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HINDI REVIEW
Tibet Upniveshvaad ke Pachchas Saal: A Special Issue of Tibet Desh FOR the past 30 years, Tibet Desh, a Hindi journal, has been familiarising the vast Hindi-reading population of India about not only the political, cultural, religious and social aspects of Tibet but also the efforts being made by the Indo-Tibet Coordination Centre to help the Tibetans resolve the conflict that threatens to annihilate its people and their ancient culture. The present book is, in fact, ‘Dhanyavad Bharat’, a special issue for the period February-April, 2009, of the journal.
A careful study of the articles in it, especially of Prof. Samdhong Rinponche, would also probably lead the reader to be less stringent in criticism of the first Prime Minister of India, the much-quoted letter of Sardar Patel notwithstanding. The then rulers of Tibet are as much to be blamed as the inability of the international community to come to the rescue of Tibet because of some technicality. For serious students of the Tibetan problem, the special value is the reproduction of the 9th-century treaty between Tibet and China engraved in stone, as also the treaties with the Chinese early in the 20th century. This inevitably leads to the question of how and why India became a party to the conflict. This is probably the only aspect that has not been covered in detail in this issue. Narak Yatra ka Sukh For some satire is a form of humour, but often humor is an important tool in the armoury of a satirist and since both humour and satire are subjective perceptions, the wielder of these tools is often at pains to strike a balance between the subject and the tool. Jaswinder Sharma’s Narak Yatra Ka Sukh demonstrates the challenge that a satirist has to face in an age when the society refuses to react strongly to the wrongs of life. The result is that instead of the satire and humour becoming a safety valve to the volcanic emotions of society, it becomes a bland expression of inane subjects. The blame often lies with the diminished values that abound in society that an author portrays. However, Jaswinder Sharma has made a brave attempt to keep this discipline alive and relevant.
Those of the Hindi readers who have been brought up on the healthy, rich and diverse diet provided by the likes of Hari Shankar Parsai and Sharad Joshi might tend to be too demanding about the manner in which the tool is used and the subject that is treated by it. In defence of the modern satirists, it must be hastily added that the decades of the sixties was a blessed one for Hindi literature. A combination of socio-economic circumstances and exceptionally talented and perceptive writers made that decade a memorable one.
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For
those who find Tibet jostling for space in their consciousness
whenever there is an emotional outburst by the Tibetan diaspora in the
country or when China is rattled by demonstrations in various parts of
the world by people who apparently have nothing in common with Tibet,
this ‘special issue’ can be particularly useful. It is a
collection of articles written at various times along with historical
documents that go a long way in proving the independent identity of
Tibet. They explode the myth of historical and cultural Chinese
suzerainty over a region that not only gives rise to some of the
mightiest rivers that flow through the Indian subcontinent but is also
the acknowledged abode, however mythical, of Lord Shiva and Parvati
and therefore, more a part of India than China.
Narak
Yatra Ka Sukh deals
with characters that inhabit the lower echelons of an office, which
are constantly striving to come to terms with the anomalous situations
and are competing with one another to inch above their Lilliputian
status. Not surprisingly, sometimes the characters appear to be
repeating themselves. Poets are to be found in abundance and therefore
reference to poetic symposiums, too. The author also betrays the lower
middle class attributes in characterising male-female relationship in
life in general and offices in particular.