Shades of royalty
 Rachna Singh
Jaipur Nama: Tales from the Pink City
by Giles Tillotson.
Penguin Books. Pages 260. Rs 295.
Jaipur with its piquant blend of antiquity and modernity, history of intrigue and legends of Rajput valour and ‘aan’ has been the focus of historians, architects, naturalists et al for over 200 years. Even today, the ambience of a rich past clings to the city bringing to life the history of the Kachchwaha clan, which ruled Jaipur from the day it was built by Sawai Jai Singh.

The power of words
 Kuldip Dhiman
Artha: Meaning
by Jonardon Ganeri.
Foundations of Philosophy in India Series.
Oxford University Press. Pages 258. Rs 575.
Western philosophers preoccupied themselves with language, especially in the last century. Some went to extremes saying that since most other branches of empirical inquiry had been successfully taken up by natural sciences, the only thing left for philosophers to do was to analyse language, and to clarify concepts. Philosophy of language is a branch of philosophy that studies language, but not in the way linguists do—they are not interested in the meaning of words, their etymology, or syntax. Dictionaries and grammar books would sever such a purpose better.

The yoke of identity
 Sen shows the way to freedom
Shastri Ramachandaran
Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny
by Amartya Sen
Allen Lane (Imprint of Penguin)
Pages 215. Rs 295
 The book could not have come at a better time. For those in India, when BJP’s L K Advani is on his Yatra to "educate people" about "minority appeasement" in the wake of the Varanasi bomb blasts; for the British, when their multiculturalism is torn by anxieties in the aftermath of the London terrorist strikes of July 2005; for the Continent during a period it is besieged by fear of the other - manifest in the crackdown on immigrants in France or the denigrating portrayal of Prophet Muhammad in Denmark; for the US, and then necessarily for the rest of the world, because of 9/11 which was opportune for opening a Pandora’s Box of religious and cultural hatred to unleash wars premised on a "clash of civilizations".

Cook and tell
 Amarinder Sandhu
Book of Rachel
by Esther Davis.
Penguin/Viking. Pages 197. Rs 295.
Book of Rachel is a chronicle of a Bene Israel Jewish family, which has long existed near the coast of Bombay. The protagonist, Rachel, is an old Jewish widow, who lives alone near the sea. Her life revolves around the synagogue, and she is its sole caretaker. All her children have migrated to the Promised Land, as have most of the other Jewish families.

Da Vinci Code author wins case
 Cahal Milmo
From pedlar of sacrilege about Christ's sex life to crafter of clunky dialogue and implausible plots, Dan Brown has been labelled many things plagiarist. Sitting in Court 61 of the High Court, Mr Justice Peter Smith offered the world's highest paid author the solace of a sliver of academic integrity by throwing out a claim that he stole the plot for his international best-seller from a non-fiction book written 24 years ago.

Evocative tale of suffering
 Arun Gaur
Brahma’s Dream
by Shree Ghatage.
IndiaInk Roli Books, New Delhi.
Pages 436. Rs 495.
Innumerable people suffered during the Partition, particularly in the North-West Provincial region. Becoming homeless, they did not know where to turn to as the political boundaries were still fluid. A character asks in the novel: "In these conditions, how do people carry on their daily lives?" Another answers with a shrug: "Perhaps, they try and convince themselves that everything is an illusion, a dream. That’s what my grandmother said when seven of her 11 children passed away.

Politics of violence
 Shubhshil Desraj
Scarred: Experiments With Violence In Gujarat
by Dionne Bunsha. Penguin Books.
Pages 307. Rs 295.
On February 27, 2002, the Godhra incident took place. The next day, during a bandh called by the VHP, riots broke out and mobs supported by the VHP and the Bajrang Dal attacked members of the minority community in 20 out of 26 districts of Gujarat. The riots continued for three months and 1,000 people were killed.

Midnight’s Children at 25
Ashish Mehta
Writing a new introduction for the 25th anniversary edition of "Midnight’s Children", Salman Rushdie singles out the late Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi for threatening legal action against his magnum opus, even as it made an "amazing admission" of excesses of her emergency rule.

Back of the book
The Hitler Book
 The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the interrogation of Hitler’s closest personal aides
Edited by Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl
With a Foreword by Richard Overy
John Murray. Pages 370. £8.15
A compelling first-hand narrative of a decade of service in Hitler’s headquarters, for over fifty years the testimony of his two closer assistants was kept under lock and key in a Russian archive. Never before published in its entirety, it is groundbreaking not only as one of the most authentic sources of information on the Third Reich and its innermost circles but also as a portrait of a tyrant for a tyrant.

PUNJABI REVIEW
Primer on computers
Rubinder Gill
Computer Sarchana ate Vivharak Varton
by Jaiteg Singh.
Madan Publications, Patiala.
Pages 238. Rs 200.
Jaiteg Singh’s Computer Sarchana ate Vivharak Varton is a comprehensive book on computers, first of its kind in Punjabi. Penned specially for college and basic and medium computers courses students, it can be of immense help to those who had lagged because of the language handicap.

Confetti
by S. NIHAL SINGH

HOME