Sunday, March 2, 2003		Books

Write view
Must-read for wannabe parents
Randeep Wadehra

Smart Start for Your Baby
by Penny Warner. Indus Publishing Co., N. Delhi. Pages: 175. Rs 150.

— The late Frank L. Stanton, an American journalist and poet.

SO you are planning to have a baby, but do you know how to take care of one? Since nuclear families have become the norm and grannies are not around to give advice, one obviously feels the need for expert guidance. This book is one such source. Warner, a child-development expert, says that during its first year the child grows the fastest making extraordinary gains in all the areas, viz., physical, cognitive and psychological. In order to make one an observant parent she gives details of the child’s evolution from the first to the 52nd week in a systematic and lucid manner.

Babies, on growing up, acquire well-rounded personalities only if their upbringing has been right. The parental role, needless to say, is crucial. While marriages are carefully planned, not much thought and effort go into grooming couples to be smart parents. In joint families elders invariably kept a careful watch on newborns, and initiated untrained parents into the art and science of baby care. Crucial stages during a child’s development need to be recognised in time. This book is a must for wannabe parents.

Wealth from Waste
by A.K. Shrivastava. APH, N. Delhi. Pages: XXX1+363. Rs 895.

Environmental degradation is going on at a worrying rate. Ecologists, administrators, technocrats and other right thinking people are seriously engaged in devising ways and means of putting an end to the pollution of our earth, water and air. This book suggests that waste can be gainfully recycled and used for the betterment of humanity. Moreover, the author claims that this book, "champions the replacement of fossil and nuclear fuels with solar energy as a real solution to the threat to environment and associated social consequences".

In India, biomedical waste management, based on the Logmed system, is being promoted. It involves thermal disinfection, i.e., separating wastes and treating them over a long period at temperatures over 100 degrees centigrade. The resultant disinfected solid waste can be gainfully used in landfill sites. The same technology is used in heating water to generate power at economical costs. So, apart from keeping the environment clean, such methods can promote generation of power in an eco-friendly manner.

Chapters like ‘Farm waste to furniture’; ‘Odour eaters to ozone’; ‘Packaging to pyrocatalytic’ etc are thought provoking.

India: Past and Present
by Prakash Chander. APH, N. Delhi. Pages: V+326. Rs 795.

Who built the highway now known as the Grand Trunk Road? Those brought up on history textbooks will remember that the builder was Sher Shah Suri. However Prakash Chander points out that Mauryans were great builders and developers too. They "brought new lands under cultivation and developed irrigation facilities. The famous Sudarshana lake was built. Under the Mauryans, the entire subcontinent was crisscrossed with roads. A royal highway connecting Taxila with Pataliputra was built – a road which survives to this day as the Grand Trunk Road". This is probable, because Chandragupta Maurya’s empire that lasted from 4 BC to 3 BC held sway, in John Keay’s words, "from Bengal to Afghanistan and Gujarat, there is no clear indication of how far South it extended…" In order to have a smooth administration, a transport and communication superstructure must have been laid thanks to the great thinker Chanakya.

About Babar, the author says, "He was invited to India to fight against Ibrahim Lodhi." However he refrains from mentioning that Rana Sangha was the one who had invited Babar. But again, it needs to be stated here that the Lodhi brothers had divided the empire among themselves and Ibrahim was becoming a threat to his rivals, especially the Rajputs.

On the advent of Islam in India the author admits that not all Muslim invaders were religious fanatics. However most of the conversions of the locals were done on the pain of death. Jeziya was the other instrument for conversion. Says John Keay, "Arab forces…had first ventured onto Indian soil by crossing the Bolan Pass… in c663. In fact twenty years earlier the first Muslims to reach India had been newly converted Arab merchants trading across the Arabian sea..." Many of them settled down in Kerala, Sri Lanka, Gujarat etc without "provoking undue hostility amongst already cosmopolitan populations…". So traders, preachers, invaders and fanatics all helped promote Islam in the subcontinent.

Nevertheless, this book does not purport to be an inquiry into our history. It is more of a handbook that includes other related subjects such as economy, sociology, geography etc. There are separate chapters on the leaders of India, the Indian Parliament, languages, culture, population etc.