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Synapses of the brain
Reviewed by
Roopinder Singh
Em and the Big Hoom
Jerry Pinto. Aleph, New
Delhi. Pages 235. Rs 495.
SHE called him Mambo,
and Augie, but almost never by his given name, Augestine. He called
her Imelda, which was her name, and sometimes, Beloved. The author
calls her Em and him Hoom. The lived in Bombay, in Mahim in the last
decades of the 1900s. They loved each other deeply, and were, in turn,
adored by their children.
Unravelling
Kashmir's kidnapping story
Reviewed by
Manisha Gangahar
The Meadow
By Adrian Levy &
Cathy Scott-Clark Penguin. Rs 499; Pages:
510
Locating answers in
Kashmir is more than an ordeal, one can't help but get lost on the
way. In fact, even asking the right questions become quite a task in
the conflict zone, where words are loaded with meanings that go beyond
their literal denotations. The Meadow is then a feat, for it
not only asks appropriate questions but reaches out to a few answers
as well.
tete-a-tete
The solo player
Teaching students at the
National School of Drama the art of making solos, actor Maya Rao tells
them to start with nothing and tap into their inner consciousness
Nonika Singh
A great idea is often
born out of emptiness, solitude and nothingness. And eminent theatre
person Maya Krishna Rao often enough locks herself in an empty room,
looks within and presto a performance takes birth. Just like a painter
who sits before a blank canvas and knows not which direction his or
her brush will take, she lets her inner self guide her. Thus a
newspaper report, a piece of poetry, a line she overheard becomes the
trigger to the magical world of creation. Empowering the rural
poor of the world
Reviewed by D S Cheema
Target 3 Billion, PURA,
Innovative Solutions towards Sustainable Development
By Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
and Srijan Pal Singh. Penguin Books. Pages 298. Rs 299
Amartya
Sen notes that
the connotation of universal language that claims to embrace all,
especially the marginalised and the poor of the world, can be traced
200 years back when in 1790s two writers Mary Wollstonecraft and
Thomas Paine wrote, "It is justice, not charity, that is wanting
in the world."
Disturbing encounters
Reviewed by Ram Varma
Beautiful Country,
Stories from Another India
By Syeda Hameed &
Gunjan Veda. Harper Collins, India. Pages 365. Rs 399.
Syeda Hameed, a member
of that esoteric, charmed circle called the Planning Commission, took
occasional sorties into "remote corners, sparsely inhabited
places, crowded urban spaces and ghettos of India," to see for
herself the outreach of our national plans and projects. She took her
OSD, a young journalist Gunjan Veda, along with her on these journeys
of discovery.
Journey from figures to
verses
Shayad Yaheen Se Ho,
a collection of Urdu poems and ghazals symbolises the journey of R
Satyanarayan, the CEO to Satya 'Muasir', the poet. The book has been
published in three scripts — Urdu, Roman and Devnagri
Vandana Shukla
TO begin with, it defied
logic. A "Madrasi entrepreneur" coming up with a book of
Urdu poetry. So, one was forced to take note of it, beyond the novelty
of the idea to discover that the ‘foreward’ is written by none
other than Dr Karan Singh who lavishes praise on the entrepreneur's
poetic gifts expressed in Urdu, a language associated with antiquity
and leisure.
Time
to sing a different toon?
Simon Usborne
A
little over a year from now, Epic will arrive at cinemas. How do we
know? Because 20th Century Fox has just issued a press release. It
devotes a a forest, has to save the world) but several more to
announcing its ‘Epic’casting.
Bloggers meet offline
THE air was abuzz with
tech talk as more than 250 bloggers came together Sunday for the
IndiBlogger meet in the capital. They shared Twitter
handles instead of visiting cards, clicked pictures with their
smartphones and tablets, and blogged about the evening using their
Blackberries.
short takes
A polymath, poet and
chic-lit
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