The Tribune stood up for Bhagat Singh
Nirupama Dutt gives an account of The Tribune reports on Bhagat Singh’s last days, which are being documented in the 10 volumes on the martyr’s life
"One newspaper and one politician truly fought a public battle against the unfair trial of patriots Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. The paper was the The Tribune and the politician was Jinnah," says historian K.C. Yadav, former Head of the Department of History, Kurukshetra University.

Books received: Hindi

The man, the purpose
Chaman Lal
Tryst with Martyrdom: Trial of Madan Lal Dhingra
(July-August, 1909)
by Malwinder Jit Singh Waraich and Kuldip Puri. Unistar. Pages 160.
Madan Lal Dhingra, born in a rich family of doctors in Amritsar in1883, was the earliest to lay his life in the path of the freedom struggle when he was hanged on August 17, 1909, in a British jail. Later, Kartar Singh Sarabha in 1916, Bhagat Singh in 1931, Sewa Singh Thikriwala in 1935 and Udham Singh in 1940 also became known for their courage to rise against British imperialism.

Up close and personal
R. L. Singhal
On the Fringes of Government
by Arigupudi Premchand
UBSPD, New Delhi. Pages 372. Rs 395.
The book is an autobiographical account of the author’s chequered career as a student, university lecturer, central government official and member of the staff of the International Monetary Fund, spanning over five decades. Even after retirement from the IMF, he has been working as a financial consultant for several international organisations and is happily settled in Irvine, Southern California.

Excerpt
An extraordinary scientist
Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (1894-1955), first Director-General of the CSIR, came at a time when science was greeted with a sense of mission, but literature was still valued. Encouragement and recognition were sought from the colonial empire, not as an end in itself, but as a prelude to nation building.

Flavour of centuries past
Priyanka Singh
Chasing the Monk’s Shadow
by Mishi Saran. Penguin. Pages 446. Rs 495.
What do you say of a book that takes you on a trip to trace the footsteps of the Chinese monk Xuanzang, is an engaging and racy historical account of the seventh century AD and lends an interesting perspective to places, people and words? Only, that it is extraordinarily gripping.

The magic still holds
Harbir K. Singh
The Diwali Nose and other Marathi Tales
by Anuradha Khati Rajivan.
Rupa, New Delhi. Pages 75. Rs 70.
A good collection of short stories, The Diwali Nose and other Marathi Tales, has tales that have been passed down the generations. We all have either read these tales or heard these from our grandmothers or narrated these to our children. These are all very interesting, fascinating and colourful tales of characters that regale children with their antics and make elders smile.

Doonesbury wins the cartoons war
Harsh Desai
The Long Road Home
One Step at a Time
by G.B. Trudeau. Andrew McMeel Publishing. Pages 93. $ 9.95
For me a new Doonesbury book by G.B. Trudeau is always a matter of celebration. And, when I got The Long Road Home — One Step at a Time, the story of the former American football coach B.D. whose leg has been amputated following an RPG attack on his Humvee outside Fallujah, I wondered what Trudeau would do with this one.

130 years late and a bestseller
Jon Boyle
An unassuming retired lecturer is behind the French literary sensation of the summer, having rescued the forgotten last novel of the 19th century epic novelist Alexandre Dumas from the dustbin of history. Claude Schopp, who has devoted 30 years to the study of every aspect of the author’s flamboyant life, stumbled across a first clue to the existence of a lost work in the late 1980s. The discovery in the national archives of a handwritten letter by Dumas set Schopp off on a paper trail of clues worthy of the Da Vinci Code, the summer’s other bestseller.

Back of the book
The Zahir
by Paulo Coelho. Harper Collins.
Pages 342. Rs 295.
One day a renowned author discovers that his wife, a war correspondent, has disappeared leaving no trace. Though time brings more success and new love, he remains mystified — and increasingly fascinated — by her absence.

  • Soft Target
    by Stephen Leather. Hodder Headline. London. Pages 520. £ 3.00.

  • Singing Bird
    Roisin Mc Auley. Headline. Pages 374. £2.99

  • Book of my Mother
    by Albert Cohen. Rupa. Pages 124. Rs 195.

  • The Rupa Book of Great Escapes
    Ed Ruskin Bond. Pages 195. Rs 95

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