Love in Istanbul
Reviewed by Shelley Walia
The Museum of Innocence
By Orhan Pamuk.
Faber and Faber, London.
Pages 542. £12.99.
ORHAN Pamuk’s new novel The Museum of Innocence takes you from the aristocratic social world of Kemal with its paraphernalia of lavish parties, clubs, and society tittle-tattle to the suburbia of Istanbul where his young middle class cousin, Fusun, resides and with whom he has a throbbing clandestine affair. Oscillating between the woman he is engaged to and the cousin he is deeply attracted to, his experience of a world of cheap hotels and bars will move him to collect objects like cigarette butts, an earring, cups and glasses that have a deep association with his beloved. This is his museum of memories and hopes, of love and shame that reflect a rapidly changing social world of Istanbul.

Saga of betrayal and retribution
Reviewed by Parbina Rashid
The Hour before Dawn
By Bhabendra Nath Saikia.
Translated into English by Maitreyee S.C.
Penguin Books. Pages 342. Rs 350.
WAY back in 1985, when Malaya Goswami essayed the character of Menoka, a married woman who sleeps with a village outcast and gives birth to a son outside marriage in Agnisnaan, she didn’t come across as a fallen woman. In fact, she made quite an impression to my formative mind, teaching me the valuable lesson that one needs to be rooted to be liberal; traditional in order to be modern. That was the power of Bhabendra Nath Saikia’s portrayal of the character, both as a writer and a filmmaker.

India’s quest for self-reliance
Reviewed by Vijay Mohan
Arming the Indian Arsenal: Challenges and Policy Options
By Deba R. Mohanty
Rupa & Co. and Observer Research
Foundation, New Delhi.
Pages 255. Rs 595.
ARMING the military is an onerous task. At stake is the ability to achieve defined national objectives and the factors that come into play in the process of procurement are multifarious. For decades, modernisation of the Indian Armed Forces has been bogged down by indecisiveness, financial implications, allegations of corruption, lagging research and development and inadequate industrial participation. This has kicked up numerous debates and raised questions about the state of the services’ operational preparedness.

A glimpse into Princess’ life
Reviewed by Aditi Garg
Acushla
By Sudhira Bhagat.
Rupa. Pages 355. Rs 295.
LOVE speaks a universal language; it knows no bounds. Cultural, societal, moral or religious constraints hold no value for it. A love story never fails to tug at the heartstrings of its readers. When it is set in a background of turbulence and strife, it brings out the melodrama, with all its force, to the fore. Royalty intrigues and has captured the imagination of one and all for centuries. A glimpse into their private world leaves you wanting for more.

Galaxy of personalities
Reviewed by Sunita Pathania
Sketches from Memory: A Journey to Gandhi (Vol. I)
Pages 194. Rs 300.
Sketches from Memory: Remembering Gandhi (Vol. II)
By Margaret Chatterjee.
Promilla & Co.
Pages 76. Rs 300.
MEMOIR usually is a chronological account of the life history of an author or a particular event in which the author has been a major player. The shadow of minor actors claiming major roles for themselves is not unlikely in such writings, especially if written from memory without the support of diaries or documents.

SHORT TAKES
Power and playfulness
Reviewed by Randeep Wadehra
The Big Three
by Harsh Bhasin Academic Foundation. Pages: 165. Rs. 595
The Soviet Union’s disintegration left a yawning gap in the international power structure, which no single country was capable of filling in. The USA became the sole global power. Although the European Union did try to counterbalance the growing US clout it was too disjointed to make any concerted move – what with the UK acting as Uncle Sam’s cat’s-paw and France remaining the perennial maverick. However, with the setting in of the globalisation process and China taking to market economy in a big way (and India belatedly following suit) there emerged new power centres in Asia that could effectively check unbridled growth of the US influence.

The Happy and Harmonious Family
by Acharya Mahapragya Harper Vintage.
Pages: xii+199. Rs. 225

Have Some Chilli Snakes
by Mamta Alva
Frog Books. Pages: 178. Rs. 200

Striking the write chord
Aparna Banerji
He is one of the finest connoisseurs of music that the world has ever known. Can tell bad music from good (and vice-versa) through the most impalpable of hints. As the introduction on the world music website (which he co-hosts with Petr Doruzka) aptly puts it, "Whether it was the music of Joseph Spence or Goro Yamaguchi, Martin Carthy or Ali Akbar Khan, the Grateful Dead or Viv Stanshall, Iva Bittová  or Artie Shaw, Shirley Collins or Martin Simpson, he believed that serious-minded music of whatever persuasion was something to be treated seriously..."

Tête-à-tête
Stage presence
Nonika Singh
My son should get more than 100 per cent marks." Those were the dying words of his mother. And since then noted playwright and director Dr Atamjit has been trying his utmost to fulfil his mother’s wish, constantly raising the bar to become what his mother wanted him to be, a cut above the rest.

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