J M Coetzee comes out with final book of Jesus trilogy

(New Delhi, Mar 30, 2020) Nobel laureate J M Coetzee has completed his Jesus trilogy with the final book, exploring the meaning of a world empty of memory but brimming with questions.

In the first book “The Childhood of Jesus”, published in 2014, a refugee named Simon found an orphan boy David and they began life in a new land, together with a woman named Ines.

He got separated from his mother as a passenger on a boat bound for a new land. Simon was a fellow passenger and vowed to look after David.

In “The Schooldays of Jesus”, written four years later, the small family searched for a home in which David could thrive. Simon and Ines take care of David in their new town, Estrella.

In “The Death of Jesus”, David, now a tall 10-year-old, shows unusual talent in football. He asks Simon and Ines many questions. In dancing class at the Academy of Music he dances as he chooses. He refuses to do sums and will not read any books except “Don Quixote”.

In fact he knows “Don Quixote” by heart, in an abbreviated version for children; he treats it not as a made-up story but as a veritable history.

One day David is spotted by Julio Fabricante, director of a local orphanage Las Manos, playing football with his friends in the street.

David, with the ball at his feet, feints left and goes right, making the move so fluidly that the defender is left stranded. He passes the ball to a teammate and watches as the teammate lobs the ball tamely into the goalkeeper’s arms.

Julio is impressed by David’s skills and he tells his father, who was also watching his son play, “He is very good, your son. A natural.”

Simon tells Julio that because David takes dancing lessons, he has good balance and an advantage over his friends.

Julio invites David and his friends to form a proper soccer team. When David announces that he wants to go and live with Julio and the children in his care, Simon and Ines are stunned. David leaves with Julio, but before long he succumbs to a mysterious illness.

All the books in the trilogy have been published by Penguin Random House.

 

Nehru, Nizam and Indian classical music!

(New Delhi, Mar 30, 2020) During the Hyderabad integration crisis, Jawaharlal Nehru threw a reception for the Nizam but found it difficult to keep him engaged in a conversation before a Nepalese bureaucrat came to his rescue.

Nehru failed in his attempts to take, what he felt, good care of the dour Nizam and finally turned up to Bijay Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana, the then Nepalese ambassador to India, for help.

“After racking his brains, my father came up with Indian classical music as the subject for a tete-a-tete and managed to engage the Nizam in a lively conversation for almost an hour,” says Bijay Rana’s politician son Pashupati Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana.

Pashupati Rana mentions this anecdote as recounted by Sardar Bhim Bahadur Pandey, the then Nepalese Deputy Chief of Mission in New Delhi, in the latest issue of The Equator Line magazine.

“Pandit Nehru, it goes without saying, was duly grateful. This was a measure of their mutual trust and understanding,” writes Rana, a descendant of Nepal’s Rana dynasty, and chairman of Rastriya Prajatantra Party (United).

The erstwhile Hyderabad state was annexed to the Indian Union on September 17, 1948.

India’s first home minister Sardar Patel requested Mir Osman Ali Khan Asaf Jah VII, the last Nizam of the princely state of Hyderabad, to join India, but he refused and instead declared Hyderabad as an independent nation on August 15, 1947.

A military operation was launched in 1948 and the Indian armed forces invaded the Nizam-ruled princely state, annexing it into the Indian Union.

Rana hails Nehru’s statesmanship saying his “view that there should be continuity with change played a pivotal role in the peaceful transition to democracy in Nepal”.

Such political safe landings are rare in history and difficult to make, he adds.

Nehru and his vision is the topic of this issue of the magazine, which has articles by the likes of economist Bibek Debroy, journalist Harish Khare, writer-TV producer Jad Adams and Sri Lankan writer Daya Dissanayake, among others.

“With his exposure to international politics, insights into the future, radical ideas in the context of the time and his phenomenal mass appeal, Nehru was the foremost leader of the freedom struggle and well-suited to interpret his country’s gloom and aspirations,” says magazine’s editor-in-chief Bhaskar Roy.

“India’s success as a democracy could be entirely ascribed to Nehru’s visionary leadership of this inchoate land for 17 long years after independence,” he adds.

Coronavirus: Online lit fest, story sessions, author interactions et al!

Zafri Mudasser Nofil

(New Delhi, Mar 27, 2020) From literature festivals, storytelling sessions and author interactions to free e-books and quarantine reading lists, publishers are using the online platform to engage readers in this period of lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Penguin and online parenting platform Momspesso are launching #OnceUponABookWithPenguin from March 30 when there will be one author live every evening to tell kids an interesting story from their books.

“The intent is to make playtime fun for kids even if they are indoors and hence the focus will be on animated storytelling and reading and also to leave kids to do an activity once the story is over,” a Penguin statement said.

Some popular children’s authors like Ruskin Bond, Paro Anand and Arefa Tehsin with engage with their readers till April 14.

As part of its #readinstead campaign, Juggernaut Books on Friday launched the month-long #Readinstead Online Literature Festival in association with Scroll. On March 21, the publishing house made its entire catalogue free for readers to access during the lockdown period.

The #Readinstead litfest will include some of Juggernaut’s biggest authors and consist of conversations, workshops, competitions, masterclasses and more.

“At Juggernaut we are always trying to do something original, and we have been playing with the idea of creating an online literary festival for some time. This was the perfect moment. Our vision is to get more people reading and to find new ways to bring the magic of books and reading to them,” said publisher Chiki Sarkar.

“The #Readinstead lit fest will we hope entertain and stimulate people in this difficult time and remind us of the power of books. We are delighted that we could make this happen and thank our partner Scroll for coming on board with so much enthusiasm,” CEO Simran Khara added.

Juggernaut is offering books like Nobel Prize winners Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo’s Good Economics for Hard Times, Mind Without Fear by ex Mckinsey CEO Rajat Kumar Gupta, Pyjamas are Forgiving and The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad by Twinkle Khanna and A Century is not Enough by Sourav Ganguly for free.

Roli Books authors Moin Mir and William Dalrymple will go live from its Instagram account on Saturday, said its editorial director Priya Kapoor.

The publishing house is also organising an online short story contest to “capture these unprecedented days”. It has invited original stories of 2000-3000 words on any of these or related themes: kindness, community, family, isolation, social distancing and relationships. The deadline is April 25.

Niyogi Books has come out with a quarantine reading list of e-books that includes Day & Dastan by Intizar Husain, Fida-e-Lucknow, The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Lacquered Curtains of Burma and a translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Quartet/Chaturanga.

Taslima comes out with ‘Lajja’ sequel ‘Shameless’

(New Delhi, Mar 26, 2020) Controversial author Taslima Nasreen’s sequel to her banned work Lajja will be published in English next month, more than 10 years after it was written.

In fact, Shameless has never been published in its original Bengali, or any other language, until very recently, when a Hindi translation was brought out. It talks about communal tensions in India and the deep scars they leave on individual lives.

According to publishers HarperCollins India, the book is an “explosive sequel” to Lajja and an “uncompromising, heart-breaking look at ordinary people’s lives in our troubled times”.

Nasreen wrote the sequel during the time she lived in Kolkata before she had to leave the city forever. The book has been translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha.

Lajja dealt with the alleged persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh after the demolition of the Babri Masjid. At the end of the novel, Suranjan Datta and his family relocated to Kolkata, hoping to find a safe haven.

Shameless takes forward the story of Suranjan and his family – his mother Kiranmoyee and his sister Maya – as they struggle to eke out a living in Kolkata, poor, rootless, and the victims of a violence so brutal that it has scarred them forever.

Their inner turmoil is reflected in their relationships. Kiranmoyee lost her husband Sudhamoy, who committed suicide after they moved to Kolkata and were swindled out of all their money.

Suranjan and Maya have both broken off their marriages (to Hindu Bengalis). Suranjan then starts seeing Zulekha, the survivor of a gang rape, while Maya is dating the upwardly mobile Sibohan (whose name she first thought was the Hindu Shovan).

Into their lives comes the real-life Nasreen, living in exile in Kolkata under police protection herself. She tries to understand these people as they try to adapt to their new world, and as she tries to adapt to hers.

12 days before CWG, Dikshit asked if games’ village will come up on time: Book

(New Delhi, Mar 14, 2020) Apprehensive about the progress of work of the Commonwealth Games Village, the then chief minister Sheila Dikshit visited it just 12 days before the start of the mega sporting event of 2010 and asked the MCD boss whether the unfinished tasks can be completed on a fast track, says a new book.

Former IAS officer K S Mehra who served in various capacities in the government including commissioner of unified MCD from 2008-12 in the rank of secretary, summarises his four decades of experience in State of the Capital: Creating a Truly Smart City.

He devotes a chapter to how Delhi hosted the Commonwealth Games.

Mehra says following news reports that the CWG Organising Committee found the venue wanting in many ways and expressed unhappiness at the speed and quality of work, he got call from Sheila Dikshit on September 22, 2010.

The games were to begin from October 3.

“She wanted me to accompany her to the site of the Commonwealth Games Village near the Akshardham temple. She took me around the village and asked me whether the MCD could get the unfinished tasks completed on a fast track,” recalls Mehra.

“I assured the chief minister without blinking that we would do the needful within a week’s time. I was confident that Team MCD was capable of undertaking any task and completing it, if guided, instructed and supported appropriately,” he writes.

He says the unfinished tasks were “simple and easy” but the only concern was “limited time and any delays could jeopardise the games”.

The book, which has a foreword by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and is published by Rupa, talks about the ongoing and rising problems of metro cities and seeks to provide effective solutions for good and easy governance.

Mehra is also of the view that the trifurcation of the unified MCD has shorn it of its powers, many of which stand transferred to the government of Delhi.

“It is necessary to amalgamate the three corporations – north, south and east – with a view to restoring the status quo-ante to constitute a unified MCD,” he suggests.

He says there is need for innovative solutions to tackle various problems plaguing the capital city.

“The efforts of the government need to be well placed right from the planning stage itself to ensure the right kind of investment in the prioritised sectors,” he says.

Aravind Adiga’s ‘Amnesty’: Of migrants in Australia, moral struggle!

(New Delhi, Mar 12, 2020) Man Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga’s new book Amnesty is about a young illegal immigrant from Sri Lanka living in Australia who has to decide whether to report crucial information about a murder and thereby risk deportation.

Dhananjaya Rajaratnam aka Danny is an undocumented immigrant in Sydney who has overstayed his student visa, thus rendering himself as illegal. Working as a cleaner, living out of a grocery storeroom, for three years he’s been trying to create a new identity for himself.

And then, with his beloved Vietnamese girlfriend, Sonja, his hidden accent and highlights in his hair, he is as close as he has ever come to living a normal Australian life.

One morning, Danny learns that Radha Thomas, a female client of his, has been murdered. When Danny recognises a jacket left at the murder scene, he believes it belongs to another of his clients – a doctor with whom he knows the woman was having an affair.

Suddenly Danny is confronted with a choice: come forward with his knowledge about the crime and risk being deported, or say nothing, and let justice go undone.

Over the course of a single day, evaluating the weight of his past, his dreams for the future, and the unpredictable, often absurd reality of living invisibly and undocumented, he must wrestle with his conscience and decide if a person without rights still has responsibilities.

Danny would go around Sydney with his cleaning apparatus strapped to his back.

“His five-foot-seven body looked like it had been expertly packed into itself, and even when he was doing hard physical labour, his gaze was dreamy, as if he owned a farm somewhere far away,” Adiga describes him.

“With an elegant oval jaw, and that long, thin forehead’s suggestion of bookishness, he was not, except when he smiled and exhibited cracked teeth, an overseas threat,” he writes.

Besides Sonja, Danny was friends with Ramesh, an Indian who was a librarian at the Newtown library.

Though the Australian state denied Danny medical care, a driver’s licence, and police protection, it, however, offered him unlimited and unmonitored access to its public reading rooms and information centres.

It took Adiga five years to complete this novel, this third after Man Booker Prize-winning The White Tiger and Selection Day.

He says the idea for Amnesty, published in the country by Pan Macmillan imprint Picador India, came to him when he was “James Payten’s guest at his old place in Erskineville”.

Book to demystify coronavirus, debunk myths

(New Delhi, Mar 11, 2020) Three medical experts have come together for a book on coronavirus, seeking to demystify the global epidemic and debunk myths besides talking about its economic, political and social fallout.

The Coronavirus: What You Need to Know about the Global Pandemic is written by internal medicine specialist Dr Swapneil Parikh, clinical psychologist Maherra Desai, and neuropsychiatrist Dr Rajesh M Parikh and will be published by Ebury Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

According to the authors, writing the book in less than three weeks was a “transformative experience”.

Parikh says the book addresses the history, evolution, facts and myths around the COVID-19 threat.

“The elusive symptoms of the virus are making it harder to identify and assess the potential threat. Amid this, correct and expertly led information will be the key to mitigate the problem, and perhaps even clear the air,” he says.

Stressing on the need for immediate action, co-author Desai says, “The situation we are in was inevitable. We have had multiple unheeded warnings. Are we willing to learn this time around? We are invincible only to the extent of our preparedness.”

Parikh says “getting to know the phenomenal courage and dedication of healthcare workers across the world has made us look with renewed respect at our nursing and paramedical staff.”

According to Milee Ashwarya, Publisher at Ebury Publishing & Vintage Publishing, the world is currently in the grip of this epidemic caused by COVID-19, and there is a lot of scattered information floating around leading to fear and panic.

“What we need most right now is credible information from professionals that can help us understand what coronavirus is, and how we can prepare and protect ourselves against it,” she says.

The book explains the dos and don’ts, bust the myths, explain the history and evolution of the virus and share insights into what lies ahead for us, she adds.

The book is out for pre-order and is expected to hit the market by the end of March.

Many Tibetans not taking Indian citizenship hoping of a free Tibet: Book

(New Delhi, Mar 9, 2020) The belief that Tibet would ultimately be free persuades many Tibetans to continue to live as refugees foregoing the opportunities that Indian citizenship offers, says a new book.

According to estimates, there are around one lakh Tibetans in India. Those who arrived here in the early 1960s were given refugee status by the Indian government. The registration certificates issued to them enable these refugees to apply for jobs and travel permits.

In his book The Buddha And The Borders, journalist Nirmalya Banerjee writes that with the years rolling by, Tibetans increasingly face the dilemma: to remain refugees or accept Indian citizenship to assimilate into larger society.

“The Tibetan refugees have been given the option by the Indian government to apply for citizenship. Their government-in-exile has left it to the refugees to decide for themselves; but it does not seem to encourage the idea, apprehensive that this could weaken the movement for a free Tibet,” he says.

“Their abiding belief that Tibet would ultimately be free persuades many Tibetans to continue to live as refugees foregoing the better prospects of life that Indian citizenship offers,” the book, published by Palimpsest, says.

According to the author, the advancing years of their spiritual leader The Dalai Lama is a matter of concern for the Tibetan refugees in India, “something they would not like to discuss; they all hope and pray for his long life”.

In his recent interviews and statements, the spiritual leader himself has said that after him the institution of the Dalai Lama may not continue, it would be for the Tibetans all over the world to decide.

“Clearly, he apprehends that after him China would try to foist someone of its choice on this venerable institution,” Banerjee says.

Tantric Buddhism in the Himalayan region is not just a matter of academic curiosity, the belief in reincarnation had practical implications for the Tibetan polity as well, he says, adding “In a way, they still have. Until the Chinese invasion, the Dalai Lama was not just the spiritual leader of Tibet but the temporal head of the Tibetan administration too.”

As the institution depends critically on succession of the reincarnate for its continuity, there would be a time lag between the passing away of a Dalai Lama and the birth of his successor, the time taken for the spirit of departed leader to enter the body of the new Dalai Lama, the author argues.

“It would then take years for the new Dalai Lama to grow up studying religion and learning statecraft. In the interregnum, regents would rule Tibet. These were the periods of power struggle and uncertainty, a place of political observation marked by a weak central authority,” he says.

The 14th Dalai Lama, the present spiritual leader of Tibet, until recently headed the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharmshala.

The Buddha And The Borders combines shades of Buddhist culture, geopolitics and India’s security concerns.

Organ harvesting from accident victims can stop kidney trade: Book

(New Delhi, Mar 7, 2020) Harvesting of kidneys from accident victims can be a solution to the shortage of the organ for transplantation in India and also discourage renal trade, says noted nephrologist Dr Ramesh Kumar in his new book.

In Kidney Transplants and Scams: India’s Troublesome Legacy, Kumar talks about the stark reality of kidney scams in India and strongly advocates the need of a national organ harvesting programme.

The book also provides a chronology profile of kidney failure, dialysis and kidney transplantation since 1973.

The first successful renal transplant in India took place in 1971 at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, and an exclusive department for kidney diseases was set up in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi in 1972.

It was in the eighties that India became the ‘kidney bazaar’ of the world, where foreigners arrived as medical tourists to purchase organs from the non-literate and impoverished class. Initially, Mumbai was the epicentre of the ‘kidney trade’ because of its proximity to the Gulf and African countries, the book says.

This practice quickly spread to Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and ultimately reached the north in places like Delhi and Punjab, devouring prominent hospitals in the wake of its tragedy, it says.

According to Kumar, though the government passed The Transplantation of Human Organs Act in 1994, modified it in 2011 and in 2014 to The Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, neither of them has been able to put a stop to this clandestine, exploitative, inhumane and illegal trade so openly practised in the country.

He says that the availability of legally-harvested kidneys will stop the malpractice of illegal donations for money, exploitation of the poor and decrease the incentives fuelling the kidney trade.

“It is a pity that we are unable to harvest the organs of people dying on our roads. This is primarily because of immediately unavailable skilled personnel and storage facilities at accident sites and the delays that occur in transportation to the nearest hospitals,” he writes in the book published by Vitasta SAGE Select.

“As such, organs of nearly 400 people and their 800 kidneys and eyes go waste, buried or consigned to flames in funerals every day in India. Even if 50 of these kidneys are harvested per day, the problem of ‘kidney scams’ will vanish altogether, I believe,” he adds.

With a foreword by Navin Chawla, Former Chief Election Commissioner of India, the book is the first factual account of the nation-wide kidney scams rampant for the past many decades. In this book, Dr Ramesh Kumar reveals the stark reality of kidney scams in India and strongly advocates the need of a National Organ Harvesting Programme (NOHP).

 

The book, which has a foreword by former Chief Election Commissioner of India Navin Chawla, was released recently here by veteran Congressman Karan Singh.

Karan Singh, Navin Chawla and the author Ramesh Kumar at the launch.

Of creativity, breaking glass ceilings and feminism!

(New Delhi, Mar 7, 2020) More and more women are becoming financially independent and exercising their choices freely in both personal and professional lives, enabling them to redefine the textbook meaning of feminism and strengthen the bond of sisterhood, say some women achievers.

On the eve of International Women’s Day, three women achievers speak about feminism, breaking glass ceilings and whether the new definition is about proving women to being creatively superior to men.

“Women do have more imagination about most things, but it is not always creativity expressing itself. Their softer natures make them feel more empathy which also makes them more observant of others and of situations,” says Sathya Saran, a former editor of Femina and author of several books including the most recent biography of Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, Breath of Gold.

For vocalist Nithya Rajendran, of Music Vruksha, creativity thrives in the middle of rich emotional experiences and since womanhood entails allowing feelings to come forth, and less restraint in acknowledging and feeling emotions, women may have a more fertile mental make-up to allow creativity.

“Creativity is an attribute of the mind, as is femininity or masculinity. So a person doesn’t have to be physiologically a woman to be able to create. A sensitive man with attributes that allow femininity, may be as empowered to be creative,” she says.

Kiran Manral, author of several books on parenting and co-founder of the Women’s Writers Fest, also believes that creativity is gender agnostic.

She feels that for creativity one needs curiosity, empathy, a certain receptive temperament, a questioning nature and of course talent, and the ability to pursue that talent, whether through circumstance or effort.

“If all these factors are in place, being a creative person is relatively easier, whether you are a man or a woman,” she says.

So if creative abilities among other skills needed for growth are gender agnostic then why is there a notion of women finding it harder to break the glass ceiling and rise up the hierarchy.

Saran doesn’t believe that a glass ceiling exists in journalism but feels perceptions can be limiting sometimes.

Manral who too started out as a journalist also doesn’t feel there is a glass ceiling in the line of writing and journalism.

Rajendran, who has over 30 years of training in both Hindustani Classical and Carnatic music, is of the opinion that a technologically empowered era no longer needs women to be constrained by gender, since technology enables their talents and their abilities to define them.

“We no longer need to be limited by scarcity of opportunity. We can reach connoisseurs and audiences directly, without being dependent on someone to give us an opportunity. That way, I think the glass ceiling is increasingly less likely to exist in this technology-driven age. For that, women should be thankful,” she says.

Asked why there are very few examples of strong, independent women, to serve as encouragement to other women, Saran says, “Women who are strong are strong always. However, today economic independence and higher education has added confidence and the power to tell her side of the story in interpersonal conflict situations.”

According to Manral, “We have strong independent women all around us. We fail to recognise them.”

Rajendran says that she has had experiences of women being able to open up and share their troubles when in the milieu of music.

“They are able to have cathartic moments, spiritually healing moments and profound moments of self realisation too. These are much needed in today’s age,” she says.

Feminism to Saran is definitely not a confrontational attitude towards men.

“It is however the right every woman has to decide about her life, her body, her future. Of course her rights are linked to her duties too. But she must negotiate to have the power of choice. And that negotiating power is the role of feminism,” she says.

Rajendran feels feminism needs to move from viewing people and life in dissected halves of woman and man, yin and yang, femininity and masculinity, to a more humanity-oriented and gender-neutral perspective.

For Manral too women may be “different biologically, but as humans we are not meant to be dominant and subordinate as genders. We need to have men women, and those who identify differently from the binary as well, treated equally in all fields, whether rights, pay, attitudes”.