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LOVE
conquers all, even
the disabilities and handicaps that nature inflicts upon us or our
fellow human beings. One realises this while going through the contents
of this book that celebrates the triumph of parental love. The world of
Neela and P.V. Satyanarayana turns turtle when they discover that their
newborn son Chaitanya is afflicted with Down’s Syndrome. Their elder
daughter Anuradha too gets emotionally affected. The family decides to
fight back and enable the child to become as normal as is humanly
possible. Read this saga of tears, love and courage ending in success
– a saga that has touched the President of India too. And do try to
reflect on Neela’s poser – why do normal people feel that they are
full and people like Chaitanya incomplete? I am fully awake THIS is less of a novel
and more of a long story or a novella written in first person. The
narrator is seriously hurt in a train accident which triggers off a
train of thoughts relating to time, space and society. There is a lot of
introspection and psychoanalysis on matters spiritual and temporal with
references to characters from Indian and foreign mythologies. The
translator has done a good job while retaining the author’s voice. You
do get involved in the narrative while trying to swim with the
protagonist’s multi-hued thought processes. Not bad for passing time. Removal of turban in
France SOME time back when the French government took upon itself to ‘secularise’ the society by banning the display of religious symbols in schools and public places it had not reckoned with deeply embedded attachment to ethno-religious identities of the minorities in the country. If the scarf-and-veil issue irked the French Muslims the turban issue roused the ire of French Sikhs with echoes in India. Dr. Rahi, who has a remarkable record in struggles for human rights, underlines the historic contributions of Sikhs to France’s liberation from Nazi Germany and also examines the contemporary French laws pertaining to the removal of turban. A valuable reference book.
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One Full One Half
