to make sense of it alone. So, it was refreshing to navigate these issues through another person’s perspective. It helped that they were in the form of poetry, with a measured rhyme and cadence that gave them levity, even as the subjects they addressed had a core of seriousness.

Essence was written during the pandemic, when an uncle would share his collection of poetry on Chitra’s family WhatsApp group. It inspired her to write one and post it on the group as well. It was well received and encouraged her to write more. Chitra says the poems “intuitively moved towards the human values” that she was taught during the Bal Vikas classes she attended between the ages of eight and 15. It was in these classes that she was taught that the universe is a manifestation of the five elements – earth, water, air, ether and fire. These five elements are present in a person in the form of five life principles or values – prema (love), shanti (peace), dharma (right conduct), satya (truth), and ahimsa (non-violence). To give the collection a “purpose and direction”, Chitra has divided the poems into these five values.

Some of the poems are in the form of stories. For example, ‘My Love’ is about a soldier who returns home to his lover, who now has a child. ‘Forgiven’ is about friendship between two boys and how the friend forgives the narrator even though he punched him. “I punched him in the eye, but I’m hurting bad,” writes the narrator. In some of the other poems, like ‘Unbeaten’, it is unclear whether Chitra is writing about herself or another. But it does not really matter. The poems touched a chord, no matter who they were referring to. Good poems show us something of the poet. Great poems show us something of ourselves.

Essence

By Chitra Govindraj

Published by Authorspress

Price Rs295; pages 161

courting-india-england-mughal-india-and-the-origins-of-empire-review

Sun Nov 12 17:32:12 IST 2023

“Courting India: England, Mughal India and the origins of empire” by Nandini Das (published in May 2023) is a fascinating read for those interested in the history of the British entry into India.

As a former diplomat, I enjoyed reading about the experience of Sir Thomas Roe, the first British ambassador to India to the Mughal court of Emperor Jahangir. His mission is a case study for Economic Diplomacy.

When East India company started exploring India for business in India in the late sixteenth century, they needed approvals and favours from Emperor Jahangir. They sent to the Mughal court some merchants but they were not taken seriously. So the British decided to send an ambassador to reach out to the emperor. They nominated Sir Thomas Roe, a 35-year old, as ambassador of King James I. His diplomatic Instructions clarified that while he represented his king’s ‘honour and dignity’, he had to use all means possible ‘to advance the trade of the East India Company’. Roe’s salary was paid by the East India company. He got 600 pounds as annual salary. He took some advance from which he spent over one hundred pounds to buy dress for himself and livery for his servants.

Roe set out on his voyage on 2 February 1615 and reached Surat after six months of voyage. He had brought fifteen people in his retinue which included a chaplain, a doctor, cook, secretary and even a couple of musicians.

His first challenge was to establish his authority as ambassador and get special privileges and protocol respect. He had to fight for these starting with the landing in Surat. When he reached Surat on 25 december 1615, they made an announcement to the local authorities about the arrival of an ambassador. But the locals laughed at the title and did not take it seriously. The customs authorities wanted to search his luggage. Roe put his foot down and refused to allow the search claiming special privilege as ambassador. He wrote to Zulfiqar Khan, the governor of the Surat area. Khan replied that customs search was standard procedure but he would make an exception in recognition of Roe’s status

The ambassador set foot for the first time on Indian soil, welcomed by a volley of shots from the cavalry. But there was another diplomatic tussle. The thirty cavalry men who were to lead the procession to his place of stay were sitting under an open tent and did not rise to greet him. Roe said he would not go until they stood up and did the honours.

The governor invited Roe to pay him a visit. But Roe declined the invitation saying that according to protocol ambassadors could not visit a foreign official first before presenting themselves to the King. Then the governor wanted to meet the commander of the English ship. Roe wrote to commander Keeling, forbidding him from receiving the governor. Finally, Zulfiqar Khan visited Roe at the latter’s residence.

On 30 October 1615, Roe received Emperor Jahangir’s farmān acknowledging him as ambassador and inviting him to the court as well as commanding Mughal governors on the route to offer all assistance to the ambassador. On the way, Roe stopped in Burhanpur ruled by Parvez, the second son of Jehangir. When he went to see him, the courtiers asked him to bow and offer the customary kurnish (ritual salute) or sijda (full ceremonial prostration). Roe refused. Then they asked him to stand but he demanded a chair to sit. The courtiers then told him politely that ‘as a courtesy’, the prince granted him permission to lean against a nearby pillar.

Roe's biggest challenge was that the powerful, large and wealthy Mughal emperor and his court did not take England, the English King and his ambassador seriously. Emperor Jahangir was far more broadminded and progressive in his outlook in comparison to the protestant ambassador who was belittling the catholic Portuguese.

Roe had brought gifts for the Emperor and the Mughal dignitaries. But these were looked down as insignificant and poor in comparison. Jahangir’s own ambassador to Shah Abbas, the ruler of Persia, had given gifts of elephants, gold and silver. The Persian ambassador gave gifts of horses and camels besides precious stones to Emperor Jahangir. Roe’s only gifts Emperor Jahangir and his son Prince Khurram (later..Shajahan) enjoyed were the wines.

During his posting for three years as ambassador, Roe had managed to get some trade concessions from the Mughals for East India company. Roe had attended Jehangir’s court regularly and cultivated some senior advisors and family members of the Emperor. He tried hard to advance the English interests at the expense of Portuguese and Dutch but the Mughals were ahead in the game. They made the Europeans to compete with each other for favours.

Roe wrote about his daily activities, success and failures in his diaries as well as in his letters to the Company and to his friends. Some of these, reproduced in the book, are interesting.

The author is an expert in Latin American affairs