Challenges that come India’s way
Reviewed by Kanwalpreet

Tales from Shining and Sinking India
by Akash Banerjee
Amaryllis. Pages 328. Rs 525

akash Banerjee, the author of this book, is a television reporter but has proved his mettle as a writer through this book. His job gave him the advantage to travel to places which were the focus of the nation for a few hours or days. Akash Banerjee was there to capture it all along with other members of his fraternity. At that time, be it the attack on Mumbai by terrorists, the Flight 1X-812 crash in Mangalore on May 22, 2010 or the floods in Bihar in 2008, the author reported as a journalist. But this book, it seems, has been written after a lot of introspection. The author in Banerjee has turned the events in his mind, gone over them again and then sat down to pen them.

This detailed insight into the diversity of India makes the book provocative. The titles given to chapters are interesting and give a fair idea to what lies ahead. The details are absorbing and take the reader back to the events as they unfolded. As a reporter one is a witness to any event that would go down in history but it is common knowledge that parts of it are edited. This is frustrating for an intelligent mind which has seen it all. As Arnab Goswami, Editor-in-Chief of Times Now, who has written the Foreword of the book writes, "Among the reasons Akash has written this book is, I hazard to guess, an urge to tell the complete story — the ‘back story’ —the account of what happens behind the scenes." And this is the spirit of the book.

So the chapter titled Poriborton, deals with the stagnation and fall of the Left in West Bengal. He talks about the blunders of "historic" proportions by the CPM, right from the Party refusing the opportunity of having India’s first communist prime minister in 1996 to mistakes in Lalgarh, Singur and Nandigram. He sums the fall as, "gagging partymen is one thing, gagging the entire population of a state is quite another." Banerjee is a proud Indian when he reports on India’s moon mission, Chandrayaan, in 2008. One can visualise the scene when Banerjee writes in a trance recalling the moment, "There was silence on the terrace as the rocket and the shutters did all the talking; if there was ever a moment my chest bloated with pride for being an Indian this was it." But the author touches his reader under the skin while reporting about the senseless attack by terrorists on Mumbai in 2011.

Banerjee manages to tell the terror that gripped the city that day. And he does not forget to praise men like Kumar Deepak or Shriwardhankar who became real-life heroes when the situation demanded. The former managed to warn the people at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, by guiding people away from the firing line of the terrorists through the public announcement. At another place Shriwardhankar held on to Abu Ismail, the leader of the gang of terrorists. Banerjee rightly calls the terrorists "butchers."

The book is a right mixture of stories from India that can shake the conscience of the countrymen. While the nation moves ahead there are people who linger behind as the tragedies directly touched them. Somewhere they feel the nation has failed them yet they try to piece their life together. India’s challenge to take on the Maoists is also reflected which brings assurance to an "aam aadmi".

Banerjee ends on a bright note depicting the soul of a divergent India by writing on the different festivals on which he has extensively reported. He writes about the Holi celebrations at Vrindavan, the Ganesh Chaturthi in Mumbai and the Eid prayers at Jama Masjid.

He ends by firmly believing that though, "Religion is an opium of the masses," yet it binds Indians and make them optimists who struggle to eke out their living but also enjoy life because of their unflinching faith in God. The language of the book is simple but touching. The book is all about the past events but they are scrutinised by author Banerjee. The inquisitive among readers too get to read what they did not get to see. An example of a reporter going beyond his duty.

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