Being human among humans
Reviewed by Shelley Walia
Hannah Arendt’s Political Humanism
by Horst Mewes. Peter Lang, New York. Pages 226. $58.95.
You look at a person and he appears to be human, polite and peace-loving. Who knows underneath his amicability lies a despicable monster! Hitler is a vivid example of a family man who cuddled infants and listened to Bach and still was responsible for annihilating the very identity of the Jews he sent to the gas chambers. Nevertheless, the nature of evil is comprehensible, and if it was not, the world would not be a very congenial place to live in. We are therefore not inherently flawed as human beings and we could save ourselves if we worked on it.

Actor turns into self-help guru
Reviewed by Aradhika Sharma
The Best Thing About You is You
by Anupam Kher. Hay House India. Pages 225. Rs 339.
The 57-year-old actor, has appeared in more than 100 plays and 450 movies, and has many awards and accolades to his name. With this book, he dons the hat of a motivational author and a truth-seeker. In his maiden book, Kher makes an extra effort to ensure that it gets potential readers’ attention. Big names have been associated with The Best Thing About You is You. Amitabh Bachchan released the book in Mumbai, while MP and writer Shashi Tharoor did so at the Jaipur Literary Festival. If that were not enough, Kher had Tarun Gogoi, Assam Chief Minister do the honours in Guwahati. Thanks to the celebrity names (not the least that of the author’s) associated with it, the book has already received a lot of fanfare.

Perfect family drama
Reviewed by Aditi Garg
Overwinter
by Ratika Kapur. Hachette India. Pages 239. Rs 495.
Human beings are arguably the most complex creatures on the planet. They think and rethink, process and analyse and then act and react to each and every action of theirs and of others. This capability to scrutinise every action, their own and of others, is a boon as well as a bane. They are never free of the baggage that they impose on themselves. Add to that, worrying not just for oneself but also for everyone they love and wanting to please them all the time. With such a burden on their hearts and heads, they set out to in quest of happiness.

Gained in translation
Reviewed by Harbans Singh
The Temple and the
Mosque – The Best of Premchand Translated
by Rakhshanda Jalil. Harper Collins. Pages 197. Rs 250
It is a measure of Premchand’s popularity that his work keeps getting translated from time to time and yet no translation has ever been accepted by the readers as ‘the translation’. Usually when read in translation, Premchand’s stories appear to have lost not only their soul but the craft too. Finally here is a translation that is as close to the original as any translation can be.

Tete-a-tete
Dateline Hira Mandi
Nonika Singh
When a dramatic tale set in Lahore’s notorious centre of prostitution, based on a real life painter of Pakistan is written by a French novelist Claudine Le Tourneur d’lson…. the very first question is more than obvious. Did she write Hira Mandi, recently translated in to English by Roli publications, to shock and provoke? Pat comes the reply, "Indeed, people might be shocked by what I have written, but that is not my rationale."

A lifetime is not enough
He has seen it all — from the horrors of Partition to the muzzling of Press during the Emergency — and still retains his idealism and continues to dream. Kuldip Nayar talks to Aruti Nayar about his life and work
It is difficult to believe that the impassioned man, Kuldip Nayar, sitting in his room at the Mariott, Chandigarh, is all of 88 years. So enthused is he about still ‘making a difference,’ that too in all his various roles——be it as a columnist who writes for more than 80 newspapers and in most Indian languages, or as a human rights activist who firmly opposes any attempt to muzzle freedom of expression or as a peacenik who religiously lights candles at the Wagah border for India-Pakistan friendship.

Sufi pictorial takes Islam to children
Madhusree Chatterjee
OImam Ali, can you tell us how far it is to heaven?" asked a group of Muslim pilgrims to which the wise one replied, "Just two steps away. The cover of a new Islamic text reaches out to children worldwide with its witty quips.

short takes
Economy, astrology and nostalgia
Reviewed by Randeep Wadehra
India After the Global Crisis
by Shankar Acharya. Orient Blackswan. Pages xiii+226. Price not mentioned
When Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest global financial services firm that dealt in investment banking among other things, declared bankruptcy in 2008, Western economies went through mega-quakes, which hit hard many other countries too. The world output declined in 2009. GDPs tumbled in Europe by 4.3 per cent, Japan by 6.3 per cent, USA by 3.5 per cent, UK by 4.9 per cent and Russia by 7.8 per cent. Interestingly, while India’s GDP grew by 7 to 8.5 per cent between 2008 and 2011, China’s economy cantered along at 9 per cent.

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