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Philosophy as
politics of the real
Reviewed by Shelly Walia
The New French Philosophy
By Ian James
Cambridge: Polity Press. Pages 221. £16.99
Ian
James, a major theorist who teaches French at Cambridge, in
his book The New French Philosophy, emphasises the
relevance of recent French theory in transforming society, and in
accounting for the experience of a world in collision. In recent
years, formalism, post-structuralism, psychoanalysis and
deconstruction failed in provoking dissidence and political
radicalism, motives which were significant with the so-called
demise of Marxism.
Crusader
on the move
Reviewed by Kanwalpreet
Didi, A Political
Biography
By Monobina Gupta. Harper Collins. Pages 216. Rs 299
Mamata
Banerjee, "Didi", as she is lovingly called by
one and all, is a complex subject to write on. Working
consistently, she has risen from being a grassroots party worker
to become, at present, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, a state
which was the bastion of the Communist Party of India Marxist, (CPM),
since 1977. Monobina Gupta chose Didi as her subject to look into
the personality who has managed to oust the CPM from power with
her relatively new political party, the Trinamool Congress. It is
a strange journey of a lady who does not boast of any mentor and
claims to live for "Maa, maati, manush". Such
politicians are the need of the hour, yet Monobina Gupta tells us
all with a pinch of salt.
Varied
shades of life
Reviewed by Aditi Garg
Difficult Pleasures
By Anjum Hasan. Penguin Books. Pages 250. Rs 399
Happiness
and despair, surprises and the mundane, tears and laughter;
all form an inseparable part of everyday life. There is no such
life as an ordinary life, there are only stories waiting to be
told. Even the most staid faces hide troubling secrets and untold
joy. Expect the unexpected to be discovered in the most unlikely
places. These human stories bring to fore the many faces people
wear to make life worth living. From small children to the young
and the aged, all leave behind a rainbow of tales spanning every
known human emotion.
Power
of nonviolence
Reviewed by Balwinder
Kaur
After Gandhi: Brave
Torchbearers of Nonviolent Resistance
By Anne Sibley O’Brien and Perry Edmond O’Brien
Hachette India. Pages 198. Rs 350.
On
May 2, 2012, the world watched Aung San Suu Kyi take oath
to become a member of Parliament and the Leader of the Opposition.
After two decades as a political prisoner, she is finally in a
position to actively participate in the governance of her beloved
Myanmar. This event, along with many other such victories big and
small; have proven that Gandhian values remain supremely relevant
and effective even in this day and age. After Gandhi: Brave
Torchbearers of Nonviolent Resistance by Anne Sibley O’Brien
and Perry Edmond O’Brien chronicles a hundred years of
nonviolent resistance after Mahatma Gandhi.
tete-a-tete
Actor
of substance
Nonika Singh
Don’t
let her frail looks befool you. Gifted actor Shernaz Patel is
every inch a woman of steel. This no-nonsense actor who loves to
"provoke people" may be a shy person in real life but on
stage she is transformed into an uninhibited being who slips into
her parts with no holds barred. Yet, quiz her on some of the
unprintable words that she dares to mouth, as demanded by the wide
variety of characters that she essays, and she shoots back,
"If some of my roles make the audiences squirm… so be it. I
offer no apology for that means they are missing the point that
the play is making."
Revisiting
ancient India
Reviewed by Kanchan Mehta
Prophets, Poets, &
Philosopher-Kings: Sketches on India’s Spiritual & Literary
Heritage.
By Abhijit Basu, Celestial Books. Pages 181. Rs 145
The
treasure trove of India’s spiritual and literary
heritage, bursting with endless perspectives is worth revisiting
time and again. Likewise, the present book, a collection of
retrospective, critical, scholarly and absorbing essays, centred
around ancient Indian poets, prophets and philosopher-kings,
provides revealing insights into ancient India.
The
Ps and Qs of parenting
Do
your homework, eat whatever is on the table and don’t
ever try to be naughty. Parenting has moved beyond the reprimands
and stern etiquette codes to become an art of mindfulness,
analysis and complex psychological healing. The mantra in the new
nuclear home is freedom and sensitivity; it spares the rod and
allows the child to discover its own identity through the
roller-coaster of life, said New York-based clinical psychologist
and writer Shefali Tsabary, who works with families to promote
mindful living and conscious parenting across the world.
"Conscious parenting puts the onus of the child’s
development on the parents - and is challenging. Parents have to
know more to influence their children in this world of
Internet," said Tsabary. Tsabary in her new book, The
Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children,
(released in Indian stores recently), tries to move the epicentre
of the parent-child relationship away from the parent-to-child
"know-it-all" approach to one of mutual growth.
A
tale of survival in a North Korean jail
Madhusree Chatterjee
Twentysix-year-old
Shin Dong-hyuk may not be as famous as Dith Pran, the Cambodian
labour camp survivor in the 1984 screen drama, The Killing
Fields, but his true survival story as a condemned political
prisoner in North Korea who escaped is as powerful as it is
unbelievable. Shin, who was born in one of the six sprawling
Gulag-style, no-exit political prisons located 55 miles (88 km)
north of Pyongyang, is the new North Korean labour camp hero in
award-winning writer and veteran journalist Blaine Harden’s
latest bestseller, Escape from Camp 14.
short
takes
Of
poetry and mystery
Reviewed by Randeep
Wadehra
Everything begins
elsewhere
By Tishani Doshi
Harper Collins -India Today.
Pages 87. Rs. 299
Love,
longings and memories can be articulated in a number of ways
ranging from crass and clichéd to subtle and sublime. In this
anthology, words morph into vivid images that flit across our
mindscape and leave behind a stunning effect ever so subtly. The
poem, Ode to Drowning, is a beautiful interpretation of a
lovelorn’s longings. Tishani Doshi builds up the atmospherics by
quoting the Tamil devotional poet Nammalvar. Thence begins a
picturesque portrayal of the many-hued love wherein "blue-skinned
gods/with magical flutes/seduce the virgins to dance" because
"there can be no love without music/No rain without peacocks/
perched in branches". The poet continues, "It’s
that old idea of drowning/in another to find the self". The
‘drowning’ motif persists in her next poem, Lesson 1:
Building a Bridge between the Past and the Future, "‘Come
through the gates of drowning’/the teacher says/so we cross with
lotus rafts/and abandon them at the water’s edge/where love’s
refrain is whispering: The world begins and then it ends. Begins
and ends again".
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Murder in
Amaravati
-
Incognito
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