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Indra Gandhi and
R. Gupta who also chronicle Kalpana’s life story from her
early days to her ill-fated second space flight, raise some
basic questions such as what really went wrong with the flight?
Was it possible to save the astronauts? How safe are these space
shuttles? They find no definite answers, but the questions
remain pertinent. They also give a host of technical details
about space flights that some readers may find interesting but
many others may find these details rather difficult to
comprehend. Those who pick up the book to know all about Kalpana
Chawla and her life, may consider the technicalities of space
travel a distraction.
However, in both
the books you read about this gritty small-town girl who, like
most others, had choices, but was not attracted by the easy and
soft ones and opted for a difficult and hard course. And that is
what makes her stand out in the midst of a crowd.
The two books with
the unforgettable story of this braveheart should motivate the
youth to set high goals for themselves and then strive hard to
achieve them, no matter whether one is a boy or a girl.
Folklore of the
Telugus
by C.R. Subramiah
Pantulu; Rupa, New Delhi. Pages 112. Rs 70.
 When there was no
history nor historians to record and survey the happenings
around, there was folklore to reflect the culture, customs,
religious beliefs and social conditions of the period. And there
were the folk artistes who kept the people informed of these
conventions and mores. Therefore, the folklore of a country is
considered the most authentic mirror of the period it
represents.
This collection of
Telugu folklore contains 42 charming tales — the blurb writer
has surprisingly been able to count only 32 — which like the
folklore of any other part of the country, are simple but
instructive, delightfully narrated but at the same time laying
down a moral. Some of them are so short that instead of being
listed as stories, these could more appropriately be categorised
as anecdotes. Some have finished in less than a page.
The tales which
have delighted generations of children on the knees of their
grandparents, relate to the lives of common people told as tales
of kings and queens, princes and princesses, rich merchants,
poor mendicant, lazy idlers and hardworking youths. There are
stories in which animals are bestowed with human qualities to
impress the importance of human relationships. Such is the
universality of these tales that you only have to change names
of people and places to make them relevant to any other part of
the country.
Tales of
Panchtantra and Hitopadesh are almost an integral part of the
growing process of children in North India, particularly the
Hindi heartland. And so are the tales of Betal Panchisi. The
similarity of theme and narration between the Hindi and Telugu
versions is too striking to be overlooked. This similarity
underlines the thread of cultural unity that runs across the
length and breadth of the country. Of particular interest is the
dialogue between a cat and a mouse on the shape and nature of
friendship between two individuals. The principles enunciated in
this conversation can be appropriately applied to relations
between persons as well as nations even in the modern context.
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FAIRYTALES, as a
rule, have a happy ending and the bottom line is: "and they
lived happily ever after". However, this fairy from the
small town of Karnal is an exception. In fact, Kalpana Chawla
has always been an exception to established rules. Coming from a
middle-class orthodox family that migrated from Sheikhupura in
the wake of the country’s partition and settled in Karnal, she
was expected to get married according to the wishes of her
family and settle down to a humdrum family life. But she proved
an exception. She soared into the heavens and aspired to reach
for the stars. She went up once and then a second time only to
prove another exception. She perished along with six other brave
souls when the Columbia space shuttle blew up minutes before
touchdown, as the world waited to greet the space explorers.
