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Tale of Kapurthala’s Spanish rani
A.J. Philip
Passion
India
Javier Moro
Full Circle
Pages 448. Rs 295
I READ Maharajas
by Jarmani Dass as I would have read Maharshi Vatsayana’s famous treatise on
the different ways of expressing love, in a closed room away from the attention
of my father. At the end of it, it was not certain whether it was all fact or
fiction for it described in detail the sexual adventures of the kings, which
were beyond the imagination of a plebeian teenager.
The fire that broke Gandhi
Belu
Maheshwari
Event, Metaphor,
Memory–Chauri
Chaura
1922-1992
Shahid Amin
Penguin.
Pages 294. Rs 295.
Chauri Chaura in Indian nationalist history has appropriated many
enclosures. It is a transgression in the great moral fight of non-violence led
by Mahatma Gandhi, a valorous act against the unjust colonial rule, a violent
letup of suppressed anger of the peasants. For Indians, it is an event to
remember, but not to dwell on in detail.
When cliches pass off as reality bites
Harsh A Desai
Sacred Games
by Vikram
Chandra
Penduin/Viking.
Pages 900. Rs 650.
It would seem that now Mumbai
has become not only the favourite haunt of international terrorists but also
international best-selling authors. After Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City
and Greg Roberts’ Shantaram, both about the dark underbelly of Bombay,
now comes, Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games which was seven years in the
making Vikram is the critically acclaimed author of Red Earth and Pouring
Rain and Love and Longing in Bombay but his new book leaves a lot to
be desired. It does not come up to the standard set either by Maximum City or
Shantaram.
Andaman
recaptured
R. L. Singal
The Heroes of
Cellular Jail
S. N.
Aggarwal.
Rupa.
Pages 352. Rs 595.
This book is a graphic,
but ruthless account of the tortures and humiliation meted out to India’s
great revolutionary freedom fighters, who underwent indescribable privations so
that their nation might live a life of honour and dignity. The Cellular Jail in
the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, notoriously known as Kala Pani, was the most
dreaded prison; only the most "dangerous" political prisoners were
sent there, so that the others following in their footsteps could be forewarned
of the tortures awaiting them in this forsaken Archipelago, at least a thousand
miles from the mainland India, in the Bay of Bengal. This is a group of 321
islands, stretching over 700 km and 8,249 sq km.
Bard’s silent debt
Min Wild
Shakespeare & Co
Stanley Wells.
Penguin,
UK.
Pages 304. ` £ 22.50.
It may sound mad, but The Lord
Admiral’s Men in 1598, in their home at the Rose Theatre, made full
inventories of their properties and costumes. Though these remarkable documents
are reproduced at the close of Stanley Wells’s book, they offer a good
starting-place for appreciating the sheer, outrageous, world-consuming zest of
the theatre in Shakespeare’s day. Limits were few.
Reactions of a radical mind
Endless Rain
Aditi Garg
Meera Arora Nayak.
Penguin
Books.
Pages 324. Rs.295.
To enter the war without the will
to win is fatal, and one can get that will only by believing unconditionally in
the cause. The root of the cause can be just, but on its way to being a cause
worth fighting for, it assimilates the greed and self-interests of a select
few. Soldiers in any war are primed to stop questioning the righteousness of
the cause. They must go on, even if a part of the whole is relevant to them.
Depending on which side they crusade for, they are labelled soldiers or
terrorists.
Vinda’s winning
stroke
Govind Vinayak
Karandikar (born on August 23, 1918), better known as Vinda Karandikar, the
eminent Marathi poet is the winner of the 39th Jnanpith Award. He is said to be
the most experimental and comprehensive of all modern Marathi poets. Vinda has
also contributed to Marathi literature as an essayist, critic and translator
(he translated Aristotle’s poetry into Marathi).
Back of the book
The Dancing Democracy
by Prakash
A. Raj
Rupa. Pages 138. Rs 195
When the Seven-Party Alliance called for a
four-day strike starting from 6 April 6, 2006 the anniversary of Nepal’s 1990
Jana Andolan, no one could have foreseen what would ensue. The protests brought
hundreds of thousands on the streets, and finally resulted in a victory for the
proletariat and democracy.
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