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Surrender
in times of sickness
Celebrated
author and lifelong friend and defender of Fidel Castro, Gabriel Garcia
Marquez, has finally succumbed to the lure of the dollar. After years of
spurning offers from Hollywood to turn his bestselling and critically
acclaimed works into films, Marquez has finally agreed to let a Los
Angeles-based company to make a film based on Love in the Time of
Cholera.
It’ll create waves
by Harsh Desai
The Hungry Tide
by Amitav Ghosh.
Ravi Dayal, New Delhi.
Pages 402. Rs 350.
The Hungry Tide consumes
the reader as it eats its characters. For the characters, nothing is
going to be the same after their close encounter with the Sunderbans and
you begin to wonder if it’s going to remain the same for you as well
after reading this book—particularly your idea of a good book.
Insightful worldview
by Sridhar K. Chari
Global Security Paradoxes 2000 to 2020
by Major General Vinod Saighal. Manas Publications. Pages 231. Rs 595.
International
relations (IR) as a social sciences discipline is notoriously resistant
to exercises in projecting the future. One is on only slightly better
ground if the exercise is undertaken in terms of strategic or security
studies.
Strictly
conferential: Hyderabad writers’ meet
by Rumina Sethi
There are conferences of all
sorts, but one that truly outdid all my other "conferential"
experiences was the recent Triennial Conference of the Association for
Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS) in Hyderabad on
Nation and Imagination: the Changing Commonwealth.
Bangla rebel’s fresh tirade
by Aradhika Sekhon
Selected Columns
by Taslima Nasreen. Shrishti, New Delhi. Pages 158. Rs 250.
Taslima
Nasreen, known as "the angry young woman" of Bangladesh
literature, gives us "countless instances of the injustices that
make her angry" in this collection of writings. Selected Columns is
a skilful translation by Dabjani Sengupta, of Nirbachita Kalam that came
out in 1992.
The
trailblazer tycoon
by Parshotam Mehra
(JRD’s intriguing &
insightful letters)
Edited by Arvind Mambro. Rupa & Co. Pages 504. Rs 495.
Few
men in Indian public life in the recent past have left such a deep,
indelible imprint as Jahangir Tata, ‘Jeh’ to many of his friends but
perhaps best known by his initials JRD. Scion of a distinguished Parsi
family, JRD (1904-93) was at the helm of affairs of one of India’s
largest industrial houses for the best part of the 20th century.
signs
and signatures
Playwright who
challenged capitalism
by Darshan Singh Maini
American capitalistic tyranny
and state terrorism within its own territories (most of them acquired by
force and war) have, indeed, a long, ugly, ignominous history. And
today’s sensitive Americans feel a huge sense of moral unease over the
ways of their slave-driving ancestors and corporation chiefs who had
reduced their workers to commodity, or who had dehumanised them.
short
takes
Glimpses of a
genius
by Prerana Trehan
For the Love of India: The Life and Times of Jamsetji Tata
RM Lala. Penguin Viking. Pages: 247.
The
book is a fascinating account of the life of an extraordinary man.
"A man of destiny", as JRD Tata called him, Jamsetji Tata not
only built an unparalleled personal wealth but was also one of the
builders of modern India. His conviction that India must change from a
predominantly agricultural nation into an industrialised one, put the
country on the road to modernisation.
hindi
review
Heart
of darkness
by Harbans Singh
Shikargaah
by Gianprakash Vivek. Bharatiya Jnanpith, New Delhi. Pages 155. Rs 120.
Diminishing human values and
the pain that is the result of the dilemma faced by the characters in
the stories is the dominant theme of the collection. In conflict with
themselves as they succumb to the demands of a society driven by the
forces of consumerism, they do not fail to recognise the distance that
they have travelled from the moorings of their essential being.
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