Preserving Panchsheel
Amar Chandel
Panchsheel and the Future: Perspectives on India-China Relations
Ed. C.V. Ranganathan Samskriti Institute of Chinese Studies, CSDS. Pages 391. Rs 675.
FOR those Indians who lived through the heady days of "Hindi-Chini bhai bhai" in the fifties, the 1962 war was the ultimate act of betrayal. The victim mentality continues half a century later. This book released on the occasion of the golden jubilee of an agreement relating to Tibet between the two countries in 1954 is an indirect attempt to rectify these misconceptions about one another.

Eminent Hindi writer Nirmal Verma and Malayalam novelist Kovilan entered the ‘Hall of Fame’ of Indian literature when they were recently elected fellows of the Sahitya Akademi. Nirupama Dutt and M.S. Unnikrishnan on the two prolific writers and their works.

A writer of many seasons
THESE are the opening lines of A Day’s Guest, a long short story by fiction writer Nirmal Verma, considered a literary giant of our times who imbued the world of Hindi letters with a new sensibility. And not just that he experimented with words and visuals to create a style inimitably his own. The above passage may come as a surprise to those not familiar with the writings of Nirmal.

Kovilan soldiers on
FEW outside literary circles and Southern India may have heard the name of Kandanisseri Vattamparambil Velappan Aiyyappan. It’s quite a tongue-twisting name, even for native Malayalam speakers. It was thus no wonder that Aiyyappan chose the eclectic pen name of ‘Kovilan’ for his literary forays.

Flavour of Down Under
Harpreet Pruthi
Cloudstreet: The Modern Australian Classic
by Tim Winston. Penguin. Pages 426. Rs 395
IT is not only amidst students that the Indian focus is shifting from Europe and America to Australasia. Australian literature, too, is invoking immense interest and fascination. Tim Winton, an Australian novelist, has won the Miles Franklin award three times and was short listed twice for the Booker Prize.

Assessing internal security
P. K. Vasudeva
Anatomy of Fear: Essays on India’s Internal Security
Ed. Purusottam Bhattacharya, Tridib Chakraborti and Shibashis Chatterjee. Lancer’s. Pages 334. Rs 580.
IN the present-day world, it has become difficult to preserve the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of states against the threats emanating from external environment. Most of the developing countries, which have pluralistic societies, are facing challenges in maintaining their unity and integrity.

Poetic truth
Himmat Singh Gill
Our Voices: An Anthology of SAARC Poetry
Ed. Ajeet Cour and Nirupama Dutt. Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature. Pages 184. Rs 250.
Divided into seven themes—Our Voices, People, Loves, Identity, Struggles, Concerns and Solace—established and new poets from seven countries have dwelt on contemporary issues confronting us today, with some suggesting a solution and others just stating their observations and then moving on, leaving mankind to itself best resolve what afflicts its mental frame, fragile or otherwise.

Masters of arts
Seema Sachdeva
Icons from the World of Arts
by Ranjitha Ashok. Puffin Books. Pages 143. Rs 175.
Saluting the "indomitable, eternal Human Spirit", these 10 essays on living legends throw light on the lives of artistes and how they developed their arts after overcoming adversities. Written simply, the essays give an account not only of the artistes’ lives but also delve into their thinking, ideas and ideologies.

East meets West
Aditi Garg
Eastwords
by Kalyan Ray. Penguin. Pages 254. Rs 275.
A story belongs to the person who tells it, making it witty, classy, melodramatic or thrilling in accordance with his wishes. The characters are bound by the author to dance to the tunes that he plays out to them. It is the very nature of story telling that makes story tellers borrow from folk, myth and history, and at times from other writers.

short takes
Spreading sunshine
Randeep Wadehra
Sunrays for Monday
by Priya & Sanjay Tandon Competent Professionals, Chandigarh. Pages: 214. Rs 150
THE 52 stories in this volume are short, lucid and absorbing, with each title carrying the individual fable’s message. At the end of several stories there’re quotes from Sathya Sai Baba’s sermons.

hindi review
Epic journey
Harbans Singh
Mahabharat Kee Katha
by Buddhdev Basu. Bharatiya Jnanpith. Pages 208. Rs 150.
LIKE the Ramayana, the Mahabharata too has been written and narrated in every nook and corner of India. Each region has its own favourite heroes. If in Orissa, Lord Krishna is considered the hero of Mahabharata then in Bengal, Yudhishthra is held to be the true winner.

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