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Lahore Nama
by Santosh Kumar; Vibha
Publications, New Delhi, Pages xv+108; Rs 150.
 A British firm
in Lahore sacked an employee in 1945 for organising a protest
strike against INA trials. The dismissal marked Santosh Kumar’s
entry into journalism. He joined the staff of the Urdu daily, Partap.
By the time he retired from the paper in 1987, he had risen to
be its News Editor and the paper had migrated from Lahore to New
Delhi.
For his
generation of Lahoriyas, the city epitomised everything that was
good in the land of five rivers. They always welcome an
opportunity to revisit the city that was so dear to them. This
book is an account of Santosh Kumar’s four brief visits to
Lahore after the creation of Pakistan.
His first visit
was in 1980, 43 years after he was forced to leave the city. It
had a nostalgic ring about it. He visited the Shah Alami Gate
area where he had spent his childhood and a part of his youth
and which was razed to the ground by Muslim League National
Guards. He wandered through the old city reliving his young days
and also noticing the way things had changed. As a journalist,
he also noticed how Zia-ul-Haq had his iron grip on the lives of
Pakistanis and how the few who tried to uphold their convictions
were made to suffer under the Martial Law. A Punjabi poet with
his indomitable spirit said:
"Saare
mulk diyan maujan hi maujan; Jidhar dekho faujan hi faujan."
and "Is mulk de do khuda; La ila te martial law."
During his
second visit in 1987, Zia was still in power. He noticed that
the old Grand Trunk Road had been renamed Shahrahe Ghazanavi.
In Multan, he
found the Saraiki region in ferment. In Karachi, he found the
Mohajirs dreaming of a city state and the Sindhis raising the "Jeeye
Sindh" slogan. On his way back, Pakistani Customs
confiscated the books he had purchased in Lahore and Karachi.
The third and
fourth visits were during the regimes of Benazir Bhutto and
Nawaz Sharif.
The book
records the author’s interaction with the section of Pakistani
society which has no voice in the country’s governance. He
found the common man in Lahore scared of Islamic fundamentalism.
"The more this spectre haunts them, the more they will look
towards Amritsar and Delhi in search of a common identity",
a leading citizen of Lahore told him.
Perfect
Health
by Jill Margo; Penguin
Books India, New Delhi; pages 365; Rs 250.
 The title and
the name of the author might lead one to believe it to be a set
of keep-fit exercises and dietary regulations directed mainly at
women. It is, perhaps, to avoid such an impression that the
author makes it clear that she is listing dos and don’ts for
men. The fact that she is an award winning journalist who
focuses on men’s health, amply establishes her credentials to
give advice on men’s health matters.
The biggest
quality of this book is that it does not contain medical tips by
specialists and discusses all that can go wrong with a man,
bodily. And her sweep is wide enough to turn the strongest of
men pale with worry about his physical maintenance.
Jill Margo also
shows her mastery over the latest medical information. In
addition she also displays a remarkable understanding of male
infermities. Men who often tend to worry about their physical
problems alone, will find it heartening to see someone sharing
their worries.
The book is divided in 13
sections under titles that show the author’s sense of humour.
Some of these are "Men in the bedroom", "Men in
the bathroom", "Men in private". Each section
deals with related problems, reminding men of all ages that they
must not allow their health to become a casualty in today’s
stressful environment.
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IT
is a thriller that really thrills. David Adams, a private eye
with a London security service, is on the trail of a fellow
detective who has robbed a client and decamped. The search
takes Adams to Mumbai where his distant cousin, Jeet Mendonca,
teams up with him in the hunt for the fugitive. Together, they
scour the underworld—shops that sell every kind of spurious
stuff, drug joints, gambling dens and centres of every kind of
vice. They get bashed up, run into gun battles and watch
castration of a helpless youth in a ‘hijda’ colony. A car
chase takes them past most of the landmarks of Mumbai but
their quarry eludes them all the time.
