Deki:the adventures of a dog and a boy in Tibet by George Schaller

Multidimensional views of life

This is, of course, a story about a boy and his dog. You could also call it an adventure story, or even a ‘coming of age’ novel. These would be apt descriptions, but inadequate. This highly original work can't be slotted into a genre. The gripping story, told in simple, descriptive language, sparse and nutritious as a monk’s diet, is enhanced by evocative charcoal illustrations. As it takes us through the Tibetan landscape and we observe Tibetan culture, this book also offers riddles whose answers might hold the key to the mysteries of the universe and provide insights which guide on how to deal with its complexities. Life is beautiful, but it is stark. Its realities are presented in the perspective of religious beliefs and philosophy. Existence provides for all. 

If you think something is beautiful, it is beautiful.
If there is fear in your heart, you will meet only demons.

We join wandering nomads in their travels; we observe traditional life in a monastery; we even get to see

something of human temptations and depravity in a sacred environment. Patterns of nature intersect with patterns of the imagination. In short, powerful sentences, the drama advances. Harsh climate might give way to demons and guardian spirits. There are past-life connections, and little glimpses into the powers that meditation can confer. The life of instinct which animals lead is another powerful theme.

Beyond all these, this book is something of a Buddhist primer, and the concepts are conveyed through metaphors, through the adventures of its heroes, and sometimes in simple language. 

One treasure and one alone can no robber steal,
The wise man’s wealth lies in good deeds that
Follow ever after him.
To make an effort to keep wealth,
You become afraid to lose it.
Can you possess a sunrise?
Can you own a cloud?

The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken by Tarquin Hall

By the god – what a book, yaar

Like previous Vish Puri books, this one is not just a ripping detective story. It is also an educated look at life in India. Each of the books explores at length complex representative motifs, and in this one, cricket, and in particular corruption in cricket, is one of the main ones. Alongside this broad theme, the text is rich with incisive references to local specialties such as pharmaceutical mores (the cavalier manner in which medicine is prescribed and eagerly guzzled down in India); the Dubai-underworld connection; the utility of geckos pasted on Indian ceilings; other pointers that lead to broad explorations of Indian lifestyles and subtle inferences into the Indian psyche.

Puri sipped his Scotch. It wasn’t as good as Indian whisky, he reflected. But Britishers enjoyed bland things. Like toad in the hole and depressing poetry about damp valleys and all. Such a strange people: highly civilised in many ways, yet with no fire burning in their bellies. Still, there was something gratifying about helping them out when they turned up in Delhi. Despite their inherent conceit, their fundamental belief in the superiority of Western civilization, they were always out of their depth here in India – trying to operate in a world that was impenetrable to them. “Welcome to the real world,” he often felt like saying to them. “Welcome to India!” And yet somehow Puri always found himself adopting a subservient manner when dealing with the British. India was free and independent, had been for more than sixty years now, but he couldn’t help trying to impress upon them that he, too, was civilized.

What made this book far more ambitious than the previous ones, almost terrifyingly so, is that here Tarquin Hall tackles the very complicated and intimate connection between India and Pakistan.

Like many Indians, indoctrinated to fear and hatred of an enemy country, Vish Puri is terrified when his detecting takes him across a border both quaint and deathly serious. Once there, his observations and experience transform his feelings. He finds it a place where smoking is still permitted in public places. People he meets are friendly and courteous (from the airhostess who’d assured him the plane wasn’t going to crash, to the hotel concierge who’d talked about how much he’d enjoyed visiting India last year). Puri, known to friends as ‘Chubby’, also has his world view significantly altered by a Lahori meal he would never forget as long as he lived (the marinated mutton so tender, so succulent that it melted in his mouth; the yoghurt-based gravy a perfect blend of coriander and chilli with just a hint of lemon, wiped up with crisp pieces of roghini naan, and every last bit of marrow sucked from the mutton bones). 

Through Vish Puri’s indomitable Mummy, an accomplished detective herself, Tarquin Hall gives us little glimpses of what Partition did. Like remnants of any traumatic horror, these glimpses are compelling and very moving, and occasionally demanding of the refuge of denial. 

Once, not very long ago, Tarquin Hall referred to his Vish Puri books as belonging to the genre of ‘detective cosies’. To me they are far more than cosies. There’s a specialized anthropological depth to them that I admire almost as much as I enjoy the quality of his detective fiction.

The edge of desire by Tuhin Sinha

The sheen of an underbelly
Not since The White Tiger has a book gripped me in this particular way, engaging me with both its plot and language, and overcoming me with a sinking feeling at the false image so many of us live with of life in India.
What do we know of kala azar, a chronic and potentially fatal parasitic disease transmitted by sand-fly that afflicts thousands in Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar? That in India only one of fifty rape cases is reported; that only one of five reported are convicted? That being an illegal migrant is a privilege because it offers certain dubious opportunities to officers of the state administration? That the so-called tribals who support the 'Naxal' movement, who are not even aware of modern techniques of agriculture, can somehow handle modern ammunition?
These are some of the issues that this fast-paced and well-written book offers, along with a range of information about India, from the early politics of Kashmir to the qualities of the god Krishna, to our vapid and rather pointless method of celebrating Independence Day.
What I liked best about this book is that it is written by a man, and the voice of his heroine – her thoughts, feelings and actions – are so very authentic. Shruti starts off as a journalist and in this book, as she evolves first into a politician and then into a convict, we get to see her suffer deceit in a committed relationship, then rape by a group of strangers, then frustration in what started off as a promising marriage. When finally a complicated situation seems likely to bring her happiness at last – that disintegrates too.
What I did not like was that the quality deteriorated towards the end, starting with an unlikely and clumsily-described event between Shruti and a younger woman, after which it became rather weak and sketchy.

Velocity by Ajaz Ahmed and Stefan Olander

New mantras for a new age
At first this book made me nervous because it put emphasis on Speed and Acceleration as abilities ‘the new atmosphere’ (the one thrown up by ‘a world gone digital’) requires us to master.
I prefer an unhurried pace of existence and even the thought of being forced to move fast by forces beyond my control makes me giddy. But as I read, there was so much wisdom in its concepts – and so much that struck me as good and true – that I soon became a raving fan. After all, the other two abilities it endorses are Direction and Discipline – my favourites, actually.
I became who I am from reading stuff like I’m OK You’re OK and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. (Can I call them self-help books? Or would that evoke a great gnashing of teeth by the stakeholders of this one? On the other hand maybe it’s ok: I’ve heard self-help books outperform every other genre many times over in India. What a sweet, earnest and well-intentioned people we are!)

Velocity gives us seven laws that recommend new ways of thinking and behaving. What I liked was that these ‘new ways’ are very often very old ways – stuff we really should have been doing all along in the interests of long-term thinking and sustainability, but somehow forgot.
Along with specifics of new situations that the modern world presents, there is a focus here on ethical, goal-oriented, action-oriented thought and behaviour. In a world of confusing choices, I felt reassured that these were being held up as precepts for success.
For instance:

Wondering which half of your ad spend is wasted? Velocity says, “Wrong question. Try again.” Instead of just interrupting people, serve them and make them feel something. Sorry, but that takes longer than thirty seconds.

And:

Velocity will disproportionately reward organizations and individuals that aim to make a meaningful and enduring contribution. ...
Do the right thing: always play from your heart.

And:

Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should.

The line that struck me most was held out as a guide to Design, borrowed from the value system of the Byzantine monks of yore:

Balance, gentleness, absence of haste and clarity of spirit.

And that's when I realised that it was the idea of haste that had worried me to start with, and not the idea of speed.

Another thing I liked about this book is the uncluttered way it’s laid out, which makes reading and absorbing concepts easier than in closely-fitted text. And one of the clever things it does to avoid the monotony of long theoretical passages is to break them up into shorter ones by having each of the co-authors speak alternately.
Buy this book and read it. More important, practice what it teaches – it will work towards bringing you lasting happiness and peace – and making the world a better place too.

Incognito by Lata Gwalani

Glamour, vengeance ... resolution
Here’s a murder mystery that draws you in and keeps you engrossed without providing so much as a dead body.
It arrived yesterday, and though I have a number of books waiting for their turn, was so impressed with its cover, perfect binding, and elegantly-laid-out font that once I started turning its crisp pages, I just kept going till I’d come to the end.
There are four separate stories here and as I raced through them, waiting eagerly to find out how they would link together and provide solutions to the burning question each one raised, I must say I enjoyed the easy visualization of its fast-moving pace. I admired these four Indian women, happy to be acquainted with their independent thoughts and lifestyle and the way they inhabited a new world which did not hem them in as Indian women have been in centuries past. I was a bit surprised at how their giddy-headed emotional attractions were so easily categorized as ‘love’ – but I will admit to ‘loving’ the different locales Lata Gwalani has depicted in authentic detail in her book.
As the story comes to a close, it suddenly takes on a different character and I found the transition rather abrupt. Moving from a racy, event-strewn narrative to a complex, theoretical arena cannot be as simple as changing gears – at least not to me. I was expecting to race through to the end but the last thirty pages held me back and if I didn’t particularly enjoy the ending, I should acknowledge that it was my fault for not giving it the time and attention it probably deserved.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

Shadow people, real lives
There was just one thing that troubled me about this book as I read – and that was the way the author had got inside her subjects’ heads, revealing their inmost, and sometimes very private, thoughts. How could she have known them?
This quibble was resolved when I read her explanatory note at the end and it described exactly how.
To write this book, Katherine Boo spent four years observing and understanding Annawadi, a slum near the Mumbai international airport, and here she has profiled some of the people she met and written about the events in their lives during this time.

In Annawadi, fortunes derived not just from what people did, or how well they did it, but from the accidents and catastrophes they dodged. A decent life was the train that hadn’t hit you, the slumlord you hadn’t offended, the malaria you hadn’t caught.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers is beautifully written, easy to read, full of drama and tragedy, and confronts the reader with complex thoughts and feelings – especially privileged readers who believe that Mumbai belongs to them (like me). It attempts to answer Katherine Boo’s questions:

What is the infrastructure of opportunity in this society? Whose capabilities are given wing by the market and a government’s economic and social policy? Whose capabilities are squandered? By what means might that ribby child grow up to be less poor?

I felt sad to think that we are probably a long way away from a situation in which someone from inside the many Annawadis in our country could write a book like this – a long way away even from an Angela's Ashes kind of book.
What I admired most about Behind the Beautiful Forevers was its high standards at every level and in every area – time and attention spent on listening and observing, previous perspective, accuracy and detail, literary and intellectual quality – something I’m afraid I have not encountered for a very long time and had begun to believe that I was fortunate to have ever known that it existed at all, but would probably never see again.

Artist, Undone by Sanjay V. Kumar

Rave review
Reading this book I found myself thinking, after a very long time, “How I wish I could write like this!” I very much admired both style and content.
Harsh Sinha is good-looking, well-educated, articulate, regular Joe and premier arranged-marriage votary. He has never wooed, never flirted. (Never learnt the give and take, the sensitive yes and no, the important maybes, the gestures, the unspoken thoughts, the ups and downs that make for companionship with women.) The drafts folder of his email is always full with his jottings. (Naerapongo: Go straight is the only direction you will ever get in Chennai. ‘Naerapongo saar’. It is accompanied by a wave of the hand that could be in any direction. Go straight. I think it is a philosophical derivative because it usually doesn’t get you very far.)
Through Harsh’s story, the author gives us a sweeping view of the Indian art world: how some artists live, the cold silence and unique marketing style of Mumbai galleries, the ad-hocism of price and purchase, the hard-to-decipher (although very elegant and all) language of art-catalogue writing, the wide scope of art studies – including the what-will-they-ever-think-of-next of Confessional Art – and even, right at the end, a comprehensive (and in-your-face) answer to that provocative question “Why do people buy art”.

The characters in this book are real ‘characters’ … check this.
Newton Kumaraswamy. Given to speech at the oddest times. Like when there was no one around.
And Gopi … he was in a halfway house – all the time. He had been single for a decade, during which the closest he got to a woman was when the ayah swept the floor under his bum as he lay sprawled on his chair.
Manoj Tyaagi’s parents fretted for years at his lack of communication skills and social etiquette – little knowing what a prolific and exhibitionistic writer he would turn out to be one day.
There are others, equally fascinating.
One of the things I admired most about this book was that sections are presented in different voices and each one is unique to its owner – a skill only the best writers have.
And – the book is an intriguing combination of fact and fiction (and some minor errors). Many of the names are of real people and real works of art or writing. But many are entirely made up and I found that confusing – were there all kinds of insider references I wasn't getting?
What I didn’t like is the editors’ poor knowledge of Bombay – mixing up Arthur Bunder with Arthur Road Jail and calling the Bombay Gymkhana Club the Mumbai Gymkhana Club – hahaha.
Anyway ... Sanjay V. Kumar – can I get your autograph please?

Conservation by Murder by Sudipt Dutta

The Royal Bengal tiger has always been a creature of fascination – but over the centuries, the Sundarbans tiger reserve has had limited appeal as a source of tiger study and sport. This book gives us a privileged view of the reserve, and strips away the confusion, myth and false data that further endangers the tiger by obscuring honest study of it.
Sudipt Dutta first visited the Sunderbans as a young journalist in 1985. Over the years he went back a number of times and was so committed to spending time in and studying the area that he built his own motor yacht and made it his home for 50 days each year between 2006 and 2010. Added to his own observation and analysis, in this book he also examines data from various sources and interviews officials and experts.
There is apparently a popular belief that the tigers that live here are different from other tigers physically and psychologically, and Sudipt Dutta explores each myth in detail, showing logically that these tigers are not different. In this book he also proves that the Sunderbans tigers are not natural man eaters and if they eat humans it is almost always because of poor management by forest officials.
There are two things I admired very much about this book. One is the author’s passion and dedication to his subject. He has used personal resources and gone out of his way to speak on this important subject, and he has taken the considerable risk of exposing bad governance in this area, in particular the tendency of forest officials to alter data to show themselves in a positive light. The second is the fact that, even though this book was peer reviewed and accepted for publication by a reputed international publisher, he set aside personal glory to bring out the book quickly but without fanfare rather than wait for the years the international publisher said it would take, a period the tiger might not even survive, without the practical means this book prescribes.
Sadly, however, this has meant that the book lacks in production values – its paper, print and edit quality are mediocre, though the cover image, by Devika ‘Inca’ Dutt is original and very striking.

The Fatwa Girl by Akbar Agha

Engrossing, informative - and sad
One of the most insistent thoughts in my mind as I read and enjoyed The Fatwa Girl was that a book could actually be a good book even if it doesn’t have a strongly pervasive literary quality.
For the last several years, the books I’ve read coming out of Pakistan have been of a standard of English that easily matched up to the best writing anywhere in the world. Even Moni Mohsin, with her giddy-headed and ungrammatical character Butterfly, has a style that clearly arises from an orthodox, rather elite tradition of English literature. For the first time I was reading a Pakistani English book written in language drawn from a wider section of the bell curve; one that even used ‘flouted’ when it meant to say ‘flaunted’. And never once did it upset me.
I think the main reason for my easy acceptance was that I found the plot very interesting, and revelled in the wealth of detail about Pakistani history and the different aspects of its religion and culture which are easily woven in to it.
The story is told by Omar, a young man from an upper middle class family in Karachi. The Fatwa girl is his neighbour and we learn how, despite being from religious sects that detest each other, they become friends. Amina is a smart, carefree young woman. What is it that turns her into a suicide bomber? The suspense builds up as we find out. And, as Akbar Agha takes us to this final turn in the storyline, we journey through a variety of concepts and landscapes: historical information from the Arab world and the subcontinent which contributed to the fabric of modern-day Pakistan; the myths that arose because of the nature of its people; the contrast between traditional and modern lifestyles and ways of thinking; the economic conditions which have allowed corruption to flourish and created power blocks and an ever-widening rift between socio-economic classes. From Karachi to Lahore to the beautiful but desecrated Swat and even a cameo from the Pakistani effort to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan; from Kipling to Lear to Jung; from comparing the plight of oppressed women in Pakistan and the USA: the fabric of this book arises from this knowledgeable author’s perspective on his country and the world. Says Omar,

I recalled the moment we laid Grandpa into the grave and a strange thought entered my mind. It made me think differently about religion from that day on.
I thought, a billion people can’t be wrong. But a billion people would swear that Grandfather would go to Hell for saying Jesus is the Son of God. Another billion would swear he would go to Heaven for saying Jesus is the Son of God. Which billion would be right?

Reading The Fatwa Girl, I wondered whether the story, too, was drawn from something Akbar Agha had experienced himself, and I emailed him with a few questions. He replied:

Perhaps the only thing I share in common with my protagonist Omar, who eventually, like me, joins the Foreign Service, is the feeling that the sorrow of parting is never sweet. I was a bachelor for many years in the Service and just when you got to really know someone you’d receive orders for transfer to another country. I guess the sadness of parting from someone you’ve become intimate with is reflected in Omar’s story.
If the Shia-Sunni divide is at the core of my story it’s because I’ve felt its presence even as a schoolboy. My best friend at school was someone I’d hang out with most of the day, go to movies and parties and dances together and do all the fun things teenagers do – except during the month of Muharram when we couldn’t meet at all because he was busy attending religious meetings or participating in self-flagellation which as a Sunni I couldn’t understand, and during this entire month my best buddy would become an alien to me. I’ve always felt the divide between the two sects should have been repaired a thousand years, but it’s no better now than when it started and will eventually raise its head even among the best of friends.

I asked Akbar Agha about what he is writing now and he said he has just completed a novel entitled The Moon Belongs to Everyone. Its main character is Alvi, a young Pakistani in America, a barista at a Seattle Starbucks, but his grandmother thinks he’s a barrister, and this results in a comical situation. He described the book in some detail, and it struck me that it would also very likely be filled with interesting information and perceptions, and include an element of rising suspense, both features which I had enjoyed very much in this book too.

Bangalore calling by Brinda S Narayan

Call Centre Tapestry
I picked this book up without much enthusiasm, finding the title and cover unappealing, and the thought, “Yawn, could there be something here that Chetan Bhagat might have missed?”
Even after reading a few pages I was still thinking pompously, “Hm, yes, while that one could be called Great Fun – we’d have to use adjectives like ‘pleasurable’, ‘enjoyable’ or ‘delightful’ for this.”
As I read, a more appropriate comparison struck me: if One Night in a Call Centre was a McDonald’s burger, then Bangalore Calling was a wedding feast by the best caterer in town.
The book opens with Yvette leaning on the trainer’s desk in Room #3 and appraising the agents as they stream in after a tea break.
Yvette is an interesting person – intelligent, self-contained, and with all the attributes of a good narrator. In the next chapter, however, the focus changes and our new protagonist is Panduranga, a driver of one of the call centre’s pick-up cabs - and we get to learn something about his family, his aspirations, and what he thinks about as he drives.
It wasn’t until I had read another two chapters, one giving us a view of the life of Natalie, an American woman who works with the American client of the Bangalore call centre and whom we had met briefly through the eyes of both Yvette and Panduranga; and the other showing us how another young woman, Bitty, copes with her life and her job as an agent at the call centre, that I understood how this book worked. Through a number of very different characters it takes us into different homes and minds and through them gives a good look at different Indian cultures and lifestyles and how each of the people representing it has reacted to the American influence and aspirations introduced by their association with the call centre.
Bangalore Calling is very well written and the story compelling. I wondered why it had not received more fanfare and felt curious to know more about the writer so I mailed her to ask from where the idea to write this book came from. She replied,

I was working as a quality consultant with a global call centre, and like Yvette, the trainer in Bangalore Calling, I was intrigued and disturbed by the identity changes I was witnessing. By then, I had worked for nearly fifteen years in various corporate jobs and I had a gnawing sense that I should be doing something else. So I took a sabbatical and conducted research at three centres. Bangalore Calling is the outcome of my study.

The publishers of this book tell us that its author “has worked for fifteen years in the corporate sector. She holds a BA in Economics from Wellesley College and an MA in Communication from Stanford University. She currently lives in Bangalore.”
After looking into the souls of Brinda S Narayan’s characters, I felt this was just a bit too tame and complained that readers of a book so strewn with anthropology deserved a less clinical description of its author. She said:

I've always been a wide reader and I'm curious about how larger forces act on families and individuals. Having been a working mother for several years, I've also been fascinated by the interactions between life and work. Besides reading, I dabble with paints at a very amateur level. I'm married and have two kids.

I was now curious to hear about Brinda S Narayan’s next book, which I look forward to reading, but all she would tell me was

I'm currently working on a novel, and though it's too early to talk about the theme, I can tell you this: it's not set at a workplace.

One Little Finger by Malini Chib

A glamorous crusader

I saw Malini’s book at a friend’s place in Madras last month, read the first page, and was thoroughly captivated. And I was tickled by the title. I had met Malini in January 2009. She had told me about herself, and one of the things I remember her saying was that she has two separate Masters’ degrees and had typed both theses with just one little finger. So I knew what the title meant: it was a tribute to a certain very special finger, and quite characteristic of Malini’s wry sense of humour.
Malini has Cerebral Palsy. I enjoyed meeting her and found her to be an extremely emotional person – enthusiastic, independent, full of life, very good looking, a little impatient, and irrepressibly eager to try out new things. During the course of the day we spent together, her witty responses had me laughing a number of times. And she had a coy look on her face when her mother, Mithu Alur who founded Spastics Society of India, told me that Malini was presently working on her autobiography. Well – here it was, and I ordered a copy as soon as I got home.
One of the best things about this book is that it is the inside story of a struggle that many face – but very few are gifted with the ability to articulate. And Malini is not just telling us a personal story, she is also able to comment on the difficult situation she has faced all her life and conceptualize and analyze various facets of it. Not only that but she make jokes about it too. For instance, she tells us that as she was growing up, the world viewed disability through what is now known as the “medical model” which means that disabled people were considered as medical cases and isolated accordingly. The prevailing view, however, is the “social model” which applies a “rights-based approach” and considers disability as a social issue; that we are each dependent on others at some level – and that each of us must consider it a simple responsibility to include others of varying ability in our lives. But when her friend Varsha Hooja helps her onto a bus in London and a co-passenger gushes, “You are a wonderful person. God will bless you,” Malini and Varsha secretly laugh and define a new “medical charity model”: anyone helping the disabled will be blessed!

In this book, Malini tells us the story of her life, starting from her birth in Bombay to an educated family, privileged and well connected.
When her parents realize that their child has special needs which will not be satisfactorily met in India, they move to London. Over the years that follow, her life is divided between Bombay and London. Wherever she is, we observe that she has the intelligence to analyze her problems and look for solutions to them. When she joins college at St Xavier’s in Bombay, she agonizes:

Did I have my own personality? Was I just another disabled girl who needed things done for her? I knew that I was different and trapped in a dysfunctional body, but did others realise I had a spirit and a mind separate from this body? My body did not work like others, but did they realise that my mind was normal? Did they consider thinking that my desires were just the same as theirs?

When her classmates plan to go for a movie together, it doesn’t occur to them that Malini wants to go too. But instead of just sitting there feeling sore and left out, she invites herself along and soon enough they learn how to help her along and get used to involving her in their plans.
It struck me that by having the courage to maintain this approach, Malini has always been able to influence people around her towards inclusion, even before she became the activist that she now is. However, the environment was full of barriers. The classrooms at St Xavier’s had a raised strip at the doorway which made it a struggle for a wheelchair to cross. When she got a job at Bombay Times for a short period, the canteen was out of reach so she could never join her colleagues for a cup of coffee or lunch. In India, even toilets for people with disabilities were not accessible.

I liked Malini’s observations – for example her experience of the education system in India as one “which teaches students to be like sausage machines rather than thinkers of the future.”
At the special school she attended in Bombay, children were praised for no reason and not challenged or driven to learn and this proved to be a handicap too. She writes, “My writing was affected. I think one of the fundamental concerns for education for disabled people is the communication output.” This surprised me because it sounded like the most basic, simple common sense. Apparently not!
And she later comments, rather poetically, “To me, communication is like water, the essence of life. What could I do without fluent speech?”
Of her pain and isolation she philosophically remarks: “My experience is that most people cannot deal with other people’s trauma. One’s trauma is one’s own and should not be mentioned unnecessarily to others.”
As she got ready to bid goodbye to her parents as they set out for six weeks in India, leaving her in London, she writes,

‘Bye’, said dad as he kissed me, adding ‘this is what you wanted, so don’t cry’. Men do not understand why women cry.
...
A mixture of emotions passed through them. I was happy to be finally on my own, but sad that my mother and dad had left. We did so much together. We were more like friends.

Her struggle with inclusion and access reduces – though it does continue in different ways – in London where she has a series of happy stints. Here she experiences independence for the first time using technology to make her mobile and able to communicate with the world through different appliances. And at Berkeley, where she meets a large number of disabled people leading normal lives, it opens new worlds to her.

For Malini, a simple outing that most of us would take for granted becomes a grand expedition! We share her excitement and tremendous sense of achievement when she finally goes out all on her own for the first time. And we feel her joy when she travels with friends who enjoy her company. At Notre Dame in Paris, Malini is moved by the atmosphere and writes, “I felt a spiritual presence encircle me. I prayed, and thought about how lucky I had been in life.” And later, when she learns to give lectures using PowerPoint, she comments sardonically, “I absolutely abhor the sound of my monotonous voice. I wish I had a sexy, husky one with a clipped Oxonian accent, but I guess one cannot have everything in life.”

I found this book entertaining; I admired the writing style, enjoyed looking at the photographs and smiling at the humour. I was happy to have from this book the endorsement of the belief, implemented in my own life, that a professional attendant is more conducive to a life of independence and dignity than when the disabled person is cared for just by family members.
But there was something about this book that made me angry and that was its very large number of editing and proofreading mistakes. Malini, being disabled is deserving of more protection than people who have all their functions – and as a talented writer, her creative output deserves better housekeeping. On the very first page of her book she is delivered by a paediatrician! What a novelty! Then, mama is explained on page 29 as a term used for mother’s brother but mashi was used ten pages before and repeatedly through the book – but no one tells us what that means. Why do we have “Bakers” Street instead of Baker Street, “I regaled the incident” (instead of recounted); sooth instead of soothe; a sentence as meaningless as “pasta was considered to be a wholesome, student-friendly of meal”; any number of misplaced apostrophes as in “as other’s often tell me” and bumbling capital letters as in "university Bookshop"? Worse still, towards the end of the book, even the editing gets careless and leaves us with phrases like

As my mother and my aunt were getting older, mashi only suggested that I should have a separate carer

and

… she noticed a considerable amount of bags at the back of my chair.

This book is an excellent production, with good aesthetic values. It has a good story, a beautiful cover, and is well written. To be strewn with careless mistakes – I’ve listed here only a few that I noticed, and I wasn’t even looking – is inexcusable.

Many people would find Malini's book a source of hope and inspiration. But for me, the best thing about this book is what I learnt from it. For the majority of us who have little experience with disability – a situation resulting of course from that unfortunate “medical model” – Malini’s response to the different types of reactions she gets from the different types of people she meets shows us appropriate ways of behaving.

Nine Lives by William Dalrymple

Good book, super festival, sorry controversy
I first read Nine Lives in November 2009, during a journey that lasted nearly all day. The long flight and transit melted away with the compelling style and fascinating story of the nine people chosen to feature in this book. Each one is related in some way to religion and through this book you can see, more clearly than in daily life, how much India has changed and how much it remains the same and will perhaps never change.
I enjoyed it all over again when I read it aloud to my friend Gladys a few months later.
It’s always interesting to me that, though we are so similar in many ways, our perspectives differ so much – doubtless on account of our differing cultural backgrounds. For instance, I was rather awestruck by the young Jain girl who ran away to become a nun, and went through a process of plucking out each hair on her head and later stoically watched her companion (and dearest friend) perform a ritual starvation to death. Gladys, however, has no patience with this sort of thing; she thought the girl was rather foolish and it was a waste of a life.
I had wanted to write about this book in my Sunday Mid-day column but the editor felt it would be better if the review was done by the mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik who was better qualified than I to assess this subject and in the end it never got done.
I remembered that when, in June 2010, I noticed with surprise and disappointment that Nine Lives was not on the list of nominations for the Vodafone Crossword Book Award. It had apparently not been eligible because William Dalrymple is not an Indian national - odd, since The Last Mughal once won a Crossword prize for non-fiction. And in any case, he has lived in India for twenty years or more and written more detailed, interesting and scholarly as well as lay books about various aspects of India than any of us. AND this really was one of the best books I’d read in that year.
I knew I must write about it here, and finally decided to do so now because this year’s Jaipur Literature Festival, one of William Dalrymple’s biggest contributions to the Indian literary scene, begins tomorrow.
As it happens, everyone is talking about William Dalrymple these days. Just yesterday I received a press release about a signature campaign launched by him, along with Gurcharan Das and two associations of Indian publishers, to petition the Union HRD Ministry against the proposed Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2010 to Indian Copyright Act, 1957.
And he has been making news ever since 2011 began.
First, Hartosh Singh Bal (the man who “broke” the Niira Radia story) wrote an article (also in Open magazine), The Literary Raj, about how insular the Indian literary scene is, and some of our cultural tendencies, all well described.
Furiously accusing someone of being racist in a case like this is kind of like a vengeful sexual harassment charge. Sadly, that’s just what William Dalrymple did: The piece you ran is blatantly racist. To which Hartosh Singh Bal’s wrote a good rejoinder, Does Dalrymple know what racism really is?
Now all this is unbearably longwinded and all, but what struck me is the fact that, even though Dalrymple has done so much undeniably good quality work, so many of us seem to resent him so much.
Why could that be? What is it about his manner that we find annoying? Perhaps it’s a fundamental pomposity - many of the Delhi journalists I know consider him faintly ridiculous. You can catch a glimpse in this photo of him preparing for a session at last year’s Jaipur Literature Festival, with a residue of his reflex long suffering “Ahem, can you please go away? Bloody tourists!” look.

Some of this is also reflected in his writing style in this book. It is over-dramatised in parts, and uses the type of slightly exaggerated storytelling style generally reserved to recount tales of great valour or legends of yore. I was amused that his publishers called it “an almost biblical simplicity”.
At the same time, I did appreciate the fact that this style, once you’re already in and enjoying yourself, draws you in even more.

We Can Pull It Off by Suresh Taneja

Superpower India
This is the story of how India got rid of all its problems.
A group of youngsters rooted out corruption – and that changed everything. Starting with a small movement, and with a mixture of shrewd thinking and luck, it spun out to cover the country. A new energy pervaded the land, education became widespread, and in 2030, India was the ruling superpower in the world. Indians from our time looked back, feeling choked with emotion and bursting with pride in country.
The best thing I liked about this book was the strategy described here to achieve this miracle. It’s plausible and, within the parameters of our lives in India today, could even work.
I also liked the very strong positive values it portrays.
Deep and enduring friendship, and love and tolerance for family members are universally considered to be admirable qualities.
Patriotism, however, is not rated so easily. The feeling of high emotion associated with thoughts of country is generally restricted to exiled patriots. For us Indians, the tendency to be emotional about our nationhood and value it as a precious asset arises from the feeling passed on by the thousands who gave their lives for our freedom from British rule.
Sadly, such virtues are considered unsophisticated in the modern materialistic world. They tend to get lumped with other habits such as rising early, working with even-tempered discipline, abstaining from substance abuse and preferring sex only within marriage. Or in other words, maturity is often mistaken for lack of sophistication.
It’s perhaps for this reason that I found the presentation of this book rather rustic, and more suited to the vernacular than English. Or perhaps it was just the language it was presented in. Because, as a work of literary fiction, it has far too many grammatical and idiomatic errors.
This book is not likely to attain mainstream readership – but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t make an excellent plot for a superhit Bollywood film which might well turn out – who knows – to be the starting point for the change it describes.

Many Lives Many Masters by Brian L. Weiss MD

The best that a "man" can hope for
Three months ago today, my father died. It was the first time that I had lost anyone I knew well and cared for deeply. I went through a series of intense and unexpected experiences that reminded me of this book. So it was at the back of my mind, and I happened to recommend it to my friend Anitha who is a doctor in Ireland.
I had read this bestselling book years ago and was curious about what Anitha, who is one of the smartest and most sensitive thinking people I know, would have to say. I was also a bit worried that I may have overrated it, so I read it again to see what I felt now, two or three hundred books later.
Many Lives, Many Masters is a case study written by a psychiatrist in the USA. He is having difficulty treating his patient, a lovely young woman named Catherine, and after eighteen months with no progress, he decides to try hypnotherapy, which he believes will work to help her remember long-forgotten incidents and bring her closer to resolution. During the course of several sessions of hypnosis, Catherine regresses into a series of past lives and this book is about her lives and about what happens between them.
I did enjoy the book this time round, and found it easy to read and inspiring. However, there were a few things that put me off slightly. For one, I believe that the concept of “Masters” should really transcend gender. But this book seemed to me rather male centric. I also didn’t care for the concept that there were beings who were “in charge” and who controlled things, and there was also a slight hint that they had it in them to distribute punishment if they felt inclined.
I prefer to think of the world as controlled by natural laws – and the phenomenon of natural cause and effect. Perhaps these are just different ways of looking at the same thing and perhaps truly evolved people could look at it like that.
I however suspected that the inflexion I objected to had been introduced – maybe not consciously – to make people from religions that preach retribution and male superiority feel more at home. After all, reincarnation is a distasteful concept to some, and it is the central theme of this book.
Another technical point: if one believes in Karma (or just that actions lead to consequences) then Catherine’s long string of lives as an oppressed person is illogical. We should have seen at least some lives in which she was the meanie. Hmm, yes, it is possible that those lives were there and didn’t come to the surface because her soul wasn’t ready to deal with them yet :-)
There’s more, but I think Anitha said it better than I could and, not surprisingly, she had spotted some finer points which I had missed. I’m pasting, verbatim, what she said:
I found it an easy read and quite fascinating. As a Hindu, I was taught to believe in reincarnation and that our present life sufferings are punishments for wrongs committed in past lives. However, I never truly believed in such things. So when I started reading this book, I found the story implausible. But as I kept reading, I began to believe what it said. As it is the case history of a patient written by a prominent psychiatrist, both of them non-Hindus and all hypnotic regression therapy sessions recorded by him, it appears legitimate. Also, I realized that I have no right to be sceptical about things I don't know about. As much as there is no scientific proof regarding reincarnation, there is no proof against it also. Perhaps, we have to realize that if things are unknown to us, it doesn't mean they don't exist. Since we cannot see what happens after death, we can only listen to such astonishing stories and believe in the good lessons they teach us. I'm still thinking about the book as I just finished reading it. I find the messages comforting and at the same time a little frightening in some ways. The philosophy about life, death, reincarnation, the different levels and so on are all quite comforting. Also, it is a consolation that we may meet our loved ones in future lives and that there is no need to fear death. On the contrary, I found it a little frightening that there will be future lives to pay debts, about masters and spirits around us, although they seemed to be kind souls who are only trying to help us. The case history is convincing enough especially as her description of past lives seem detailed and consistent, which gives it more credibility. Having said that, there are a few instances which I found a little far-fetched. For example, his description about Catherine going to the races with her father and winning all that money and donating it to the first street person she met; Catherine recalling the exact year in B.C.; the doctor's claim that his patient had no access to his family history regarding his father and son is not convincing as she works in the same hospital.
I wondered at times whether in his eagerness to prove his point, the author had lapsed into making these flimsy claims. Well I may be wrong about these, as I cannot be certain whether they are impossible or untrue. So maybe I should not dwell on such doubts.
On the whole it was stimulating to read this book and the explanation given by the masters about our purpose in life and I do think it will help people who read it take a positive and brighter outlook on life in general and on our fellow human beings in particular. I think Hindus and Buddhists will find it easier to relate to compared to people from some other religions. I am not aware if any other religion proposes reincarnation theory. But there will always be sceptics as there are people who always question anything and everything that can't be proven and it is a pity that the authenticity of Catherine's past lives cannot be verified from historical data. Whatever the case, I think on the whole, the underlying message of the book makes sense on a spiritual level and if we ponder over the messages from the Masters and take lessons from them, our lives may become simpler and happier.

To end, I wanted to also say that I went online looking for critical reviews of this book and found one which I enjoyed reading. I’ve reproduced the part I liked best:
I certainly do not impugn Dr. Weiss humanity, compassion, or his attempts to help his fellow humans. But by creating a quasi-religion based on clearly fallacious ‘recovered memories’, he destroys his own message by not providing any peer-review or replicable study of his outrageous claims.
Read like poetry, Many Lives, Many Masters is a brilliant modern parable of humanism—it clearly wants to guide people down a path that will help society gain understanding, peace and harmony. The problem is that it ...
click here to read the rest

My Friend the Fanatic by Sadanand Dhume

I met Sadanand Dhume at the Jaipur Literature Festival in January this year and wondered vaguely why his name was so familiar. When I got home I found out – he was the author of one of the books I’d kept aside to read as soon as I got back.
Sadanand had struck me as an intelligent, thoughtful and courteous person, and his book echoed these attributes. Since then I've read some of his columns and found them relevant, stylish, and keenly perceptive of incongruity. Here's one. And here’s the review I wrote for the Sunday Mid-day issue of 31 Jan 2010.

Sadanand Dhume quit his job as foreign correspondent in Indonesia to write this book. In it, he seeks to find out how Indonesia, a society famous for its tolerance and where Islam was traditionally shot through with Hinduism, Buddhism, Animism and other pre-Islamic concepts, could begin to accept and adapt to Islamic fundamentalism.
“As a reporter, I was asking questions about the banking crisis, political devolution, separatist movements in Papua. These are important issues but to me the elephant in the room was a much larger one: what is the nature of Indonesian society going to be in the next ten or twenty years? I knew that in this country where 88 percent of the population is Muslim, it depended on the course that Indonesian Islam took. If indeed this was changing to a more fundamentalist view, the consequences to the country and the region would be immense.”
To find answers, Sadanand Dhume, an outsider and a non-Muslim, would need help to gain access and he was lucky to be introduced to Herry Nurdi, the editor of the Indonesian magazine Sabili, a fundamentalist mouthpiece with a circulation of about 500,000 copies per week.
Together they travelled across Indonesia and the book records what they saw – new regulation that demanded that women wear headscarves, Koran reading and memorising made compulsory, the sale of alcohol reduced, music and football frowned upon – but tolerated for practical reasons.
The book describes Indonesia well, and gives a sense of the incongruities thrown up during this period of transition of a country that wants Microsoft but not Madonna, and other preoccupations of the people and their sometimes confused but unrelenting conversion to the belief that the ideal society was the one in Medina during the Prophet Mohammed’s time. It is well written and full of information. While it’s partly a reporting of history and events and partly a memoir of the travels of two young men, the approach is entirely objective and impersonal and rather stylish. The title indicates a friendship, but the only emotions in this book are those that are clinically described.
And, though Sadanand Dhume claims that he is an atheist, he is still capable of sentiments that would do justice to the philosophy of any of the world’s religions. When his friend Herry asks what he will do after he finishes the book, he replies, “I’m not sure. I hope I can make a living from writing, but if I can’t I’ll work something out. Money’s not the most important thing to me. Something will work itself out. It always does.”

The counsel of strangers by Gouri Dange

Bonfire night and its consequences
Reading this book so soon after One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, I felt mildly let down because it used the same story-telling device. A group of strangers share interesting, intimate stories from their own lives. It is a good device – but two in a row meant a little less enjoyment for me.
Comparing the two, I felt that while Chitra may well be a more experienced and sophisticated storyteller, and an internationally famous author besides, there’s no doubt in my mind that Gouri’s novel is not only just as well written, but has a lot more depth and relevance too.
Six of the 80 guests at a wedding, strangers to each other, find themselves sitting together outside the general range of festivities. Each one looks around and forms private notions about the others based on external clues. There is an underlying assumption that their composed, contented facades contain only calm within.
While the external clues are certainly valid, and the one with the military air does turn out to be an armed-forces man, the one who looks like a professor is indeed an intellectual, and so on – the truth reflects a universal reality that each person, no matter how bland and peaceful their appearance, carries a unique and painful story.
These six represent an interesting range of contemporary Indian lives. Their stories explore the existing trends in topics such as romance among the elderly, the stereotypical lifestyles of Indians permanently resident in the US, the world of Bollywood successes, rural education in India, the downside of academic pressure coupled with obsessively “cool” parenting, and many more.
Gouri Dange is good at getting beyond pretence and perceiving situations with a relaxed but penetrating eye that spots their subterfuge and hypocrisy. I also liked the way the language of each story is adapted to suit its speaker. Best of all was some lovely poetry which I nearly reproduced here, with permission – until it struck me that the reader would enjoy it more in the context in which it was presented.
I had enjoyed Gouri’s first novel 3 Zakia Mansion too (though not as much as this one) and felt it was strongly biographical. I don’t know whether it was or not, but when some pages of this book suddenly wafted some of that atmosphere back over me, I thought I must ask Gouri how much this one was based in experience and how much based in imagination. She replied, “Very twined. Perhaps 50-50.”
As it turns out, these strangers provide each other not just a non-judgemental repository for their outpourings but also simple and effective advice, and this surely reflects Gouri’s own professional skill and experiences. A counsellor herself, she doubtless treads the cutting edge of human suffering, constantly engaging with new manifestations spurred on by increasing urbanization and technological development, and some of that is beautifully expressed here.
For me this is the best kind of book – a good story, well told, and one strewn with subtle messages about life and learning that can only enrich you.

Aftertaste by Namita Devidayal

Food, jewels and family business
In Namita Devidayal’s very successful first book The Music Room, she wrote about her music teacher and about her relationship with Indian music. It was clear from the book that Namita is a talented writer who comfortably inhabits different worlds. In this work of fiction, different as it is from her first, she takes us into one of them.
The Todarmals are a business family. They experience ups and downs in their business, and out-of-the-box thinking that gives it a lateral shift. Their lives and relationships revolve around money. Display of wealth with a view to impressing others, and a tendency to grab and hoard, are dominating characteristics. Relationships within the family are a delicate balance of power and control. There is no safe space in which feelings can be expressed. A mother may be focused on home and work, but her influence is so strong that her insecurities and ambitions seep into them unawares, destructive and emasculating.
This story has many characters and a number of dramatic events. What struck me most, however, was the narrator’s style which, I felt, dominates the narrative. As you read, you can’t help noticing her lack of reverence for, and amusement at, this particular lifestyle where people take themselves and their diamonds (never quite large enough) so seriously.
And Namita is a narrator who applies her personal wisdom while recounting the thoughts and experiences of her characters. Here are two small examples:

Then one day, as it happens when the going gets too good to be true, two big Sindhi borrowers, both in the real estate business, defaulted. One case ended in suicide, the other in jail. The business was over and the banks were at Phoolchand’s door. And they would soon be knocking on Daddyji’s doors. He was finished. His material existence was at stake. Above all, he felt like a failure, which was far worse than the actual loss of money.

Daddyji has a diary in which he sometimes wrote down nuggets of wisdom. His father had once told him of the two rules of running a business successfully – regardless of whether one manufacture lead pipes or made mouth-watering sweets. First, your second-in-command must always be either from within the family or a close friend, buy only from the baniya business community. Only then can be understand your ways and be trusted with the cash. Second, loss in business is inevitable and must be borne with fortitude, even if it means having to completely start over.

I enjoyed this book and was also interested to read Namita’s post on the Random House blog which gives context to her novel.

Here’s a short Q&A with Namita Devidayal:
How difficult was this book to write, compared to your last one?
This book was completely different to write because, unlike 'The Music Room', it is very plot-driven. I actually don't like to compare books unless it is relevant. Both books have their own style and tone. I didn't think too much about. 'The Music Room' and just had fun writing this!

Is this book inspired by people and events in your own family?
Yes, this book is based loosely on a lot of people in my extended families and the bania community, but it is definitely not autobiographical. I think in the end I just used bits from here and there and then let my imagination run wild!

What are you working on next?
I am currently channeling all my creative energies into a little home and writing retreat I am creating in Alibaag! After that, possibly a book on marriage, though I'm not yet sure what shape and form that will take, whether fiction or non-fiction.