Sunday, July 27, 2003		Books

Rich Like Us
by Nayantara Sahgal. Harper-Collins, New Delhi.
Pages 301. Rs 295.

WHEN this novel, set in the early phase of the Emergency, was first published in 1985, it caused ripples. After an Indian edition in 1999, and a second impression in 2003, it remains as fresh as it was when it was first published.

Nayantara Sahgal’s credentials as a novelist and political commentator need no recommendation. Her nine novels and eight works of non-fiction speak amply of her calibre as a skilful wielder of the pen.

Rich Like Us presents a picture of India after Independence but shows primarily the state of affairs in the country under the Emergency imposed by her cousin, Indira Gandhi. Her own abhorrence of the Emergency got expression in her resigning her membership of the Sahitya Akademi’s Advisory Board for English. Her description of the Emergency shows how tyrants of all hues were created by that one act of Indira Gandhi and how they operated with impunity. Timeservers and opportunists had their heyday. You see high-society middle-aged desi memsahibs with dyed hair and diamonds glittering all over them herding their cooks and butlers to sterilisation camps, lawyers discovering virtue in her autocratic rule and journalists performing the crawling act. There are bureaucrats who are quick to recognise the buttered side of the bread, and there are yet others who pay the price of being upright in a set-up that has no use for ethics or moral honesty. You see small-time operators making a meteoric rise and lumpen elements going berserk under the protection of political power. Forgerers and murderers walk with their heads high.

The novel is set in the period when the Emergency was just one month old, and narrates the story of Sonali, an idealist civil servant. Proud of her senior ranking she has set standards for herself which no one cares about any more, and she sees the end of her dream of shaping the future of her country. She finds herself humiliated through a deal the corrupt nature of which is fairly transparent.

There is Dev, a beneficiary of the corrupt deal who stands prominently in the ranks of ‘new entrepreneurs’ and is finally rewarded with a Cabinet post.

Ravi Kachru, once a Marxist, is another bureaucrat who falls in line but soon finds that things have slipped out of control with no rules, no regulations left to follow.

There is Kishori Lal, a survivor of the Partition who has also lived through Dyer’s atrocities in Amritsar. He is thrown in a dirty prison cell for a crime he never committed. Then there is Rose, a cockney English woman who comes all the way from England to join an Indian family that does not want her.

Yet, after one Sinclair Prize, a Sahitya Academy Award and two editions, the book contains such ridiculous statements as King Dashrath, father of Ram, had four wives and that the mother of Draupadi’s five husbands was a blind woman.

The Healthy Heart Diet Book
by G. Padma Vijay. Orient Paperbacks, Delhi. Pages 191. Rs 140.

This book explains in an easy, readable style what dietary system you need to follow to keep your heart healthy. It shows how your food and its quantity can help you substantially reduce the risk of a heart attack. The author, who is a trained nutritionist and is deeply interested in clinical nutrition, maintains that selection of appropriate food should not be a concern only of persons afflicted with heart problems. It should be the concern of everyone. Only for those afflicted with a heart problem, the decision is more critical. But she makes it clear at the very outset that the book is no substitute for medical advice. It is intended only to give information.

In today’s world where the pace of life is so incredibly hectic, stress-related heart problems have become common, and people have very little time to devote to their health. The danger becomes apparent suddenly when one day a person comes face to face with a heart problem. Still it is widely accepted that many diseases can be tackled with a commonsense approach to diet and exercise, with minimum medication. In this context, the book can serve an important purpose since it highlights the role of diet management for those who are being treated for or are recovering from a heart disease.

The author points out that with a slight change in the cooking methods and the ingredients, most foods become good for the heart. The book begins with a description of the heart, its structure, its functioning, the circulatory system, the arteries and veins and goes on to the causes and symptoms of heart diseases. Finally, she moves on to the role of food, food that is good for the heart and food that does harm to the heart. The next section gives you tips on how to keep your heart healthy with a variety of food choices in soups, salads vegetables, pulses, fish, poultry, cereals, desserts and beverages. There is a seven-day sample of menus for heart patients. The 125 low-cholesterol, low-fat, low-calorie choices in the book are intended to protect your heart and help you lead a healthy life.