LaToya Watkins has surpassed the high bar set by her beautifully crushing debut novel, “Perish,” with a collection of short stories titled “Holler, Child.” Heavily rooted in west Texas where the author grew up, the 11 fictional pieces focus on Black lives — and the huge range of people and relationships within — to form a profound collection.

In the namesake short story, which includes some of the most brutal scenes in the book, the bloodied face of the narrator’s son reminds her of the day she was raped and beaten — “Holler, Child” being what she commanded her 17-year-old self to do way back then, but couldn’t. Now, confronted with the possibility that her son may have raped someone, she has a chance to handle things differently.

Its ending is completely unexpected — a battlefield of conflicting logic and emotion that’s hard to fathom, but also strangely sensical.

While many of the pages are about mothers and wives, some are from a male perspective, like “Dog Person.” The narrator convinces his girlfriend to accept his dog as a part of himself in a story that turns out to be absolutely heart-wrenching. Layers of betrayal and hurt and blame and sadness have nowhere to go, so they fester. What does the dog have to do with it? It’s impossible to say, exactly, even though the dog is the keystone of the story.

Generations of trauma, sacrifice and striving make the characters complex and Watkins fits loads of information into just a handful of pages by skipping unnecessary context. Instead, she draws on societal truths and the reader’s empathy to form the solid foundation beneath each story.

Each voice brings something special, every narrative hard-hitting yet tender. Then, in the final short “Time After,” it all comes home.

And, really, all the stories are about coming home — wherever or whomever home may be, and regardless how the characters feel about it. In many cases, home is west Texas. In some, it’s a mother, or oneself.

An article by Watkins for Juneteenth this year — the first year it was officially recognized as a federal holiday despite over a century of celebrations — helps to frame the motif of gender roles and divisions between men and women throughout “Holler, Child.” It’s a messy, fluid thing that she explores in various forms: a wife completely fed up with her husband after decades of marriage; a husband who feels his wife has peeled away pieces of him over the years; two sisters in search of the brother who was disowned because of his identity.

Those male-female relationships go on to influence others, like the daughter who confronts her mother for her cold-heartedness; the mother who decides to love her kids out of spite for her husband; and the young woman who sees her parents in a new light after her baby’s father refuses to help.

The stories lay bare the death of a child, a partner, a sibling, a pet — topics that, in less careful hands, might be beyond ethical approach in a mere 20 pages. Watkins gives these momentous life changes the proper weight they deserve with the exact distance at which to feel them without being crushed.

In all of these stories, there’s tragedy at large and small scales. The fictional characters are in very real situations, each of them unique but carrying a feeling of familiarity.

“Holler, Child” is an excellent collection with true staying power. Every single story could stand on its own but works beautifully toward the whole.

Harini Nagendra’s Murder Under a Red Moon picks up from where the first book in her Bangalore Detectives Club series left off. Fresh off a successful case, Kaveri, the 19-year-old detective of a protagonist, finds herself in a precarious relationship with her mother-in-law, Bhargavi. The latter does not approve of Kaveri’s new-found hobby, her intention to study further or taking driving lessons. For her, a daughter-in-law’s sole duty is to be a good wife.

Kaveri, however, having found unlikely allies in her husband Ramu, her next door neighbour and student Uma aunty and inspector Ismail, continues her pursuit of all things forbidden. Things take a turn for the better, ironically, when she is approached by her mother-in-law to investigate suspicions of embezzlement in a relative’s business, leading to his murder. His wife, also Bhargavi’s cousin, becomes the main suspect. Kaveri’s life is endangered on several occasions by a ruthless killer feigning as a godman, but eventually, the mystery is solved. And in the process, the protagonist also busts a cocaine smuggling ring.

The narrative is free-flowing, making the book an easy and quick read. The portrayal of Kaveri as an ambitious, kindhearted and generous detective is nuanced, especially when pitted against the equally well-sketched antagonist—the charismatic but vile godman. The novel, however, quite like its predecessor, fails the genre of crime thrillers. To begin with, there isn’t a lot of suspense to help sustain the reader’s interest.

Much of the focus of what seems to be a disappointing tribute to Alexander McCall Smith’s The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency is on undertaking social issues of the time—there’s caste politics and women empowerment––at the expense of the chase that one reads mysteries for.

The author goes into needless details about local customs, food, clothing, the coffee industry, a magazine for Indian women as well as the suffragette movement, which while interesting to read, add little to the momentum of the plot. Too many pages are also dedicated to Kaveri’s social and married life. Those who have read the first book will know that Nagendra spent a fair amount of text to recreate the colonial setting of the times. The author, however, seems to have omitted that completely from the sequel, leaving little for first-time readers to imagine about the backdrop.

One thing Nagendra has retained from the previous instalment though is the bunch of recipes that Kaveri tries to cook for her husband. This time there’s the South Indian filter coffee, musk melon rasayana, maddur vada, uppittu and coconut barfi, and we aren’t complaining about that. 

Travel writer Zac O’Yeah has traversed the length and breadth of India, stopping for double breakfasts, a handful of lunches, bottles of stuff, which ranges from grog to branded liquor at many a pub or what passes for a pub in the hinterlands, as well as several dinners, all in leisurely sequence. The result is this book, a neat meld of travelogue and food chronicle, which, to fall back on that clichéd term, really does make for an entertaining and informative read.

Kicking off from his current place of domicile, Bengaluru, the writer raises a warm toast to the city’s OG bar, Dewar’s, in Bamboo Bazaar, then takes paths that lead him to RK Narayan’s home and the eateries the legendary author might have frequented, as well as places that might have been the inspiration for the setting of Malgudi. He visits a small town called Beershop in the Kolar Gold Fields; appam in the “flavourful pantry” that is Kerala, he raises a toast to toddy and appams. He tucks into mutton pallipalayam in Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu, tandoori chicken in Chandigarh, bedmi aloo and sundry chaat in Delhi, haleem in Hyderabad, and vindaloo in Goa. In Mumbai, he tracks places writers wrote about like the Crawford and Byculla markets, the military eateries, and Irani cafes.

In Assam, he tastes the popular side dish, kharoli. He waxes lyrical about mustard oil (shorshey tel) in Kolkata food, saying it adds an unusual sharpness, “like a winding guitar solo in a 1970s’ heavy metal tune”. And he imbibes an astonishing amount of rustic tipple all along, bravely, even eagerly. Maugham, Forster, Kipling, Graham Greene, Chatwin, Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, and MK Gandhi (the epitome of a fastidious food faddist, author of a bestseller booklet titled, A Guide to Health) make frequent appearances; their food preferences dissected for the reader.

The author has been traversing India for almost three decades now (roaming among fresh fishmongers, honey hawkers, pickle peddlers, swine slaughterers, tea traders and the like) and, in the process, has become conversant with humble eateries that serve up little-known delectable victuals. The ease with which he has digested and continues to digest this diverse nation, ingesting some unusual foods, however, still comes as a surprise.

With his trademark wit, O’Yeah, who variously defines himself as a tummy tourist and cholesterol junkie, sends up the dining drunkards of Kerala, the tremulous state of his own stomach, a chocolate chicken dish, carrying Imodium to “bring up the rear”, the olive oil dosa and much else.

We get to learn about the origins of currywurst––curry- ketchup-spiced pork sausage; Bengalureans are reminded that once upon a time, where the Hard Rock Cafe now stands, stood Blighty’s Tearooms. The author parses the dosa and its multifarious mutations, tells us of Rome’s ancient pepper warehouse that used to stock Thalassery pepper, and why the city has the world’s best acrobats and circus artistes.

Furthermore, he tells us why Erode in Tamil Nadu is known as Yellow City, what desert beans are, how a piece of rock art in Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh reminded him of the mixed grill he often orders at Koshy’s restaurant in Bengaluru, how Allahabad’s MG Marg was a living museum of sophistication before the “global junk food machine-gunned its way into our tummies”.

He touches on the Italian strufoli-Indian jalebi connection, informs us it was our monks who introduced limes to China and how, when a tourist asks him if the rhino they are both gazing at in Guwahati zoo is “original or duplicate”, he realises that indeed, the animal doesn’t look authentic but more like a shape-shifter stuck in mid-transformation somewhere between a big pig and an amphibious army tank. Readers, who are familiar with the writer’s strongly developed funny bone via the hilarious Hari Majestic books, will find much to chortle at. The bonus is the many nuggets of information that he has studded the essays with.

Given that India earns “200 billion USD annually from tourism”, this can be a win-win situation not only for the eater and the eatery, but the tourist and the places visited as well. The author hopes that the 
book will inspire people to return to the joys of exploring. The reviewer predicts a run on several little-known eateries across the country by the intrepid traveller, duly armed with a copy of Digesting India.

Long-form reporting has a beauty that allows readers to fully immerse themselves in the stories it unfolds. In her new book, Marginlands, Arati Kumar-Rao embarks on a journalistic voyage, delving deep into the current environmental crises. She takes us on a compelling journey from the Thar Desert––once deemed a barren wasteland––where the government is relentlessly promoting mining, to the cold and dry terrain of Ladakh that has now become prone to floods. She skillfully navigates through the lives of fishermen in the mangroves, raises concerns over the alarming decline of cetacean populations, and highlights the critical role of bees in maintaining our fragile ecosystem.

The book is not merely a product of months of writing. The author has undertaken extensive research and immersed herself in the stories she is determined to tell. Her prose is meticulous and impactful. Rao dives straight to the point right from the word go. She writes, “The people of the desert are archivists and cartographers of their landscape.

There is a lived, intensely local knowledge. Desert dwellers invent words for what they see and experience; these words enter the lexicon and pass on orally as individual knowledge grows into collective knowledge.” The lines are reminiscent of the late environmentalist Anupam Mishra’s masterpiece Aaj Bhi Khare Hain Talab. The style in which Rao documents the traditional water conservation methods through the first chapter is an homage to the master. She goes on to show how the people live their lives in the water-scarce region, all while highlighting how the colonial idea of development poses a danger to the 
desert’s environment.

Among the most important issues she raises is the danger to the lives of freshwater dolphins. Much like China’s development led to the extinction of the Baiji, a species of the mammals, once hailed as the goddess of the Yangtze, the “serious issue of impounding water with diminishing river flows and disastrous waterways” poses a threat to the creatures in India that often finds itself competing with its northern neighbour. Rao notes that in March 2016, Parliament passed the National Waterways Act (NWA), identifying 106 waterways to be engineered into cargo-carrying ones. Environmentalists fear the move will further endanger the riverine flora and fauna.

Rao is a self-proclaimed chronicler of “the slow violence of ecological degradation”. With the book, she reiterates the claim. Citing studies that indicate fish stocks have plummeted by 70-80 percent since the construction of the Farakka dam (West Bengal), she notes that the Hilsa fish, central to religious festivals and weddings, particularly in the region, has vanished from areas north of the dam due to floodplain mining.

The author writes also of the tiger widows of Sundarbans––women who lost their husbands while they were fishing in the mangrove forest. Official data suggests that over 50 fishermen are mauled by tigers each year. “Left behind are hundreds of women dubbed ‘tiger widows’, considered bad omens and ostracised into separate enclaves,” writes Rao. The marginalisation makes it difficult for them to earn a livelihood, compelling them to venture out to collect prawns, despite the threats of crocodiles and occasional river sharks; “some have their thighs chewed off; some have lost legs”.

Despite the seriousness of the subject that can often seem morbid, Rao’s brilliantly crafted prose—only occasionally veering into sketchy passages––makes the book a delightful read. Readers are likely to find themselves pausing every few pages as she prompts them to ponder about the impending future with new findings. Equal parts shocking and thought-provoking, Marginlands is among the most timely non-fictions to have released this year.

The East Indian by Brinda Charry is a fictionalised account of Tony, the first known Indian to go to the New World. First shipped to London on a Company vessel, he found himself, aided by coincidence and providence, aboard God’s Gift in 1635 that ferried slaves from London to Virginia, US, to work in the plantations.

On the surface, The East Indian is the story of how a young boy’s dreams transform his reality, both in terms of what he experiences, and how they lead him to new adventures with new people. In this journey, richly laden with the tapestry of his memories––from his childhood years in Armagon on the Coromandel coast, its weather, deities, sights and smells to his exploration of the virgin Virginian landscape, its seasons, animals and more, Tony represents a veritable example of the oriental meeting the occidental. But the union is both paradoxical and ironical––it is, after all, the White man who brings natives from opposite sides of the earth––the East and the American Indians-––face to face.

On a deeper level, however, the story talks about the racist underpinnings of the English society at the time, interwoven with the growing need for slaves for the American plantations. It led to an influx of people of colour––Blacks from Africa, brown people from India, and intermediate complexions from Turkey, Egypt and the likes. They share the hues of their skins, and as Tony says, “That is the only difference that matters in the end”.

Not much has been documented about this historical figure, but Charry’s expertise in English Renaissance literature, which focuses on race and intercultural dynamics in the 17th and 18th centuries, makes her a credible authority on the subject. Throughout the book, she paints a contrast between how Tony perceives the whites, and how they perceive him. Often, when a non-white person tries to write about the racially inclusive perspective of someone from their own ethnic group, their words betray that effort. Charry’s take is, however, imbued with a freshness of approach.

She is able to manoeuvre past the facade. So when Tony, on seeing white men for the first time, asks his mother why “they are so pale”, or when he thinks that “their temple is called a church”, his words do not seem like those of the descendants of an oppressed race. Instead, he talks the way a non-white person would in a world devoid of a supremacist perspective; where there is just genuine wonder about someone who is visibly different.

In a way, Tony’s experiences in the New World mirror the one that his own country would endure over the following 300 years––oppressed by the white man, seeking validation from him, struggling to find an 
identity and finally finding freedom and a home of its own.

The Faraday Cage––an enclosed space that shields its interiors from electromagnetic radiation––is perhaps one of the most significant discoveries by English scientist Michael Faraday. From protecting electronic devices to the construction of a prison, its applications are endless, across various fields. Its clever use in Siddhartha Deb’s The Light at the End of the World is surreal for a variety of reasons. It is reasonable to suspect that the principal characters in each of the four novellas that constitute the book are living in a Faraday Cage, tailor-made to their circumstances.

The first, ‘City of Brume’, is set in near-future Delhi with hyper-visible effects of climate change. Meanwhile, India has witnessed a series of demonetisation and the world has been ruptured by a “Chinese flu”. Former journalist Bibi, who would have been termed as a ghuspetiya by the current dispensation, is presently working for a consultancy firm, Amidala, and has been tasked to find a former colleague, Sanjit, from the Daily Telegram.

Bibi and Sanjit, who is speculated to have died in a car accident, had worked on a few assignments that could potentially put Amidala’s clients in trouble. The narrative meanders in a dreamlike trance, but the taut storytelling resembles Deb’s journalistic vigour. Sample this, a moment when Bibi is exiting 
a typical Delhi farmhouse after being instructed about the job: “Then the door shuts behind her, muffling the man’s coughs and the priest’s murmurs. The way back is shorter, more direct, without any of those levels, as if Bibi has imagined it all.”

The undertones of nationalism continue in the second novella, ‘Claustropolis: 1984’. Its protagonist is a hitman, who after murdering Sikhs in Delhi is on the move to Bhopal, which is about to witness the Union Carbide disaster. He is following a “target”, who can potentially put the American company in jeopardy for their questionable security equipment in the factory, and like Bibi, is a “test subject in a labyrinth, a rat in a maze”. Another Faraday Cage.

The hitman, whose patrons describe him as someone who is “ready to fuck every enemy on behalf of the nation”, feels shielded by his “dharma”. The world Deb recreates from India’s past, resembles its current climate where an army of people have dedicated their lives to the “cause” of nation-building. The cage here is an insecure institution, for anything that’s built on erasure is doomed for disaster.

Further, there are uncomfortable jokes throughout the tale that stay true to the character, who is describing everything in first person. But, call it the curse of the path of the dharma he’s on, which prophesies karma, he finds himself uneasy when he sees flashes of “a pink turban”—shadows from his past he can’t seem to ignore. While he’s taught “compartmentalisation”, keeping separate parts of his life in separate boxes––one for Manu’s book (Manusmriti) and one for sex, etc.––the lines get blurred time and again.The author consciously outlines details that string the novellas together. Not only are they connected by the fact that they all describe an oppressive institution of some kind, but also that they’re all driven by a quest. It’s fitting to note the continuous mention of a boatman: a philosophical innuendo about people navigating through the river of life. It finds mention in the music of Ranen Roychowdury and Bhupen Hazarika that Bibi listens to. Here’s an example: “At the lake, I asked the boatman to remain on the shore. He was long and thin, this boatman, almost a man of two dimensions.”

The following tale, ‘Paranoir: 1947’,  has a veterinary doctor, Das, as its protagonist. He is given the task to pilot a vimana. India is going to be partitioned soon; bloodbath awaits. The committee that has delegated Das on the mission believes that this aircraft can help prevent the tragedy. One is not sure whether Das gets to pilot it though. Sample this sentence that accentuates the confusion: “Who is this pilot inside the pilot?” There’s someone following Bibi and the hitman across novellas. And just like them, Das also finds the “synchronicity” of his life disturbed. The mentions of (Sigmund) Freud and (Nikolai) Gogol’s stories further heighten the drama. And once again, there’s a boatman who ferries passengers in his “little boat”. In the final novella, ‘The Line of Faith: 1859’, which was slower than the rest, a colonial soldier is trying to find the fugitive Magadh Rai, who participated in (or perhaps led) the Sepoy Rebellion in 1857. An uncanny sentence is often repeated: 

“Have you ever?”
The novel is not only a testament to the fact that uncomfortable truths are often revealed in fiction and poetry more than in “bad journalism”, but it’s also a departure from the South Asian novels that are churned out as if from an assembly line production. 

In more than one way, it’s a subliminal telling of the present and foretells the future, confirming the arrival of, as novelist Karan Mahajan notes in his blurb, “a new kind of [a] subcontinental novel genre.” 

Neo-institutionalism, in the discipline of public policy, is a tool to understand the arenas of power and power play of the rules of the game of domestic and international politics. Chinmaya R Gharekhan’s book, Centres of Power: My Years in the Prime Minister’s Office and Security Council, attempts to delve into it as the seasoned diplomat recollects his stints at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the United Nations (UN), the two nodal centres of power in India and abroad. The book, written with a memoir-like candour, gives an anecdotal account of the era of the Indira-Rajiv years in its first part, and in the second, sheds light on the diplomacy during the first Gulf War. 

As an insider at the PMO, the author gives a ringside view of many events that both mother and son handled during their tenures as prime ministers.

Indira, the author felt, was more of a ‘commonsensical’ and ‘populist’ person. Not one with a high opinion of the Ministry of External Affairs, she did not share her father’s ideological affinity with the Russians. Gharekhan found in her a ‘compulsive sub-editor, who loved to amend the drafts of letters, speeches and messages; a good hostess, meticulously deciding the menu and seating plans, a seeker of awards, particularly the international ones such as the Nobel Peace Prize.

Her personality, the author says, was best described as concerning, unpredictable and, at times, humorous. Once asked whether she was Left- or Right-inclined, she remarked, “I do not lean left or right, I stand firmly in the centre”. With Indira’s assassination, preceded by the events of Operation Blue Star and the hijack of the Indian airline Airbus, Gharekhan notes that the whirling drift in Indian politics led Rajiv to take charge.

He wanted to establish himself not as Indira’s son, but as someone who could lead the country technologically at the global level. The author found in him the skills of a true diplomat. Gharekhan mentions how Rajiv was once successful in persuading Margaret Thatcher to agree with the idea of sanctions against South Africa’s apartheid policy at the Commonwealth Summit (1985) when other leaders had virtually lost hope.

To the author, Rajiv came across as someone who loved to talk to foreign leaders on phone, interacted too frankly and bluntly with the media, and carried with him his own share of eccentricities. It was, however, the Shah Bano case and opening of the lock at the Babri mosque that marked a major shift in political mobilisation in India’s electoral democracy. The author admits being personally disappointed by such moves, and recollects how Rajiv acted against his own convictions and fell prey to power-mongers with the least secular credentials.

The following segment is essentially a running narrative of the first Gulf War of 1990-91. Gharekhan’s stint at the UN Security Council, during which period the disintegration of the Soviet Union happened and pax-America reared, brings in rich analytical insights with an authenticity that is perhaps a notch higher than his previous work, Horseshoe Table: An Inside View of the UN Security Council.

The 10 chapters give a close view of diplomacy at the international fora when the Soviet Union got reduced to a middling power due to the end of the Cold War. The author rues that the loss of ‘balancing factor’ given by the Soviet during the war was felt by non-aligned nations, including India. The Gulf War had witnessed, quite unprecedentedly, the coming together of the permanent five members and voting affirmatively on all the UN’s resolutions. 

The book, without getting into the hurly burly of politics, is replete with sentimentality of humour. Students of diplomacy and Indian politics will find it a useful supplement, mainly from a practitioner’s perspective, to their theory-laden textbooks.

In tracing the lineage of kings and heroes—their lines of succession, patriarchs to grandsons—history maps out the world of the male. It is left to women novelists to tell the stories of their mothers, aunts, and daughters. And the unique chronicles of family bloodstreams are so intricate and real, each reader finds the hidden worlds of their own family secrets within.

Homelands, borders, and exile are political in a man’s world. For women, they are often social and family-sanctioned. So, The Woman Who Climbed Trees by Smriti Ravindra traces the forever homelessness of Meena Rani of Darbhanga. At 14, she is married off to Manmohan Chaudhury of Sabaila, near Janakpur in Nepal, in a time-honored tradition that compels women to reinvent their nationality. The saga of marriages between India and Nepal has its own mythologies. The author writes, “Even Lord Rama travelled to Nepal to find a suitable consort for himself in Goddess Sita. And what a consort she turned out to be. One look at her in the gardens of Janakpur and Rama was smitten. What a love story!”

Marriages of all sorts flit through the pages. Meena’s Nepali mother, who was married to her Indian father and cannot speak the language or cook Nepali food, rediscovers her freer childhood after her husband passes away. Her brother, on the other hand, goes berserk after the death of his wife, to the extent that his children remain unlettered and neglected. 

Despite an educated and rather successful husband, Meena flounders in her oppressive and debilitating marriage. Never finding common ground, she concedes until she loses herself. Early on in the book, a character tells her, “Marriage is a scorpion’s bite. It will leave you hot and breathless, your throat burning for a glass of water. Marriage is an inverted game of chess, if you win, you lose.” And her niece, Ruby, remains unmarried after several attempts to run away with a neighbour.

A good bit of the novel also traces the contours of female sexuality: how it blooms, how it is curbed, love between women, the business of childbirth, and the genetic inheritance of sexual unfulfillment. Without raising banners or slogans, the casual portrayal of lesbian love within homes and within restrictive strata of society makes this fascinating and all too telling. It underlines the tragedy that is Meena’s life, marred by her overpowering love for a woman, who would have nothing to do with her.

The story is also about homes: the ones you must leave and the ones you must build. The former is full of laughter, rest, the comfortable shapes of siblings and must slowly eject those it has nurtured. The other is always incomplete. It is home only in form, not in emotion. It defines exile, especially when it is situated in a country where racial features are the passports. The reality of living in Nepal––geopolitics of the nation-state vis-a-vis India, economic downturn, power cuts in the flailing days of the monarchy––all add to the concentric circles around alienation and unrest.

The author stays true to memory and experience in creating a fresh prism. Her language is sure-footed, often lyrical and loaded. Her meandering style is her biggest asset. The volume borrows from folktales, myths, songs, nature, and ghosts to elaborate on the utter loneliness of a woman. It is left to Meena’s anguished daughter to find her mother’s voice and piece her scattered mind together. 

All in all, this is a book that enriches both Indian and Nepali literature in a unique cultural fusion that crisscrosses the border like a bus and its passengers. The persona, dialects, movies, and mayhem all shared.

Too many cooks, the adage has it, spoil the broth. Whatever may be the truth in these words, after painfully browsing The Bloomsbury Handbook of Indian Cuisine, one is left with no doubt that too many food writers can certainly spoil a book. The troika of editors in this case keeps falling between several stools, leaving the reader hopelessly confused about their ‘product’. They ask, ‘Is it a companion to food? An A-Z dictionary of culinary terms?’ and answer, ‘No, it’s a handbook.’ The quip may have been inspired by Superman, but what has materialized is more of a distressing superbug.

The book resembles a child born out of wedlock to mismatched parents––a Manorama Yearbook-like crammer for UPSC exams and KT Achaya’s Indian Food: A Historical Companion, a laborious compilation by a food technologist, published more than a quarter century ago. The latter wasn’t an exciting fare. In comparison to the Handbook, however, it seems a thrilling unputdownable page-turner.
No editorial vision or lexicographical discipline can be discerned in the 430 pages. This is surprising as Colleen Taylor-Sen, one of the editors, has previously published a delightful encapsulation of Indian culinary history, which is well-researched and elegantly written. Sourish Bhattacharya is a veteran food columnist, but in the F&B business, you are judged by the last meal served.

The book is seriously flawed. What are 12 pages on ‘Rites of Passage’ doing here? Indians today do not live their lives performing shodash sanskaras. Even in the past, these were prescribed for the twice-born. Besides, the rites have varied according to time, place and community. ‘Anthropology of Food’ should be left to experts like Professor Kurush Dalal (a peerless food lover as well). Why rush into alien territory where angels fear to tread?

To dump material arbitrarily in pigeonholes of linguistically or strategically re-organised states may be politically correct, but it is as disastrous as the Partition of India. The zones of taste in the subcontinent have never recognised man-made borders. The gastronomic footprint of Bengal-Odisha extends much beyond the present geographical limits. The same is true of Punjab and Tamil Nadu. Four pages on Madhya Pradesh have no mention of the Sarafa Bazaar in Indore or the legendary princely state of Sailana (Maharaja Digvijay Singhji is listed separately).

The piece on Jammu and Kashmir is disappointing. Not a single signature dish from the Valley is described. Jammu has been given equal space to reinforce equal status, but Ladakh is accommodated separately. Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and the Northeastern states are all covered to make the presentation appear ‘comprehensive’. The exercise is exasperating for the readers. Text is padded with unpalatable fillers such as statistical details about area, population and any tidbits that may tempt a tourist before a few lines about food from the Internet or past publications are thrown in. There are exceptions. Tarana Khan dazzles with a sparkling chiselled gem on Rampur that, in less than a page, allows one to savour the flavours of the princely state.  Sai Khandekar does justice to Maharashtra in a slightly longer but informative piece.

The buffets in de luxe hotels are notorious for their lavish spread recreated with leftovers from a la carte dishes. The book leaves the reader wondering if this ‘feast for thought’ was assembled in a similar style. One is surprised at the effusive endorsements for it to be a ‘must-have’ on every foodie’s bookshelf and an indispensable addition to the libraries of culinary institutes. Regrettably, the book carelessly dishes out sweeping generalisations and misinformation. Students need to be particularly careful about what they consume. Hazards of fatal or crippling food poisoning lurk in sloppy food writing as well.

It is difficult to decide what’s damaged the intended magnum opus the most: the acts of omission or commission. The squinted vision of mutual backscratchers is fixated on ‘celebrities’ in Bangkok and London, almost deliberately avoiding the iconic chefs at home. No mention of Imtiaz Qureshi, Manjit Gill and the impressive ‘youngsters’ that followed in their footsteps: Ranveer Brar, Kunal Kapoor, Nishant Choubey and many more. Vineet Bhatia, with multiple Michelin stars under his belt and active in India, deserves a better introduction than the ‘inventor of chocolate samosa’. The path-breaking 
food impresario, Jiggs (Kalra), finds no place either, nor does Major Habib Rahman, who created the landmark Bukhara and Dum Pukht.

The aftertaste left by this expensive ‘treat’ isn’t agreeable at all. One is left feeling outraged. To borrow from Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon: “My honour (as a food lover), family (of generations of worthy chefs) and Temple (of culinary learning) have been offended.”

Enjoy the little things in life is perhaps the most casually doled out and grossly ignored advice out there. Who has the time to pay attention to factors that one knows wouldn’t yield tangible benefits? Often, those most critical of the notorious rat race are the ones running the fastest. Even as the world is catching up to its pre-pandemic pace, Geetha Ravichandran’s new collection of poems, The Spell of the Rain Tree, comes as a timely reminder to stop and smell the roses now and then.

The thin volume has been divided into three parts, beginning with ‘First Appearances’. The section focuses on seemingly inconsequential and often taken-for-granted people, things, and actions in one’s life. There’s the all-pervading grandmother, who will ensure you always have a full plate of food and then some more, notwithstanding your indifference towards her. Then there’s the Siesta, the delights of which keep getting tucked away for a lazy afternoon that refuses to arrive. In Listen In, the poet reiterates the importance of 
lending an ear, but more importantly, truly mean it.

Ravichandran’s subjects grab attention because they are innocuous enough to go unnoticed. When was the last time you paid attention to Windows and the world that becomes accessible as you swing them open? The poet redirects your attention: “Birds drape themselves/ on cable TV antenna… in the posture of those/ who have no need to justify/ what they do with their time.” The languor in the rhythm of the free verse helps the words come alive, rendering a meditative effect on the reader.

The middle segment is titled ‘Locus’. With poems such as On the Highway, As the Light Fades, and Walking Away, celebrates the progressive nature of our transient lives. The poems capture the irony of time in oxymoronic verses. The words conjure visuals that epitomize movement in a world that seems to have come to a standstill. Sample this couplet from Findings: “Lost and cancelled spaces flourish, colonized by weeds/ free from trampling feet, as centipedes feed and thrive.”

Or these from Four Walls and a View: “Rain art on damp walls, shadowy hills, gaping gorges/ will soon make way for mould fungus.” The personification of nature is what earns the book a steady spot on one’s bookshelf. In the final segment, ‘Catchlight’, the poet lets her readers see the world through her eyes and attempts to perceive it through theirs. Both come together harmoniously to create images laden with bitter-sweet nostalgia. Take this stanza from Summer: “Songs of Koels/ trapped in Mangoes/ float in brine/ in grandma’s pickle jar.” 

Read the collection, thus, for the sighs––of relief, relatability, regret, and remembrance––that are all too palpable between the lines. In Return, for instance, the poet writes, “Back to the place that was once home/ memories of unkept promises fester.” 

Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene, I hardly paid it any mind,” wrote novelist Haruki Murakami in Norwegian Wood. But the Japanese novelist was certainly not talking about Anjum Hasan. The Indian writer, in her latest offering, History’s Angel, digs deep into the farthest recesses of her mind to bring forth the minutest details of ‘scenes’ that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. Her protagonist, Alif, often stands at the crossroads of past and present as he combs his memory, to connect every unfolding event that he witnesses, with history. 

He is a middle-school history teacher, who lives in Old Delhi with his wife and teenage son. The narrative builds on a seemingly inconspicuous outing to Humayaun’s Tomb with his students, which turns out to be life-changing. Within this one incident are also cocooned several similar happenings of how anyone not following the chosen path has to pay a heavy price. Alif’s unconventional style of teaching history––making it magical, thinking out of the box while talking about India’s Mughal past––costs him his job. In modern-day India, he is a Muslim first and a teacher later.

In the past year, there have been many books by writers who have ensured newspaper headlines found a way into their works of fiction. Hasan is the latest addition to the pool. She has managed to convey all that can’t be said out loud through Alif, often riding on dark humour. The book is an opportunity that’s bravely undertaken by the writer without any qualms. Via her protagonist, she delves into an introspective journey about the turbulent times we live in.

Take, for instance, the scene where Alif, who has gone to return his shiny pair of expensive shoes, is watching television news as he awaits the owner’s attention. Though inaudible, he knows from the visuals of the weeping women, poker-faced police officer and mug shots of a dead man that something disagreeable is unravelling. It could be anything––an untouchable murdered for being an untouchable, a Muslim lynched for being a Muslim, a Naxalite shot for being a Naxalite, a Kashmiri liquidated for being 
a Kashmiri, a journalist assassinated for asking questions or a farmer dead from suicidal despair. But everyone in the shop remains unfazed, carrying on with business as usual. In this parallel universe, they appear to live in an illusion of grandeur.

In History’s Angel, Alif is in no hurry. But that’s not true of others in his life. His ambitious wife wants to move from being a sales girl in a store to becoming a team manager at, perhaps, a glitzy mall. To that end, she is single-mindedly focused on getting an MBA degree. Meanwhile, his son harbours dreams of dropping out of school to start working at the earliest. 

With a retired cop for a father and a paramedic mother, Alif grew up in a family where going to the mosque or covering one’s head were personal choices. His parents, however, have their own set of problems. Their domestic help––an orphan boy who they raised as one of their own––has transformed into an abusive fundamentalist. It’s during his evening conversations with his childhood friend that the readers get a glimpse of Alif in his younger days. Both reminisce about an old crush they have reconnected with, sparking a sense of nostalgia and deeply inflicted wounds of adolescent years.

The book is replete with parables, drawing from history, spiritual scriptures as well as recent events. At various turns in the chapters, Hasan cleverly leaves behind questions, asking the reader to make a choice. In History’s Angel, the author serves us on a platter the society we inhabit through the eyes of a spirited yet languishing teacher. From downsizing in offices due to the advent of apps that can replace humans to a city burning under the proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Act, Hasan has covered it all using her subtle sense of humour. It’s a reflection of our present, one that may be etched in history’s annals, for better or worse.

Koral Dasgupta’s Mandodari is the latest in her highly acclaimed Sati series. It attempts to rescue from obscurity, one of the most fascinating characters in the Ramayana, who has traditionally been eclipsed, by her infamous husband, the mighty Ravana. 

Born to Maya, the architect of the asuras, and Hema, an apsara, Mandodari—fourth of the pancha kanyas—went on to become the Queen of Lanka and mother of the invincible Indrajit. Not much space, however, is allotted to the enigmatic character in Valmiki’s Ramayana or the versions that followed. Dasgupta does a tremendous job of making up for the oversight. In her deft hands, Mandodari reemerges as a force to be reckoned with, blessed with extraordinary powers and a fierce will, committed to bringing to life her husband’s impossible but unimaginably daring vision. 

Narrated with insight and imagination, her tale is captivating. Forced into a union with the magnetic, masterful and magnificent asura king––though all it would have taken is persuasion––Mandodari is not without agency. For, Ravana knows that his dreams would remain just that without her creative powers, architectural genius and inspired innovations. Thanks to her, he is able to see them take shape as the impeccably sculpted and ‘golden Lanka’. Theirs is a caring relationship but also a fraught one, which is gradually pulled apart by conflicting ideologies. It comes to a head when Ravana makes the ill-fated decision to abduct the wife of another man.

Not one to pamper the male ego and enable rapacious conduct, Mandodari is a clarion voice who doesn’t hesitate to call out her husband when he breaches the code of dharma. She speaks up for the rights of women in general, and Sita as well, becoming an unlikely ally for the beleaguered princess. It is because of her efforts, veering between the compassionate and conniving, that the worst excesses of her husband are undone, ultimately preserving his legacy as a fatally flawed but innately admirable soul.

Dasgupta’s treatment of Surpanakha is far from sympathetic though. The much-maligned and often misunderstood character is further villainised as a spoilt, savage creature with an outsize appetite for lust and deceit, without a single redeeming trait. Though the princess of Lanka was treated abominably and mutilated by the princes of Ayodhya, when she frankly declared her desire for Rama, Surpanakha is 
subjected to a bit of victim-shaming in the book. This is a pity and it feels unfair to cast her as the evil antagonist to Mandodari.

The complaint notwithstanding, there is much to recommend Mandodari with its lyrical prose and philosophical moorings that conjure up visions of a mesmerising world. The book shows how so much is made possible by a lone woman’s resilience and unswerving commitment to do the right thing.

Mandodari
By: Koral 
Dasgupta
Publisher: 
Pan Macmillan 
Pages: 304
Price: Rs 399

The title, Made In India, echoes one of the many catchy slogans coined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the book cover has the familiar image of the (Gir) lion with chips and circuits and not the usual wheels and gears. Both send out the message loud and clear: emerging India can only become the ‘voice of the global south’ if it can raise its game and produce for the world. The disruption of international supply chains, first during the pandemic, and then deterioration in Sino-US relations has created unprecedented opportunities for India. 

The author––who is identified as one of the indispensable ‘nav ratnas’ of PM Modi and has been appointed the sherpa for the G-20 summit to be held in September this year––deserves kudos for not falling into the hagiographic trap. Subtitled ‘75 Years of Business and Enterprise’, the book presents, in a grand historical sweep, the endeavours and accomplishments of the private sector in the country despite severe constraints during the era of mixed economy. What is remarkable is that Kant, who has also served as the former Niti Aayog CEO, does this objectively, giving past governments and policymakers their due. 

The history of resurgent India doesn’t begin in 2014. Liberalisation started in 1991 when PV Narasimha Rao assumed office as the prime minister and appointed Manmohan Singh his finance minister. It continued under NDA1 and Manmohan’s first term as prime minister. The momentum was lost in the following instalment of his tenure. All this is well-known and doesn’t require detailed narration or analyses. Thus, the recap is quick and informative. 

The book, which blends a retrospective with a scan of the horizon, is divided into seven chapters followed by an epilogue. The first two have self-explanatory titles: ‘Legacy of the Past’ and ‘From British Raj to License Permit Raj’. The third chapter, ‘Tryst with Reforms’, evokes the nation’s fresh encounter with another destiny. And, once the promise of it is redeemed, the world becomes an oyster on the platter of now-unshackled Indian companies. This and the following chapter make for engrossing reading. 

The fifth segment deals with the challenges of revitalising the economy. The complex task required new paradigms, which is what the following section, quite fascinatingly, focuses on. It talks about startups, endearingly addressed as ‘upstarts’—brash and bold, not burdened by tradition or lineage.

The final issue that the book takes on is climate change––a catastrophic crisis looming over the not-too-distant future that threatens to derail the best-laid plans of mice and men. This is the realm where 
a community of interests among nations must outweigh any conflict of interests. The author, who is credited with powerful brand building—whether it is positioning Kerala as ‘God’s Own Country’ to unleashing the ‘Incredible India’ campaign—minces no words and emphasises that this is everybody’s business. 

The epilogue examines the horizon as India moves confidently (some would think over-confidently) beyond the 75th milestone towards the centenary celebrations of its Independence. In about 20 crisply written pages, we are provided with a glimpse of India’s strengths and potential in diverse fields. Comparisons with east and south-east Asian economies are provided in easy-to-refer tables.

The slim volume is packed with stimulating matter. Kant has reviewed a vast body of literature and condensed in a readable manner the work of experts to give his readers an opportunity to share the excitement and pride of the transformation of India as a result of nearly 25 years of economic reforms. Careers opening in different fields–– IT, hospitality, pharmaceuticals and others––empowered the young generation and encouraged them to dream big. India’s growth story will certainly make readers feel good. How one wishes some space had also been spared to warn against pitfalls and threats that may yet hinder our rise.

LONDON: London-based Indian-origin author Chetna Maroo's debut novel 'Western Lane' is among 13 books to make the cut for the 2023 Booker Prize longlist revealed on Tuesday.

Kenya-born Maroo's novel, set within the context of the British Gujarati milieu, has been praised by the Booker judges for its use of the sport of squash as a metaphor for complex human emotions.

"Skilfully deploying the sport of squash as both context and metaphor, 'Western Lane' is a deeply evocative debut about a family grappling with grief, conveyed through crystalline language which reverberates like the sound 'of a ball hit clean and hard with a close echo'," said the Booker Prize judging panel, chaired by twice Booker-shortlisted Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan.

The description of 'Western Lane' reads thus: "A taut, enthralling first novel about grief, sisterhood, and a young athlete’s struggle to transcend herself. Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a quietly brutal training regimen, and the game becomes her world. Slowly, she grows apart from her sisters. Her life is reduced to the sport, guided by its rhythms: the serve, the volley, the drive, the shot and its echo. But on the court, she is not alone. She is with her pa. She is with Ged, a thirteen-year-old boy with his own formidable talent. She is with the players who have come before her. She is in awe. An indelible coming-of-age story, Chetna Maroo’s first novel captures the ordinary and annihilates it with beauty. Western Lane is a valentine to innocence, to the closeness of sisterhood, to the strange ways we come to know ourselves and each other."

The 2023 Booker Prize winner will be announced on November 26 at an award ceremony in London.

The winner receives GBP 50,000 and a trophy named 'Iris' in honour of the 1978 Booker Prize-winning Irish-British author Iris Murdoch.

'Western Lane' is one of four debut novels that make up this year's so-called 'Booker Dozen' of 13 longlisted books, alongside 'If I Survive You' by Jonathan Escoffery, 'Pearl' by Siân Hughes and 'All the Little Bird-Hearts' by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow.

Sebastian Barry's 'Old God's Time', Paul Harding's 'The Other Eden', Ayobami Adebayo's 'A Spell of Good Things', Paul Lynch's 'Prophet Song', Martin Macinnes' 'In Ascension', Tan Twan Eng's 'The House of Doors', Paul Murray's 'The Bee Sting', Sarah Bernstein's 'Study for Obedience', and Elaine Feeney's 'How to Build a Boat' make up the rest of the longlist.

The 13 books, with authors spanning Malaysia, Nigeria, Ireland, Canada, the US and the UK, explore universal and topical themes --- from deeply moving personal dramas to tragicomic family sagas, from the effects of climate change to the oppression of minorities, and from scientific breakthroughs to competitive sport.

"The list is defined by its freshness --- by the irreverence of new voices, by the iconoclasm of established ones," said Edugyan.

"All 13 novels cast new light on what it means to exist in our time, and they do so in original and thrilling ways. Their range is vast, both in subject and form: they shocked us, made us laugh, filled us with anguish, but above all, they stayed with us. This is a list to excite, challenge, delight, a list to bring wonder. The novels are small revolutions, each seeking to energise and awaken the language. Together - whether historical or contemporary - they offer startling portraits of the current," she said.

Edugyan was joined on the judging panel by British actor, writer and director Adjoa Andoh; Hong Kong Chinese poet, lecturer, editor and critic Mary Jean Chan; American author and professor James Shapiro; and British actor and writer Robert Webb.

Their selection was made from 163 books published between October 2022 and September 2023 and submitted by publishers.

The Booker Prize is open annually to works of long-form fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.

"The range of experience, expertise and sensibility among this year's judges led them to seek novels that both advanced the form and allowed the reader to understand something about the world; books that would have impact and longevity; books that moved them - and above all, books of such excellence and subtlety that the judges looked forward to re-reading them," said Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation.

The longlist will be whittled down to a shortlist of six books, to be announced on September 21 at an event at the newly reopened National Portrait Gallery in London.

The shortlisted authors will each receive GBP 2,500 and a specially-bound edition of their book.

(With online desk inputs)

Best-selling author and physician Dr Abraham Verghese has delivered an epic work of fiction, spanning several generations, with his new book, The Covenant of Water. The book is a veritable tome of 724 pages, finishing which is quite an immersive experience. Readers are pulled into the liquid depths of the tale from the first few pages and never really come up for air till it is done.

The story traces the peculiar curse of water on the Parambil family in south Kerala; at least one member of the clan dies by drowning in every generation, leading to the creation of a poignant chronicle of the hex, written on old parchment and stashed away from the eyes of those who might be terrified by the dismal prophecy. “The land is shaped by water and its people are united by a common language, Malayalam. Where the sea meets the white beach, it thrusts fingers inland to intertwine with the rivers snaking down the green canopied slopes of the Ghats. It is a child’s fantasy of rivulets and canals, a lattice of lakes and lagoons, a maze of backwaters and bottle-green lotus ponds, a vast circulatory system because… all water is connected.” The evocative passage reinforces the tragic irony of the Parambils––Malayalis with a curse of water upon them. 

The timeline of the book arches from 1900 to 1977. We read of a pre-adolescent girl who marries a widower much older than her, who goes across the broad swathe of the Vembanad lake and takes over the running of a vast old manse––the reins firmly held in her small hands–– even as a sister-in-law, then a distant relative moves in to help her. We watch with admiration as the young bride wins over her taciturn-to-a-fault husband, bestows love on her stepson Jojo, gives birth to Baby Mol and then Philipose, and eventually becomes big ammachi, the matriarch of Parambil. And when Philipose’s daughter is baptised, she is given the matriarch’s name and that’s when we learn that the old lady is Mariamma.

Big Ammachi’s long-standing wish is that if God couldn’t or wouldn’t cure the curse on the clan, then he should send someone who would find one. Two generations down, it is her namesake, a neuro-
surgeon, who gets down to demystifying the strange malady and working to find a remedy, even widening the devastating trail of the condition to go beyond members of the Parambil family and include the Saint Thomas Christian fraternity at large.

Every character in the pages of the book has his/her share of trials and tribulations; some accept it with grace and fortitude, and others fight it wildly. We meet Digby Kilgour from Glasgow, but not for a minute do we wonder why we have left Parambil to go peep into Digby’s life in Scotland, follow him thence to Madras... we know there will be a connection established soon enough. We meet Rune Orqvist, who runs a leprosarium in another part of Kerala, and there too we sense a connection well before 
it is revealed.

Readers, who are familiar with the gifted writer’s books, know that he throws many medical procedures and jargon into his stories (sample this: his lips are set together, the philtrum a dugout in the flesh above the vermilion border of his upper lip), but he does it so well that the lay reader’s interest is caught and held. Religion—in this case of the Saint Thomas Christians—is one tensile rope woven through the tale, the others being the caste system, the Naxal movement, and leprosy. And love. There is a message too, clear and direct: geography is destiny and the shared geography of the Spice Coast and the Malayalam language, unites all faiths. 

The humour is sardonic and very Malayali––the Maramon Convention, which hosts an American preacher to hilarious results, is one such passage. 

The storytelling is of the best kind, free of any gratuitous embellishment. The reveals come in calibrated doses that are affecting.

Water swirls insidiously through the tale. In a resonant passage, the author writes of how the Malayali forget that the monsoon will confine them for weeks, drown the paddy fields, leak through the thatch and deplete their grain stores. All they know is that their bodies, like the parched soil, crave rainfall. And in the end, the story of the Parambil clan stands tall, looming over everything. It is a story that will stay with the reader for a long time. 

Before your imagination has lent faces to the characters in Aamina Ahmad’s debut novel, The Return of Faraz Ali, you are already gripped with the emotional turbulence of the strongest kind. What starts 
as a crime novel set in Lahore, Pakistan, in the 1960s, soon reveals itself to be a socially aware fictional tale of power and injustice. The heart of Faraz Ali’s story lies at the convergence of caste, class, crime and gender, and Ahmad resuscitates the history of Pakistan and Bangladesh in this ambitiously intricate narrative. 

The protagonist was five years old in 1948 when he was taken away from his mother by his father Wajid, in an attempt to provide him with a life away from the label of a kanjar (prostitute). Cut to 1968. Faraz is now a policeman. Aware of his origins in the Mohalla (the red light district in the city), we learn that he has grappled with the term kanjar throughout his 20-year-old life, even as he has repeatedly tried to find his mother and sister. 

Faraz’s search finds a fresh boost when he is deputed by his influential, yet never-publicly-acknowledged, father to clean up a case involving the murder of a young girl in the Mohalla. Thus begins a tale of revolution, both inward and outward, as the streets of Pakistan come abuzz with chants of “Bhutto”. Divided into three parts, the book flits through Pakistan and reaches modern-day Bangladesh, where the country is on its way to becoming independent. When Faraz fails to execute the cover-up job back home, he is demoted and sent eastwards. His trauma is depicted perfectly in Ahmad’s unique prose that does not mince words to describe the scenes of brutality on the streets of Dacca.

In parallel, runs the story of Wajid, posted in North Africa, at the brink of the end of World War II. The abrupt jumps in the narrative act as an agent of force, compelling the readers to get immersed in the character arcs. Against the backdrop of Pakistani President Muhammad Ayub Khan’s reign, Faraz, an agent of the state, finds himself in the middle of moral ambiguity that further deepens his need to repay his father’s supposed debt and also unearth his illegitimate past. As he gets lost in the lanes of the Mohalla, trying to stand by what is right, we discover the strong-willed women of the district who, despite being born to a predetermined future, are in complete control of their personal narrative. 

Faraz’s tender relationship with his young daughter is juxtaposed with his unanswered questions for his mother and his idea of fatherhood from his learnings and expectations from Wajid. The atmosphere of Ahmad’s debut novel is tense through all 367 pages, and the author’s intent is deliberate and measured. Every sentence, whether it’s the conversations peppered with Urdu curse words or heartwarming moments between characters, reveals steps to a masterplan that is ubiquitous—to let readers make their own choices.  

In March 2021, veteran journalist Shevlin Sebastian encountered VK Thajudheen’s ordeal in a media report. The businessman, who had been living in Doha for over a decade, had come to Kerala in June 2018 for his daughter’s wedding. A month later, when he, along with his family, was on his way to their home in Kadirur in Kannur district, the police stopped their car, accusing him of stealing a necklace.

When Thajudheen’s wife intervened and asked for proof, she was presented a blurry photograph—of 
a middle-aged, balding man fleeing the crime scene on a two-wheeler—obtained from a CCTV. She concurred the thief looked like her husband, confirming the police’s hunch. But before putting him behind bars, they tried to extort money in exchange for Thajudheen keeping his reputation intact. When that did not yield the desired result, they cuffed him. 

Consequently, the businessman spent 54 agonising days in jail before getting acquitted of all (false) charges. Sebastian knew it was a story worth telling. If Thajudheen could be incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit, it could happen to anyone, thus embarking on a journey to locate what’s ailing the system in which innocent people are framed, and what the possible solutions to unlawful arrests could be.

The result? A concise but tell-all, page-turning account, The Stolen Necklace: A Small Crime in a Small Town. The book begins with the nikah of Thajudheen’s daughter. It captures his sentiments as his daughter is about to set foot in a new chapter of her life. He tells her, “...always try to have a loving relationship with everybody. In short, adjust to your husband and get along with your in-laws. If you can achieve that, life will be enjoyable,” completely unaware that it was his life that was about to take an irreversible turn.
Convicted in a case of mistaken identity, his story underlines the problems that ail the system.

The book notes that the police and similar institutes are overwhelmingly corrupt, have a disregard for the law and its instruments, and possess an unwillingness to transform themselves. One wonders if Thajudheen would have been able to take his woes to the masses, triggering an investigation, had it not been for his connections.

What would anyone else, without such resources, have done in a similar situation?

Interestingly, the tale also happens to be a case in point for leveraging social media for getting justice. When the family reached out to Shahul Hameed, personal assistant to MLA TV Ibrahim, the latter shared Thajudheen’s plight on Facebook. “Thajudheen has suffered a loss of respect and a financial loss,” he wrote, adding, “The future of his children is uncertain. This family is on the verge of suicide. They should get justice. We have brought it to the attention of the Chief Minister, the leader of the Opposition, the Human Rights Commission, the Minority Commission and the media. We will be with him till he gets justice.” The post attracted 2,200 likes, 749 comments and 7,000 shares, Sebastian notes. And in an hour, “an online Malayalam channel made a story based on this post and put it up on the web. By evening, four lakh people had viewed it,” the author adds.

Concluding the narrative, which not only deftly connects odd dots throughout the book, but also sheds light on the politics of north Kerala—the rift between the RSS-BJP and the CPI(M) that has led to the death of “over 250” party workers from both sides over the years–– Sebastian notes that while Thajudheen unwaveringly believed that the “truth will emerge one day”, it’s not always enough.

As an immediate solution, he recommends the worldwide adoption of Article 14 of the UN Charter of Human Rights and further makes a case for an NGO like the Innocence Project in the US, which can serve as a tool to help people like Thajudheen seek justice and redressal. But the implementation, much like the compensation Thajudheen has been seeking, remains shrouded in darkness.

The protagonist of Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan’s Soft Animal is an odd Indian woman—Mallika Rao—stuck in a loveless marriage. Her plight is exacerbated when the Covid lockdown traps her within the four walls of her house with a husband who she doesn’t like anymore.

The author weaves a delightful portrait of an unemployed 30-something South Delhi woman, who suddenly finds herself lying to and hiding from her family. She even keeps her pregnancy a secret from her husband and in-laws. With writing that is intimate, the reader of Soft Animal has the experience of sitting across from the protagonist over a cup of tea as she spills her innermost rumblings. The pregnancy news is
a little secret between the readers and Mallika which, if it comes out, will cost her the agency and any say, whatsoever, in the matter. At times, there is delicious violence in her thoughts, particularly when she has to pretend to care about her marriage or her house.

As she wrestles with the ideas of the impending future, she finds solace in the company of Gudiya, a dog, who she brought over from her parents’ place. Interestingly, it is not the quintessential happy dog that licks the pain away, but a traumatised rescued one, which flinches at the slightest of human contact. It is in the mirroring of the pain and fear that Mallika forges an uncanny bond with the animal.

Soft Animal takes the reader back to the pandemic madness––the hoarding, the obsessive sanitisation, futile attempts to ignore fake news, the chloroquine frenzy, herbal teas and the banging of pots and pans. With the book’s visual prose, it is almost impossible to not get transported to the seemingly endless days and nights that melted into each other as one tried to incorporate more ginger, garlic, basil and giloy tablets into their diet. As is to not recall the defining moments of those two years—from the advent of the necessary alternative in Zoom meetings for work to the sudden inexplicable fascination with cooking, as was evident on social media.

Like most women, Mallika finds herself dealing with household chores all alone in the absence of her domestic help. As Reddy Madhavan shows the protagonist feeling overburdened, she also shines light on the ever-prevalent rich-versus-poor divide that only became starker during the pandemic. The author recalls the eccentricities of the RWAs across Delhi-NCR, which insisted that it was the poor who were the ‘diseased vermin’, putting others at risk, and not the rich who brought the virus from abroad.

The tale lays bare the hypocrisy of the privileged, when it exposes the vile nature of Mallika’s husband and her in-laws. To begin with, they keep their other son, who is autistic, hidden. Even as they talk about how sensitive and inclusive they are about people with ‘disabilities’, in what feels like a Victorian-novelesque cruelty, he is kept locked-up during social gatherings at their home. Even as they vote for right-wing fascist leaders, and keep referring to their daughter-in-law as a ‘south Indian girl’, they continue to attend posh Eid parties and constantly mention how they have friends who are ‘Muslims’.

The book takes its name from (American poet) Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese, a poem Mallika comes across while she is on one of her regular visits to Brigadier Rita senior citizen in her housing colony. She seeks comfort in Oliver’s lines, ‘You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves/ Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.’ As she wonders what it is that the ‘soft animal’ of her body loves, she thinks of the man she lives with and how little he understands her.

Delightful and relatable, Reddy Madhavan’s book is a commentary on privilege, class and the idea of womanhood. It captures the reality of many Indian millennials who feel stuck in their lives, as they come to terms with their ever-evolving identities and outlook towards life.

Gender determination of a foetus via sonography is banned in India—no blue or pink gender reveals in our country for fear of termination of pregnancy to abort a female baby. In less gory terms, everyone knows that men and women are not equal. For, superiority or dominance is usually an inheritance of the male of our species. This is how it has been since time immemorial and this is how it must be, women are told. We may live in any country on the planet, yet patriarchy is universal.

Some women like Angela Saini, however, ask questions about the veracity of these notions that float about untethered and yet seem irrefutable. The result is The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule—a book that seeks to return to first principles by asking basic questions and seeking answers in history and the current-day realities of humanity. Like, has the unquestioned priority for males always been so? Or biologically, is physical strength, size and musculature really a factor in choosing a leader and/or the dominant figure? In the wild, elephants and lions think otherwise. Are there current cultures or historic ones, which are gender-neutral or disposed more towards women than men?

Using source material from a bewildering range of verifiable sources––from fields as diverse as history, anthropology, current events, literature, the Suffragette movement, articles by essayists of yore, law and jurisprudence––the author sets about busting myths and revealing much about the foundations and the proliferation of patriarchy.

Fifty-two pages of references and a bibliography are impressive and give away the diligence a book of this quality demands. It boasts impeccable, and honestly breathtaking, academic rigour, but it is the presentation as much as the subject matter that makes this a book that could own every shelf. The chapter scheme, the arrangement of vast varied material into an array that segues into an overarching theory, the easy parsing of undiluted specialised concepts into limpid prose and, most importantly, citing and crediting the sources from which each idea is taken makes this unique. Many wildly popular books miss this step, yet this builds up the narrative even more vividly. "History is a story Western culture buffs tell each other,’ writes feminist scholar Donna Haraway."

Thorough research is usually synonymous with boring or incomprehensible details, though here the easy facility of the writing and the expertise make it accessible to readers of all ages, 14 and up. Besides, the ideas are powerful and fill the reader with an alternate vision of humanity. “Men and women are framed as opposites, or as possibly complementing each other, but never as varied individuals who might possess overlapping traits. Western goddess-worshipping myths leave little room for bloodthirsty, violent goddesses like Kali, the Hindu deity depicted slaying demons and wearing their heads around her neck. Instead, the strength of female-led societies is pinned on women having virtues that men don’t, and men having violent natures that women don’t.”

Balancing between academic disciplines and drawing deeply from varied scholars, Saini pieces together an alternate theory of womanhood, both thought-provoking and the closest to the truth plausible. “To the end, she (Marija Gimbutas, Lithuanian archaeologist) clung to her belief that Europe and parts of Asia had once been home to female-centred, goddess-worshipping cultures before being turned upside down by the arrival of violent, warrior cultures from the Eurasian Steppes roughly 5,000-6,000 years ago. These Kurgan or early Indo-European speaking, incomers were for her, and her followers, the original patriarchs.”

Also woven deftly into the narrative are the thought leaders and the highlights of varied feminist movements from around the world: whether at Seneca Falls (US), former Soviet nations, Turkey or Iran. The author posits that this has been a pattern throughout history. “Women’s rights and freedoms weren’t missing in deep time. Just like in the present, they had to have been destroyed.”

As to the role of women in STEM and how it has come to be riddled with stereotypes of incompatibility with femininity, the author writes, “Male scientists and engineers had cultivated cultures that sought to associate ingenuity, rationality and skill with masculinity, further marginalising women who tried to break into their ranks. Gendered stereotypes were arguably as strong as they had ever been.” By these instruments of patriarchy, emerging job markets are alienated from a whole gender.

While this is most certainly a feminist text, if not a handbook, men may learn even more about their historical roles and progression, defining characteristics and realities as they learn about how the male myth came to be created. And why.

This is the story of Chunhui, or the Girl of Spring who, decades after her death, is celebrated as the Red Brick Queen. This is also the story of Chunhui’s mother Geumbok, whose dogged pursuits, ever since she saw a whale crest in the ocean, led her to turn an obscure village into a buzzing commercial centre. This is also the story of the one-eyed woman who walks miles covered in bees, bringing along with her the curse of a sting wherever she goes. And finally, this is the story of her mother, known as the old crone, who sells her daughter for two jars of honey to a beekeeper.

It’s these four characters that are central to novelist Cheon Myeong-kwan’s Whale, first published two decades ago in South Korea. This is the author’s debut novel, which soon became one of the most-loved works of literature in the East-Asian country, and is regarded as a modern classic. The book, translated into English by Chi-young Kim, was fittingly shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023, and won some rave reviews. Set in Pyeongdae, a village in South Korea, the novel beautifully sketches civilisation, and shows how capitalism took shape as it focuses on the country’s transition from a pre-modern to post-modern society.

This adventurous tale of magic realism is satirical and brutal in equal parts, and scores by not playing the victim card. Each character has been vicious at some point and, at other times, has shown their vulnerable side. In fact, every character is a victim of the circumstances. This is perhaps why every few chapters, the author says, “This was the law of…” The ending to the sentence varies from capitalism to rumours, love to reproduction, sorrow to nature, action and reaction. It is as if he is justifying the tale, the existence of human weaknesses, without glorifying anyone’s pain or vilifying anyone’s greed. The way history is adapted to suit literary sensibilities, thereby altering the course of facts, too has been cleverly portrayed and is a mirror to the times we live in.

This 20th-century novel is strangely reminiscent of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations in how it lays bare the ambition and materialism that have driven societies for aeons now. It leaves the readers with no unanswered questions as there are multiple hidden meanings to be drawn out of the way every event shapes up in the story; even a circus elephant in Whale evokes pertinent thoughts. Simply put, this is a novel that leaves you with a tinge of sorrow for life itself.