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From
mundane to mundane
A.J. Philip
Home
by Manju Kapur
Random House India
Pages 339, Rs 395
THE
production standards are excellent. The cover is evocative. It is the
first offering from Random House India. There is an inbuilt gold
lace-attached bookmark. The blurb says the story is about a joint family
in New Delhi’s Karol Bagh, where I lived for five years. All this
compels me to buy Home.
The last wise
man
Nirmal Sandhu
Ideology & Social Science
Andre Beteille. Penguin Books. Pages 274. Rs 250.
Indians,
observes Prof Andre Beteille, "tend to write passionately if not
stridently; but whether it is academic prose or judicial prose, the
passion is often only a thin cover for the weakness of the
argument".
Imaginary
escapes
Jyoti Singh
Big Neem, Red Jaguar and Mrs. Samson’s Lammergeir.
Ranjit Lal. Rupa. Pages 328. Rs 295.
Ranjeet
Lal’s book hovers between the tangible world of realism and
surrealism. He has dexterously created a nightmare type situation,
plumbing the human psyche.
In
celebration of being alive
Arunima S. Mukherjee
A Life Less Ordinary
Baby Halder.
Translated into English by Urvashi Butalia. Zubaan/Penguin. Pages 163.
Rs 195.
Every
once in a while you read a
book that makes you sit up and think. The incredible story of Baby
Halder, a Bengali domestic help, is awesome in many ways and not least
because she survived to tell the tale.
TRIBUTE
He interpreted
India to the world
Raja Rao popularised the idea
of India as a perspective and not just a country, writes Usha
Bande, who specialises in Indian English
literature.
Raja
Rao, of Kanthapura-fame, who died at 96 was the last of the
Big-three of Indian writing in English–(the other two being R.K.
Narayan and Mulk Raj Anand)—whose tales gave credibility to Indian
writing in English at a time when it was a much-debated genre,
considered weak and not of the soil.
Hole
Black Truth
Krishna Dutta
The Black Hole: Money, Myth and Empire
by Jan Dalley
Fig Tree. Pages 240. £ 316.99.
The
phrase "the Black Hole of Calcutta" has become a common
English usage, yet every time I encounter it I feel an involuntary
aversion — not just for its connotations of despondency but because of
its malignant potency to taint a real place and its people. Its
insensitive use over 250 years is hard to eradicate, though most people
have little idea of how it was coined.
The
uncertain world
D. S. Cheema
Powerful Times
Eamonn Kelly.
Wharton School Publishing. Pages 342. Price not stated.
This
fascinating book is a
powerful account of a systematic mapping of salient contours of the
global uncertainties and challenges. The world of today is turbulent as
never before. It is dynamic, inconsistent and augurs for a new learning
to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Steam
is rising in romantic novels
Dah Thanh Dang
Romance—or
rather, reading about romance—just isn’t what it used to be. In the
old days, girl met boy, her heart would flutter and there would be
fireworks. They would overcome enormous obstacles, realise their love
for each other and embrace with unbridled passion.
Back of the
book
Books
received: PUNJABI
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