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Walk
down Punjab’s history lane
Reviewed by Belu Maheshwari
Punjab: A History From Aurangzeb
To Mountbatten
by Rajmohan Gandhi
Aleph Book Company.
Pages 432. Rs 695
The
history of Punjab has fascinated researchers, political thinkers,
sociologists, even the lay person, because of its chequered yet
culturally rich past. The Partition of 1947, which was the biggest
holocaust and migration ever seen before or afterwards, has fascinated
the contemporary world. Why did an Indian state, which was
economically prosperous and politically stable, kill the nationalist
dream of freedom in unity?
What
it takes to be in the big league
Reviewed by Balwinder Kaur
Power Play
by Parinda Joshi,
Fingerprint! Pages 292. Rs 250
being
a cricket fan in India is a rollercoaster ride where the exhilaration
of victory, the agony of defeat, the glory of trophies and the
disgrace of scandals are all part of the experience. India’s love
affair with cricket is a rocky relationship as author Parinda Joshi
clearly portrays in Power Play. Vivek Grewal finds himself in the
familiar predicament of having to watch his favourite team lose. Lose
constantly. Lose badly. So much so that they become synonymous with
losing and are dubbed the ‘Official Losers of the League’. Tired
of feeling the same impotent rage as millions of other viewers, Vivek
decides to do something.
Out-of-the-box,
original flights of fantasy
Reviewed by Aradhika Sharma
The Three Virgins
by Manjula Padmanabhan,
Zubaan. Pages 250. Rs 499
the
most striking feature about Manjula Padmanabhan’s short stories is
the imagination of the author. She can get into the skin of the
characters and situations you’ve grown up with — Dracula, Ravana,
and the Sati pratha — and change them for you forever. It
seems like her imagination has a life of its own — darting hither
and thither — being fanciful, fearless and free.
Behind
the mask
Reviewed by Suresh
Kohli
Meena Kumari: The Classic
Biography
by Vinod Mehta,
HarperCollins, Pages 248. Rs 350
that’s
not what emerges from this "classic biography" that was
written when the dust had just about begin to settle in that
godforsaken, "most unkempt" Shia cemetery at Rehmata Baug,
Mazagaon, Mumbai on that day of March 1972.
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