Life for art’s sake
Archana Shastri
Amrita Sher-gil: A Life
Yashodhara Dalmia. Penguin Viking. Rs 695. Page 230.
THE life sketch of Amrita Sher-gil delineated by Yashodhara Dalmia is as exceptional as Amrita’s parentage. Born to Umrao Singh, a Sikh seeped in Indian traditions and Marie Antoinette, a Hungarian of noble origin with flaming red hair and an accomplished pianist and singer.

Towards a secure society
Sridhar K. Chari
Understanding security: A new perspective
by T.K. Oommen Macmillan India. Pages 174. Rs 320
AS a "strategic studies" concept, security is about "national security", a notion that not only places security of the modern state at the centre, but privileges the state’s security over all else. Social scientists have long sought to extricate security from these State-centric, "realist" and ‘neo-realist" approaches.

Mr and Mrs 53
Ambika Sharma
Yours Guru Dutt: Intimate letters of a Great Indian Filmmaker
Nasreen Munni Kabir. Lustre Press Roli Books. Pages 168. Rs 750.
KNOWN to the world as a filmmaker of fine timbre who could artistically weave human emotions into the silver screen, making audiences lachrymose with his emotive Pyassa, Guru Dutt was personally a dejected, melancholic and utterly lonely person in his real life.

young fare
His fiction is stranger than truth
Scott Moore
Don’t believe anything I tell you, author Anthony Horowitz told the roomful of American fifth and seventh grade students. "If you ask me a question and I don’t know the answer, I will make it up." Just as in his many books, Horowitz entertained his audience. He sprinkled in humour and suspense, extraordinary details and exaggerations.

Gets under your skin
Deepika Gurdev
Racists
Kunal Basu. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Pages 214. £ 10
HIS work could be dubbed a study in black and white, as it flits effortlessly between Victorian England and a beautiful island off the African coast. It is through this journey that Kunal Basu’s third book, Racists, examines several untold tales.

Diverse stages
Jyoti Singh
Theatres of Independence:Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India since 1947
Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. Pages 478. Rs 695.
Aparna Dharwadker’s Theatres of Independence is a historic repertoire of post-Independence drama and theatre of India. It is an in-depth study that defines theatre as a historically demarcated, linguistically and generically diverse field of "post colonial" practice.

A look at Iqbal
Ramesh Seth
WHEN I heard Mohammed Iqbal’s Sare Jahan se Achha.. on the radio, it was in the early 1940s and I was a student in Amritsar. This song was sung many a times in our school assembly. The song took my thought to the writer. It was but a short step to wonder about the metamorphosis that took place in his life and outlook.

No spice in royal story
Padam Ahlawat
Sawai Man Singh II of Jaipur. Life and Legend
by R.P. Singh and Kanwar Rajpal Singh Roli Books. Pages 214. Rs 350.
THIS biography of Sawai Man Singh II of Jaipur brings out his adoption, passion for polo and love for the beautiful Gayatri Devi. The Jaipur rulers meekly gave in to the elected rulers as they had given in to the Mughal rulers. We do not get the inside story of palace life, intrigues and jealousies just as the real story behind the accession and the broken constitutional promises is not revealed.

PUNJABI REVIEW
Good verse, banal prose
Surinder S. Tej

• Amber Da Parchhavan
  by Bhagat Ram Sharma Rupy Prakashan, Amritsar Pages 96, Rs.100
  

• Do Kadam Aggey
  by Makhan Singh Chauhan National Book Shop, Delhi Pages 120, Rs. 110
  

• Zindgi Da Sach
  by Manmohan Singh Daon Raghbir Rachna Prakashan, Chandigarh Pages 80. Rs 100
  

Back of the book

• Prospects for Peace in South Asia
  by Rafiq Dossani and Henry S. Rowen Orient Longman Rs 500
  

• Let Me Finish
  by Udo Grashoff. Headline review Pages 180. £7.80
  

• A Family Daughter
  by Maile Meloy John Murray. Pages 325. £6.90
  

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