The Book of Aleph (Volume 2) by Aleph Book Company

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april 2013 ~ march 2014

ALEPH BOOK COMPANY An independent publishing firm promoted by Rupa Publications India Published 2013 by Aleph Book Company 7/16 Ansari Road, Daryaganj New Delhi 110 002 Copyright © Aleph Book Company 2013 Copyright in individual excerpts vests with the author or proprietor. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Aleph Book Company. In the works of fiction in this selection characters, places, names and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. ISBN: 978-93-82277-08-8 Book design by Bena Sareen Section opening illustrations by Ajanta Guhathakurta Printed and bound in India by This book shall not be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published. Disclaimer: All prices, publication dates, and other specifications in this volume are liable to change without notice.

contents 9

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Note from the Publishers

Dear readers, A little over half a century ago, the American writer William Styron said in an interview: ‘A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end.’ All of us at Aleph are readers first and foremost, and the books we publish are those that have moved, shaken and stirred us, and left us ‘slightly exhausted’ in the best possible way. To our delight, the books we produced in our first year of publishing did exactly that for many other readers. Along the way, they also picked up well-deserved honours: Jerry Pinto’s Em and The Big Hoom won the Hindu Literary Prize 2012, Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s Between Clay and Dust was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2012, and both Em and The Big Hoom and Nilanjana Roy’s The Wildings are on the shortlist for the Commonwealth Book Prize 2013. In our second year, too, we have several outstanding works on our list. Let’s start with non-fiction. In her remarkable first book Barkha Dutt plunges deep into the country’s fault lines to show us just how they came to be, and Harsh Mander’s unforgettable investigation lays bare the truth about poverty and destitution in India. At the other end of the spectrum, we have a brilliant insight into the lives and empires of India’s biggest business tycoons by Indrajit Gupta and Charles Assisi, and Pranay Gupte writes the first biography in a quarter century of the Gandhis and Nehrus, the first family of Indian politics and one of the most storied political dynasties of modern times. The world’s greatest living authority on the Indian tiger, Valmik Thapar, puts together the definitive book of the country’s national animal, besides writing (with Romila Thapar and Yusuf Ansari) a book on the Indian lion and cheetah that promises to send ripples through the

world of natural history. The eminent biographer and historian Rajmohan Gandhi gives us a major book on undivided Punjab, from the death of Aurangzeb to Partition; best-selling novelist Ira Trivedi writes an eyeopening book on love, sex and marriage in contemporary India; and one of India’s most decorated (and outspoken) generals, V.K. Singh, former Chief of the Army Staff, provides us with a characteristically frank and detailed look at his life, and the state of the country’s armed forces. In addition to the foregoing, we’re publishing a wonderful range of short books on some of India’s iconic cities—Amitava Kumar captures the essence of his home-town Patna, Naresh Fernandes takes on Bombay, Nirmala Lakshman invites us into her Chennai, Malvika Singh uncovers the heart of Delhi, and Indrajit Hazra parts the veil of illusion that shrouds the city of Calcutta. Rounding out the non-fiction list are a compelling family memoir by Maria Couto, which is also an unprecedented examination of Goan culture; Omair Ahmad’s singular book on the mysteries and distinctiveness of Bhutan; an amateur naturalist’s delightful rambles through the flora and fauna of Delhi by Bulbul Sharma; a quirky, thought-provoking collection of ‘essays and entertainments’ by legendary poet and writer Adil Jussawalla; and an unputdownable food memoir of old Delhi by Pamela Timms. The fiction on the list shines as brightly as the non-fiction. From Ruskin Bond’s first major novel for adults in over a decade, through Nilanjana Roy’s sequel to her astonishing debut novel, and works of fiction by widely acclaimed writers like Manjushree Thapa, Shashi Deshpande and Mamang Dai, there are enough great books on the list to satisfy the most discerning reader. We are also proud to publish some truly outstanding debut fiction: Shovon Chowdhury’s blisteringly funny novel that might have been born (if such a thing were possible) of the union between The

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Catch-22; Aranyani’s collection of erotic stories that heralds a fearless new talent; and Chetan Raj Shrestha’s collection of linked novellas and Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s novel, that announce the arrival of two utterly distinctive voices. From time to time Aleph will publish fresh versions of the region’s greatest classics, expressly directed at the 21st century reader, translated or retold in a contemporary idiom without sacrificing authenticity or scholarship. This year, Arunava Sinha translates a selection of Rabindranath Tagore’s bestknown fiction, non-fiction and poetry. It is always a privilege to publish new work by Khushwant Singh, so it’s appropriate to close this note by mentioning Consolations and Lamentations, reflections on all that inspires, moves and annoys one of our greatest writers in the winter of his career. We hope this book, and the others on the Aleph list, have the sort of effect on you that Styron talked about. And we wish for you the miracle that the American writer of Russian origin Vera Nazarian wrote about: ‘Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.’ New Delhi April 2013

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e xot i c a li e ns The Lion and the Cheetah in India

Valmik Thapar For hundreds of years, travellers and shikaris have pointed to the absence of lions and cheetahs in the wild in the Indian subcontinent. Piqued by their observations, renowned naturalist Valmik Thapar began looking into whether or not these animals were indigenous to the Indian subcontinent.

Remarking on the lack of accounts of encounters with these animals—as opposed to the tiger and the leopard, of which there are hundreds—he argues that, over the centuries, the lion and cheetah were brought into the country from Persia and Africa by royalty, either as tributes or to populate their substantial menageries in order to facilitate hunting. Enlisting the help of renowned historian Romila Thapar—who analyses historical accounts and representations of the lion in early India—and the scholar Yusuf Ansari—who looks back at the lives of the Mughals and their famed hunts—to further validate his theory, Valmik Thapar concludes that the Indian lion and the Indian cheetah were, in fact, exotic imports, and not indigenous subspecies. Thoroughly researched and substantiated with pictorial evidence, Exotic Aliens is a pioneering work that will turn field biology on its head.

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When I first saw so-called Asiatic lions in the mid-1990s in Gir, their behaviour resembled that of large dogs. As I walked along a path with a forest guard, watching them from a few feet away, other guards hissed, hooted and mimicked endless varieties of domestic livestock to attract their attention. The spectacle did not even remotely resemble what I expected to see when it came to encountering wild lions. Indeed, I do not think I have ever seen a more disappointing sight in the wild. The tameness of these animals made me recall images of lions stuffed with opium (and wild asses) until they were lethargic enough to be slaughtered by Mughal emperors for sport. I then had to wait several years to see the lion in Kenya. That experience was exactly the opposite—I wouldn’t have dared getting out of the relative safety of my vehicle, let alone walk around them. In the Masai Mara, I saw more than a hundred different lions in ten days. These were ‘real’ lions and not the caricatures I had encountered in Gir. The suspicion that had been sown in my mind during my research for Tiger Fire (to be published by Aleph this autumn) now emerged as fullblown theory. It was clear to me by now, through the books I had consulted as well as my encounters on the ground, that the Indian lion was never a native species or subspecies but had always been an exotic import that had been shipped into the country and bred for sport. As there is no conclusive genetic evidence to prove or disprove this thesis, I’ve had to necessarily rely on the historical record and my own training as a naturalist. Let’s start with habitat. This country’s dry, moist and evergreen forests make for very unwelcome terrain for lions, especially given the presence of tigers, the more powerful predator. Even where there are grasslands or bush (the lion’s natural habitat), I couldn’t imagine them eating or feasting as a pride on cinkara and blackbuck. Maybe nilgai, the largest Indian antelope, could have been suitable prey for the lion, but if that was the case, why were there hardly any records of t

encounters between the nilgai and the lion? The fact remains that if the nilgai was not the lion’s natural prey, the country simply did not have the millions of blackbucks that would have been needed for ‘indigenous’ lions and cheetahs to feed on. In Africa, however, there are more than 40 species of antelope of different sizes as well as zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, wild buffaloes and warthogs—plenty of prey for the lion, which is why it flourishes in that continent. It was also odd that there were so few records of encounters with prides of lion in this country; in Africa, a pride can consist of as many as 30 animals. What is apparent on the ground is true of the historical record as well. Romila Thapar and Yusuf Ansari have dealt with the presence of lions in antiquity and in the Islamic and Mughal eras, but some of the points they make bear reiterating. The Mohenjodaro seals do not depict the lion, nor do early cave paintings that date back 5,000-8,000 years, whereas the tiger is to be encountered everywhere. Some observers argue that the lion was a late entrant into the subcontinent, and that it only arrived on the scene 2,000-3,000 years before Christ. I find that difficult to imagine because it is inconceivable that lions could have swum across the Indus (unlike tigers, they hate water) to make a home for themselves in the plains of Delhi and Haryana. Moreover, experts have testified that there ‘[existed] absolutely no proof of the occurrence of lions’ in Afghanistan and Baluchistan— regions that bordered India. If this was indeed the case, how could wild lions have migrated into the subcontinent without passing through lands that lay just across the border? The only explanation that fits—and it is one we will examine in detail in this and subsequent chapters—is that the lion was imported into the country in large numbers and bred for release into the designated hunting grounds of Indian royals. s

Valmik Thapar is the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading authority on the Indian tiger. A prominent conservationist, he has been at the forefront of the battle to save the animal.

A P LEASANT KIN D OF HEAV Y And Other Erotic Stories

Aranyani For several hundred years, the freewheeling, unabashed sensuality of the country was lost to the arts due to the prudishness of emperors like Aurangzeb, the Victorians and latter-day religious fundamentalists and self-appointed middle-class gatekeepers of society. Today, though, artists of every stripe are beginning to represent sex and sensuality in their work. This story is representative of the bold new direction Indian fiction in English is gradually taking.

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Chellamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s panties are from Nambiar Hall, and they are polite, deferential, exerting a slight, inward, compressive force upon their wearer. They push the voluptuous quadrangle of her sex into a neat little triangle just visible underneath her tight black pants. Under a sari, especially bare-bottomed, Chellamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sex would have had room to breathe, to extend out to the fullness of its perimeter. As things stand, packed inside a double layer of cotton and elastic, her sex is contained by the lines of the triangle. She cuts a cubist picture as she sits in the compartment of the train speeding towards Paris: thoughtful oval face, joined by a shapely neck to circular breasts that loom over a rectangle of flat, impeccable abdominal muscles, their tautness working in tandem with her panties to control the impetus of the triangle below them towards quadrilateralism. s

Tight and triangular has not been a bad thing. Men have valued the way Chellama’s female parts cinch up, like now, where across from her sits a man who likes his women tight. You can tell from his pursed lips, the way he is flaring his nostrils and pushing his chest slightly forward, that he likes tight. He likes tight because he likes his power to loosen, to make the tight woman roll her eyes back in her head and watch her rigid angles dissolve. When she sees men like him looking at her, although she is not free to flirt, Chellama cannot help giving desire its due by compressing her sex even further until it’s an even smaller triangle, reassuring him that she is, indeed, tight. The man leans forward a bit in his chair and Chellama is conscious only of an urge to cross her legs even tighter. She is returning from a visit to Nauzer in Madrid. Nauzer is Chellama’s boyfriend, although she was not sure she could technically still call him that after his recent confession that he had taken another girl on the programme to one of those Madrid pensiones and spent the night with her. In his story, he had portrayed himself as a hapless sailor, lured by the siren to his doom. ‘We did other things but we didn’t have sex,’ he’d said, prim, defensive, ‘I think that’s important, don’t you?’ He’d made his case for a second chance, two weeks earlier, in Paris. He had waited till she’d been soothed by a cup of tea and was puttering around the Place Du Theatre before guiding her (masterfully) to the steps of the Sacre Couer. ‘I know you love Montmartre,’ he’d said, ‘could there be a more romantic place to recommit?’ At twenty-one, every young visitor to Paris loves Montmartre, and she’d recommitted, even though she was not sure she could technically call it a recommitment considering that she had not herself swerved. Being well-bred, she had not allowed the technicality of truth to interfere with the dispensation of s

politeness. Nauzer had obviously planned this carefully, and he clearly felt delicate about it so it would have been immensely rude, sadistic even, to stick it to him. ‘It felt so sweet to say yes’ she would say later to Gayathri. She liked being sweet-natured, it was why she’d agreed to buy the panties that day at Nambiar Hall when Amma had insisted.

Aranyani is the nom de plume of a native of Tamil Nadu.

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THE WIL DIN G S Nilanjana Roy A small band of cats lives in the labyrinthine alleys and ruins of Nizamuddin, an old neighbourhood in Delhi. Miao, the clan elder, a wise, grave Siamese; Katar, a cat loved by his followers and feared by his enemies; Hulo, the great warrior tom; Beraal, the beautiful queen, swift and deadly when challenged; Southpaw, the kitten whose curiosity can always be counted on to get him into trouble… Unfettered and wild, these and the other members of the tribe fear no one, go where they will, and do as they please. Until, one day, a terrified orange-coloured kitten with monsoon green eyes and remarkable power lands in their midst—setting off a series of extraordinary events that will change their world forever…

reviews

‘The Wildings is a beautiful book in every way. Beautifully written, beautifully illustrated, and beautifully designed…’ —The Hindu ‘I greatly liked Nilanjana Roy’s ‘‘cat novel’’, The Wildings.’ —Salman Rushdie in the Hindustan Times ‘The Wildings is the creation of a fully formed imaginative world that carries great allegorical resonance.’ —Open Magazine awa r d s

Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize 2013 s

Nilanjana Roy spent most of her adult life writing about humans before realizing that animals were much more fun. Her column on books and reading for the Business Standard has run for over 15 years; she also writes for the International Herald Tribune on gender. Her fiction and journalism have appeared in several journals and anthologies, including Caravan, Civil Lines 6, Guernica, the New York Timesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; India blog, Outlook and Biblio. She is the editor of A Matter of Taste: The Penguin Book of Indian Food Writing. Nilanjana Roy lives in Delhi with two cats and her husband, and on Twitter at twitter.com/ nilanjanaroy. Read about the sequel to The Wildings, The Hundred Names of Darkness, on page 134.

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T HE TALI BAN CR IC KET CLUB Timeri N. Murari

Kabul, under the Taliban, is a terrifying place. Rukhsana, a brave young journalist, is desperate to flee Kabul, but she has an ailing mother and younger brother to think of. Then, one day, she’s called to the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice to meet its head, the notorious Zorak Wahidi. He tells her that the winning team of the cricket tournament that he is organizing will be sent to Pakistan for training to prepare for an international-level match.

In reality, the idea is ludicrous. The Taliban will never embrace a game rooted in civility, fairness, and equality. And no one in Afghanistan knows how to play cricket, except Rukhsana. She learnt it in Delhi where she fell in love, despite her commitment to an arranged marriage in Kabul. The tournament offers hope—a means of escape for her brother and young cousins. For Rukhsana, there’s a greater stake to escape—Wahid wants to marry her, a truly frightening proposition. So Rukhsana starts to work on a daring plan that might just give them all the escape route they so desperately crave. A novel that celebrates courage, love and the power of the human spirit, The Taliban Cricket Club is a feat of storytelling in the mould of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.

reviews

‘A lovely, moving tale of contemporary Kabul, about love, courage, passion, tyranny and cricket. Murari has an uncommon tale to tell, t

and does so with imagination and empathy.’ —Shashi Tharoor ‘Fans of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner will here find a similarly uplifting story about good people surviving their horrific circumstances… Murari has crafted a tense, compelling story.’ —Library Journal ‘Murari […] leaves space for human warmth, loyalty and romance, but above all, The Taliban Cricket Club is a thrilling tale that keeps you on the edge of your seat to the last.’ —India Today

Timeri N. Murari is an award-winning writer, filmmaker and playwright. Time magazine chose his film, The Square Circle, as one of its top ten films of 1997. His works include the bestselling novel Taj, which has been translated into 21 languages. The Taliban Cricket Club is based on a real-life incident. Murari lives with his wife in his ancestral home in Chennai.

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T H E KIN G DOM AT THE CENTRE OF THE WOR LD Journeys into Bhutan

Omair Ahmad Bhutan, the landlocked Himalayan kingdom, has often been described as one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most isolated nationsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;isolated by choice, living by rules and realities very different from the rest of the world. The truth, writes Omair Ahmad, may be quite the opposite. Located at the intersection of several political, cultural and religious currents through the centuries, Bhutan may, in fact, be a place where history as it is made has always been most clearly visible. 26

There are dragons. There are kings. These are the truths we learn as children: the cunning hero outwits the giant; the barefoot penitent wins the crown. Over time we lay these stories aside, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes in pursuit of a harder truth, full of sharp reason, that is considered necessary to carve out our space in a world already overcrowded with survivors and achievers. And yet, in most of us, those other truths are not set wholly aside. We long for the clarity of a world in which deeds are written through blood and fire, and the future pivots on the action of singular human beings. In Bhutan all such stories are true. This is the shock that most visitors struggle with, and never quite overcome. A saint arrives t

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on the back of a flying tigress, lamas engage in black-magic wars, while empires scheme and clash to conquer each other and the world. Myths and legends lie so thick over the landscape that the immediate reaction is to reject them all as mere folktales of a credulous people long isolated from the world: a Shangri-La, with all the naivety that the term implies.

And yet, Bhutan has never been as isolated as all that. Its myths are often better guides to local and international history than the official versions we hear. The saint who rides a flying tigress turns out to be the great scholar Padmasambhava, often called the Second Buddha, who merged the teachings of classical Buddhism with local beliefs, and set in train the expansion of Tibetan Buddhism. And the tigress is his Tibetan consort. This is a truer history than we are told, because Buddhism spread across the Himalaya in the eighth century on the back of a new Tibetan empire whose ruins are still being disputed by the Asian giants India and China, and whose impact is felt by hundreds of millions today. Most of the other stories, and much of the history behind them, is more recent. The barefoot penitent is none other than Ugyen Wangchuck, who displayed his humility by standing unshod before the nobles and religious heads of the country in 1907. For this, he won the crown of Bhutan and become the first king of the remarkable Wangchuck dynasty that has ruled the country for over a century. This is the true story, but behind it are other true stories: of the Duar Wars of 1864-65 in which the small Himalayan kingdom fought the British Empire to a standstill; of the Opium War that Britain fought with China, a war which was also about tea; of the Great Game that was played out as Russia expanded, China dwindled, and the world staggered towards the t

Second World War. Over the last few years as I have researched and journeyed into Bhutan, I have often felt that the kingdom throws back to the world stories that should be at the centre of our understanding of our times. In 2003, for instance, as the Americans marched on Baghdad, Bhutan, too, went to war. Except, in the case of Bhutan the standing army was all of six thousand soldiers, and it was led by the king himself, accompanied by a priest. It was the task of the priest to give a sermon before the battle, and he asked the soldiers not to kill, for the opponents were also sons, brothers and husbands, and their deaths would cause great sorrow. For those who know little of Bhutan, this story could be just another myth, but it is also realpolitik. The opponents were rebels from the Indian state of Assam, a state with a population fifty times greater than Bhutanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Every death would have created a family of enemies. So Bhutan went to war thinking of peace, and the border has been silent ever since. There is much that we can, and should, learn from Bhutan, in economics as much as war. At the start of the twenty-first century, as the global economy struggles with the financial mess that few truly understand, Bhutanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision of a politico-economic model that puts the happiness of its citizens at the centre of its governance suddenly seems to shine that much brighter. It is said that the destiny of the world is written in each atom of dust. And yet, there are few places in the world where you can see the rush and hear the roar, or feel the subtle drift, of history as it is made. Bhutan, a small, landlocked and isolated Tibetan Buddhist kingdom, offers such a vantage point. To journey into Bhutan is to journey into history, into myth, into s

yourself. And it is here, in Bhutan, in this kingdom at the centre of the world, that you are forced to ask yourself the question whether all of these journeys are one and the same.

Omair Ahmad is the author of Jimmy, the Terrorist (winner of the Vodafone Crossword Award for Fiction and shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize) and The Storytellerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tale. He grew up in Saudi Arabia and India, and has been a journalist, policy analyst, bartender in a coffee shop and semi-employed in a variety of odd vocations in a few countries. He currently resides in Delhi with multiple plans of escape on his mind.

A SON G AN D T WO SEASONS Chetan Raj Shrestha Nestled in the lap of the Himalaya, Sikkim is one of India’s most beautiful states. The Lepcha people, its original inhabitants, call it Paradise, but the reality of the lives of its poor is often grim. In this story, which is visceral in its immediacy and power, a shocking act of violence on New Year’s Eve destroys the family of Puran, a small-time Sikkimese policeman.

Kamla waited in the dust for her husband. When she heard a taxi pause on the road that ran above the house, she knew it was him. He had said he would come home on Saturday when she had called him from the phone in the Panchayat office. Puran and Kamla’s house was a small cottage with two rooms, constructed in the style of the local poor, with a wattle-and-daub façade and a tin-sheeted roof. A kitchen, made of concrete, had been added on later. Across the mud courtyard were an external toilet and a bath, both makeshift and ramshackle structures. Maya and Thooli were spinning in the courtyard, round and round, shrieking with dizziness. Their play stirred up the dust their mother waited in. The girls completed a round, stood still, staggered, and pretended to fall down dramatically. It was a new game and Maya was learning from Thooli, her elder sister. Maya stood up and swayed drunkenly. Thooli, also reeling, shouted as she saw her father coming down the twisted declivity that led to the house. s

As Puran came up, Maya hid behind her mother and sucked in the snot coursing down to her upper lip. Thooli went up to him and bowed. He put his hand on her head. Puran did not expect his wife to do the same—their last exchange on the phone had been rancorous—but she surprised him by bending down to touch his feet, exposing a now defenceless Maya. The girl heard her father say her name softly; she ran and hugged his leg, shouting, ‘Appa! Appa!’ Thooli laid claim to the bag in Puran’s hand. ‘Be careful with it,’ he said, as he let it go. ‘Why? What’s in it?’ Thooli asked, opening it. She took out a packaged cake. ‘What is it?’ Kamla asked. ‘Don’t you know, woman? Today is the last day of the year. From tomorrow onwards it’s another year. I’ve got a cake.’ ‘Only you seem to know such things. I’ve lost all my memories,’ Kamla said. She had grown up in Namchi, a large town that was the capital of South District, where her father had a tailoring shop. Puran and she had eloped to his village after a week’s courtship with plans to return and settle in Namchi after the storm had died down. She had been waiting for the move for nine years. In the meantime, her in-laws had died in quick succession, the caretakers for Puran’s fields had proved too expensive to maintain, her own brothers had married and settled happily in Namchi, she had had two children to whom her parents and brothers were indifferent, and her husband had been transferred to Gangtok, a posting against which he s

lobbied without conviction for a transfer closer to home. Fate had installed her in the isolated house, without neighbours, that she lived in now. ‘And such sweet memories you had,’ Puran said. He was amused. He hadn’t expected the barb to come so early. The formalities before the battles, one for every visit, usually consumed some time. Not that he minded the formalities. The arguments that he didn’t win, he deflected into beatings. Over the years he had learned to deal with her sullen sarcasm and occasional, ineffective violence through a mixture of resignation, disdain and violence of his own. What else could one do with a short-tempered wife who insisted on being beaten?

He said, ‘Woman! In every shop and hotel in Gangtok they are asking people to prepare for this night. The newspapers have advertisements telling them to dance through the night. There must be a reason, no?’ Kamla looked around; the children had disappeared into the house to paw through the contents of Puran’s bag. She said, ‘Maybe. I’ve heard it’s another life there. We used to burn tyres in Namchi and sing around them.’ ‘I’m not here just to enjoy myself. I have to report to the thana tomorrow with some documents regarding a rape case.’ ‘Did you commit it?’ Puran found this funny, and he thought of saying something to provoke her further but restrained himself. He did not want the New Year to begin with the aftermath of a quarrel. It was a common t

truth that the year streamed whatever mood it received on its first day. He turned to cajoling. He said, ‘It doesn’t matter, woman. There has to be a celebration. We’ll try.’ The children pattered out of the house. Maya asked Thooli, ‘What does celebration mean?’ ‘It’s like a Happy Birthday,’ Thooli said. ‘Whose Happy Birthday?’ ‘It’s the Happy Birthday of the next year,’ Puran said. Maya was satisfied with the explanation. Night arrived quickly. The world was all sound, even as the wheezing of passing vehicles stopped. The insects in the forest sounded like the gnashing of some monster’s teeth. Jackals howled and dogs barked non-stop at each other. And behind these was the distant roar of the Rangeet. Puran sat in the living room on the second-hand sofa, a bottle of rum, a full glass and a jug of water on the table by his side. Maya ran in. He straightened up on the sofa and curved his feet into a seat, which Maya straddled. He caught her hands, gently see-sawed her and sang: Resham Firiri. Resham Firiri. Oodeyra jaun ki danda ma bhyanjang. Resham Firiri. Kamla had slaughtered a hen in the evening and Thooli had plucked and prepared it. These were jobs for a man, but the only man in the house was almost a guest. Puran wanted a dish of fried gizzard and intestines with his drink. When Kamla came into the living room to serve him his snacks, he said, ‘We must teach our children traditional songs.’ s

Kamla said, ‘I don’t know any. You can stay here and teach them and I’ll go to Gangtok and work.’ He ignored her and repeated the verses of the song until Maya could sing along. She climbed up on to his chest and fell asleep. This, too, was a ritual and soon Kamla came to take the girl away and leave Puran to his drinking. The house was silent as Thooli helped her mother in the kitchen. Puran counted the minutes. He looked at the clock. It was 8.30. The cake still waited on the table. He looked at the clock again at 8.35 and back at the cake. Its presence was now a reproach to the smallness of his life.

‘Budi. Ay Budi! Bring me some more snacks.’ He called her Budi— wife—as a provocation. ‘It is ready, Maya ko Bau. I’ll wake the children up and then we can eat.’ She called him Maya ko Bau—Maya’s father—when he irritated her. ‘Why did you let them sleep? We are celebrating,’ he snapped. Kamla came to the doorway of the living room and shouted, ‘How will they celebrate? By looking at your face? There is no television, not even a black-and-white one. No radio. They wake up at four in the morning. Thooli spends her morning with the cows. She failed this year. Did you know that? Why should they stay awake? What is there to celebrate? You were drinking, the children are frightened by what you do after you drink. Or did you expect them to talk with the night insects?’

Puran straightened up and snarled, ‘What did you say? Say it again! Tell me! Is someone plugging your hole while I’m away?’ Vulgarity is often a woman’s weapon, not a man’s, during a fight; its power is in its ability to shame. A man has rage, the strength to hurt; if he adds filth to his arsenal as well, he cannot be defeated. Silence, then, is the best defence. Kamla held her sharp tongue. She glanced at the clock on the wall; it was only 8.40. They would fight tonight, there was no doubt about it, she had quite a few things to say. But the earlier they fought, the longer would be the beating she would have to endure. ‘No,’ she said simply. ‘Let’s eat. I’ll wake the children.’ Kamla returned to the kitchen. It was a spare concrete room, with uneven walls and an earthen stove which had firewood stacked above it. There were some low stools lying around. Thooli had fallen asleep watching the chicken boil. When she ushered the children into the sitting room to eat after five minutes, Kamla was surprised to see that the wall clock showed it was fifteen to twelve. She looked at Puran who caught her eye and made a winding movement with his hands. ‘Apuee! It’s about to ring twelve,’ Thooli said. Kamla improvised: ‘Ho ta chhori. We’ve stayed awake like the bazaar people.’ At Maya’s request, her father sang ‘Resham Firiri’ again and she danced. Thooli joined her and sang a recent hit. At the children’s urging their father joined the dancing. Kamla left the room to check on the cooking. Soon Thooli called, ‘Aama, please come. It’s about to be Happy s

New Year.’ Joyful shouts filled the house soon after. The children were put to sleep by 9.30 (Puran had changed the hands of the clock back to the correct time). Kamla came into the room to clear the table. Puran tapped the seat beside him and she sat down. Their knees touched. Puran’s expression softened. Kamla smelled the kitchen’s odours on her hands and felt unlovely. ‘You will be staying for a few days?’ she asked. ‘Should I stay, then?’ ‘If you want to. You are our honoured guest.’ She got up and moved across to the blue plastic chair opposite the sofa on which Puran was sitting. 38

‘Meaning?’ He was glaring now. ‘We rarely see you. We three women are fine with each other. I seldom remember you at night. And the days pass. The beatings, too, were never welcome.’ She paused, then said, ‘I would…’ ‘You whore!’ Puran shouted. His cry of rage echoed off the walls of the house. The children twisted in their shallow sleep. He made a wild lunge towards Kamla, caught his foot in the loose cover of the sofa and fell clumsily, hitting his head on the armrest of Kamla’s chair. Anyone intruding at that moment would have thought they were witnessing a scene of private contrition and forgiveness. ‘You whore. You whore. You whore.’ Using the words like a battering ram, Puran stood up. His wife remained seated. He slapped her, then slapped her again. He grabbed one of her braids and pulled her up to her feet with a jerk. With his foot he pushed t

the centre table away, giving himself more room to manoeuvre. He swung a leg and kicked her hard. Once. Twice. In the groin, in the stomach. The kicks drew the first cries of pain from her. She twisted and turned to avoid his feet. Soon enough, some of his blows began to miss her, and the ones that landed were softened by drink. The abuse that accompanied the blows stopped, but the beating went on. An open-faced slap, a backhanded slap, a fist to the face that tore her lips, some more kicks. Kamla, at a defining moment, slumped to the ground. It was an admission of defeat and a cue for him to stop. ‘Appa!’ Puran turned towards Thooli’s voice. She stood in the doorway with her teeth clamped around the door’s wooden frame. He paused, his body warm from his exertions. He realized he had an erection, and sat down on the sofa with one leg over the other to camouflage it. His mouth dribbled some spit. He began abusing his wife again, viciously—words that his daughter would repeat calmly in the police station the next morning. Kamla was on all fours. Her posture aroused him. It reminded him of earlier fights, when Thooli was Maya’s age. Then the fights had ended in violent lovemaking. Hazily, he remembered another night when she had crawled up to him and bitten him on the shin. He drew his legs in. Kamla crouched, then leapt up like a frog and straddled her sitting husband. She tore at his hair, scratched his face and bit his nose, which began to bleed. Puran realized it was an invitation to a second round. He threw her off and stood up. Kamla turned to escape. Puran put an arm out to restrain her, but only managed to s

tear her sweater and a piece of her blouse, exposing her right breast. She passed her screaming child as she darted into the kitchen. ‘Enough of your hatred,’ Puran shouted, as he chased her. He wiped his bloodied nose and entered the kitchen. He locked the door and looked around for a weapon. There was a bamphok lying on the ledge next to where the hen had been slaughtered and cut up. He would have liked to get his hands on the bamphok, but his wife crouched next to it like a wounded animal. A khukuri was closer to him, and he got hold of it, waved it about and said, ‘Now what do I do?’ ‘Hit me, eunuch,’ she hissed. 40

He advanced and in a sweeping, graceful movement brought his weapon down on his wife and missed. Because of his drunkenness, and his inexperience with the khukuri, he had used the weapon clumsily, like an axe. He recovered and cornered her. He brought down the khukuri again. She raised her hand and arrested the downward slash of his arm momentarily, between her thumb and forefinger. Then she let go, slipped out from under his arm and bent to grab the bamphok. She rotated her body as she stood up, and at the end of her twirl, struck him in the face with the bamphok. She slashed his cheek, his nose, and his left eye. She saw the white flash of bone. Both had used their weapons ineffectually. The khukuri should be swung at an angle and the bamphok with a rigidly vertical swipe. No matter, she had struck first. He wailed and doubled over. She slashed at the base of his neck. t

His hand left his face, reached for his neck, returned to his face, and went to his neck again. He waved the other hand at her blindly. She struck the arm he was gesturing with at the elbow; she could hear the bone crack. He screamed and struggled towards the door. He collapsed after a step and grunted as he went face down on the floor. She knelt over her husband and hacked at him with the bamphok. His body jerked with each cut, but soon the jerking faded into the twitches of a slumbering man resisting a summons. She hacked at him even after the twitching had stopped. Eventually she sat down with her knees bunched together and, resting her head on them, she slept.

This story has been excerpted from the first of the three linked novellas that constitute Chetan Raj Shresthaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s debut book, A Song and Two Seasons. He was born in 1978 in Gangtok, Sikkim. He is a trained architect (his specialization being conservation architecture). He has lived in Darjeeling, Bangalore , Mumbai and Sydney, and is currently working in a collaborative architectural practice in Gangtok.

T H E MYSTE R IOUS AILMENT OF RUP I BASKEY Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar Rupi Baskey birthed her eldest child in a rice paddy at the peak of the planting season. Soon after, she was gripped by malaise, of the kind wrought by the alakjari, the golden vine which sucks out the hearts of the tallest, greenest trees of the forest. Now Rupi, once the strongest woman in the village of Kadamdihi, spends her days on a pallet in her front yard, watching helplessly as her life dissolves into incomprehensible ruin around her.

The first three days of planting were fine. Rupi came home, washed, ate and slept like she had been drugged. On the third day, she felt pains. But they were so slight, she paid no heed. She had the dhai budhiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assurance: she was still some time away from parturition. She had felt contractions before, a hardening of her abdomen, but she was so busy she didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember when they first came. It was only when the water broke that she realized what was happening. She was bent over fixing rice plants in the wet mud; she stood up straight when the warm fluid from her womb seeped slowly down her thighs, clutched at her lower back, bellowed like a cow being dragged to slaughter, and fell into the slush. In the distance, thunder rumbled and, dramatically, a flock of cranes flew out of the kowha trees on the bank of the pond next to the fields. The women stopped what they were doing and came running.

‘Who asked her to come?’ they shouted to one another. ‘Sido baahu, are you all right?’ they shouted at her. She shouted replies. Words, syllables, nonsense, whatever came to mind. ‘Yo go! Yo go! Goij inan go!’ Dear mother! Dear mother! I am dead! She was carried to the widest aaday and made to lie down. Rupi was so huge, it was as if a banyan had been felled in the middle of the paddy fields. Her limbs were like logs. The women took a lot of time to undress her and flex her knees. They could see the baby’s head. The men were dispatched to fetch the dhai budhi. ‘It’s coming,’ the women shouted. 44

‘Yo! I am dying!’ Rupi shouted. Dark clouds floated ominously in the mid-June sky. The rain waited for the baby’s arrival while the baby waited for the dhai budhi’s. Rupi writhed like a decapitated chicken and screamed like a cow being disembowelled alive. The women—all mothers of three children, four children—cuddled her, asked her to have patience and to bear down. ‘We all have to face this, baahu.’ ‘Keep your breaths steady. Breathe through your mouth, breathe through your mouth.’ ‘Push when the pain comes. Pain’s coming? Pain’s coming? Yes, now, push. Push!’ t

To all their words Rupi had only one reply: ‘Yo! I am dying,’ screamed at the loudest pitch she could manage. The dhai budhi came hobbling up, followed by Putki, Doso and Khorda, who was running even though one of his legs was shorter than the other. While the men stayed away from the scene of nativity, the women formed a circle around Rupi: a shielded, makeshift labour room. The dhai budhi massaged Rupi’s abdomen, inserted her fingers into the birth canal and made space for the baby’s head, always encouraging Rupi to push with every bit of energy she could muster. ‘Don’t forget, baahu, this is your moment of test. You have to put your life into it. This is a very important moment for you. Don’t forget, don’t forget at all.’ Jaipal was born after a few more contractions and words of encouragement. He was only slightly bigger than a kitten and with his scrawny limbs looked just like one. There were nervous sighs when the dhai budhi severed the umbilical cord and, wiping his mouth, eyes and nostrils, held him upside down by his legs. First, he whimpered, then cried loudly. The nervous sighs turned into shrieks of mirth in no time. ‘It’s a boy!’ the dhai budhi cried and Khorda and Doso cheered.

Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar was born in 1983 in Ranchi and grew up and lives in the Chakulia and Ghatsila blocks of Jharkhand. His short story ‘Semen, Saliva, Sweat, Blood’ was published in an anthology, Alchemy: The Tranquebar Book of Erotic Stories II. The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey is his first novel.

ÂŠ Bena Sareen

SHADOW P LAY Shashi Deshpande Few writers have explored marriage, family and friendship with greater insight than Shashi Deshpande. In her new novel, her richest yet, she examines the ties that bind—and the compulsions that sometimes divide—families, and how strangers become familiars.

g o pa l

Initially, my only purpose had been to immerse Sumi’s ashes in the Alakananda. It was the first thing I did after leaving Hardwar. The river was very accessible at that point; it was not as full as it would become a little later. I paddled through the shallows to a rock and sat there for a while. It was one of those moments of utter silence when the universe comes to a standstill—a hush so great that it is not an absence of sound, but something positive, a presence that fills you up completely. I opened the little copper urn and holding it over the river, shook it a little. The ashes fell out, came together in a lump, a few grey bubbles forming on the surface, and then swiftly floated away. Something more solid fell out too—I did not want to see what it was—and plummeted down to the depths in an instant. Nothing remained but the few flowers I had placed in the urn, flowers which, too, the river carried away from me. I closed my eyes and all of Sumi’s and my life together seemed to be condensed into that one moment. I felt a rending inside me, and for the first time since Sumi’s death I wept, my body heaving with my sobs. I realized then the wisdom that made it s

the duty of the children and not the spouse to perform the last rites of the dead. Though she was much younger than me, Sumi and I were contemporaries, our lives ran on parallel lines; she was always with me, travelling along with me as I went through life. Whereas, however much Sumi’s children loved her, at some time she would become their past. Easier for the children to let go. At that moment I understood the grief of those who lose people younger than themselves; it seems like a huge injustice that death commits against time.

With the immersion of Sumi’s ashes, there was nothing more left for me to do, and I felt empty and spent. The same evening I was befriended by a family; seeing, perhaps, my forlorn state, they took pity and spoke to me. I had noticed them, they were a large, cheerful group. In the course of our conversation—the man spoke to me softly and compassionately, as if he had guessed that I had come here on a painful duty—I learned that he and his family (his wife, their two children, his mother, his sister and her two children) were on a pilgrimage to the Char Dham. His mother had a great desire to do this pilgrimage before she became too old and so he, his wife and his sister decided that they would fulfil her wish. The children joined them; for them it was an adventure, they were enjoying it greatly, he said. His wife, entering our conversation, asked me what I was there for. Where was I going? Nowhere, I said. What were my plans? I had none, I said. In that case, why didn’t I join them? And so my pilgrimage began, and for those weeks they became my family.

Born in Dharwad, Karnataka and educated in Bombay, Shashi Deshpande is the acclaimed author of nine novels, including That Long Silence, which won the Sahitya Akademi award, and In the Country of Deceit, which t

was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize. She is also the author of four childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s books, two volumes of collected stories, non-fiction on literature and womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s writing, and has been widely anthologized. In 2008, she was given the Padma Shri award. Her work is currently published in the US, France and Italy, in addition to India. She lives in Bangalore with her physician husband.

T H E CO MP ETENT AUTH ORIT Y Shovon Chowdhury

It is almost the middle of the 21st century, and India is in a shambles. The Chinese have nuked Delhi and Bombay, Bengal has seceded and is a Protectorate of Beijing, the Maoists control vast swathes of the country, and a deranged bureaucrat called The Competent Authority is in charge of everything. The Prime Minister, who is largely a figurehead, and the Chief of Army Staff watch in horror as the CA pushes the country towards another war with China which naturally will be the last war the country will ever fight, unless a little boy with extraordinary powers can somehow turn the situation around...One of the most striking debut novels to have been published in recent times, The Competent Authority is a masterpiece of comic writing, invention, biting political satire, and a vision of the country that will not be easily forgotten.

The General had been waiting patiently in the visitor’s room, leafing listlessly through a six-year-old issue of High Society magazine (‘They demanded extra dowry because of my radiation burns, and look at me now!’ says PM’s niece after plastic surgery!). An after-dinner meeting with the Competent Authority was not his favourite way to end the day. A lot depended on whether the man had liked his dinner or not. But sometimes such meetings were unavoidable. Late night briefings were when the Competent Authority shared his secret plans and dreams, replete with fevered visions and unspeakable consequences. It was when he was at his most inspired and was least amenable to t

reason. The General had taken charge over a year ago. In all that time, he had never slept peacefully even once. He had already started grooming his successor. Mehta, the CA’s PA, popped his head in, noting the haggard expression on the General’s face. It pleased him. He took great pleasure in keeping the General waiting at least half-an-hour every time he came, and he never offered him any tea. His pleasures were small, but they gave him great joy. He cleared his throat. The General looked up. Mehta gestured curtly (but not too curtly) with his head toward the CA’s room across the corridor, and snapped his fingers. He had seen Digital Rajnikanth use the same gesture in several movies. It always worked for him, and he looked so stylish. 52

The General gazed at him steadily. ‘Are you trying to say something?’ he asked, politely. Mehta decided not to push it. You never knew with these faujis. ‘Sir is calling, sir’, he said, gesturing him on. The General went off to meet sir. The Competent Authority was actually in a jovial mood. He offered the General a bidi, which he respectfully declined. The Competent Authority lit up, and said cheerfully, ‘The time has come for action, my military friend. This morning, I read a paper on Survivable Tactical Nuclear War.’ The General, in the act of sitting down, froze. ‘And in the afternoon, depraved saboteurs of the Bengal Protectorate t

have provided me the perfect excuse—they have launched against us some form of ungodly brain war. The time for action has come.’ The General sat down and gazed at the Competent Authority’s plump, slightly sweaty face. This was somewhat unexpected. Routine calls for army help in annihilating communities, localities, parties, families, college students, farmers, housewives, and other forms of opposition were quite normal, and dealt with strictly on a case to case basis. The annihilation part usually got toned down to heavily armed parading. On occasion they dragged people out of their houses and booted them around a bit. In the East, in the badlands, it was war, of course. The Chinese armed the Maoists, and the Maoists kept pushing. That was different. And now this evil little man wanted to nuke Bengal. He had friends there, for God’s sake! Nukes! The last lot had turned the country into a toilet bowl. A toilet bowl which still had nuclear weapons, and was now run by a madman whose arrogance and incompetence were exceeded only by his megalomania. He was going to have to be very careful. The Competent Authority sat across the table gazing at him, radiating bonhomie. He was only too happy to allow for a period of adjustment. It was a big concept, undoubtedly. People tended to let details obscure their vision. He picked up a pencil to note down this last bit. He didn’t like to bother Mehta so late at night, but equally, he could not short-change posterity. ‘The Chinese,’ said the General, alarmed at how he croaked it out. He gripped his cane harder, seeking strength in its knobbiness. The Competent Authority frowned. ‘I don’t follow,’ he said. s

‘The Chinese will nuke us if we nuke Bengal,’ said the General, going for the simple approach. ‘Of course not,’ said the CA, indignant at the very thought, ‘This is purely an internal matter. What we do in our own backyard is our business. What about the Beijing Incident of ‘22? We didn’t interfere then.’ Well it didn’t involve nukes, for starters, thought the General. Just a few military men demanding immediate punishment of Japan, marking the point where China became, finally, a full-fledged military state.

‘The issue of the Bengal Protectorate is disputed, sir,’ he said aloud, firmly enough. ‘The Bengalis would choose to believe they are independent. The Chinese believe they are in their sphere of influence. We believe they are part of India. The Americans believe they are rebel Chinese. It’s a lot like the film Rashomon, sir, where there are multiple truths and multiple perspectives.’ It was a good try, but it failed. On a few memorable occasions, the General had managed to steer things so that he ended up having an intellectual conversation, smoking a bidi or two, and marching off into the night. Not tonight. The CA was feeling masterful and historical. ‘The Chinese have no say in this,’ the Competent Authority said, not so cheery any more. ‘Bengal has always been a part of India. A handful of communist rascals cannot change that.’ ‘Well, if they’re part of India, then we’re nuking our own people. No one’s ever done that before.’ t

The General had decided to go back to simple. He was feeling slightly dizzy. The Competent Authority smiled again. ‘But they can’t hit back,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Once you accept the Chinese are out of the picture, where is the danger? And if there is no danger, then why should I live with this cancerous growth of degenerates, who are constantly gnawing away at the borders of India like ideologicallymisguided chipmunks?’ ‘The Chinese are never out of the picture,’ persisted the General, doggedly. ‘They could use this opportunity to crush us once and for all.’ The CA leaned forward, holding the General immobile with his gaze. The General felt his resolve weakening. There was a reason why this man had risen to become the head of the Administrative Service, superseding grizzled and wily veterans who could make vast sums of money disappear with a flick of the wrist. ‘That’s exactly what I read in that paper by that Madrasi,’ the CA hissed. ‘They cannot crush us. We can survive. We have survived. We just have to be more Tactical. Our Strategies have to be Survivable. What is stopping the completion of Reconstruction? The cancer of the Bengal Protectorate. It swallows up our arms, our men, our willpower. We can be rid of them. Yes, we may be affected, too. But we can build again.’ He grabbed hold of both the General’s hands, rubbing their palms with his thumbs ardently. ‘That is what we do. We’ll do it better this time, I promise you. We’ll get everything right. We just have to start with a clean slate. Get the right contractors. Allocate sufficient funds. Follow proper procedures. Encourage public-private partnership. We have the experience now. You’ll see. We will become s

like a combination of Singapore and Switzerland. How much the world will come to admire us!’ The General’s head was reeling. Maybe this was the solution. Blow everything up and start over. A clean slate! How often had he dreamed of an India without so many of the bad things the army had to put up with. A fresh start in a clean world, with discipline, esprit de corps, bagpipes… God, he was going mad too. How on earth had this lunatic come to be in charge? It had happened without warning. Most of the things the government did were insane anyway, and promotion in the civil service was automatic. At some point, a genuine madman had slipped in, and no one had noticed until it was much too late. By then he was signing everyone’s files. 56

He had to assert himself. He stood between the nation and the deluge, like some other character he had once read about. He was fuzzy on the details, but it hadn’t ended well. ‘Sir, by definition, I have time, since we are not responding to aggression. I would like to have my staff do a full analysis. We can discuss this further once that’s done.’ The Competent Authority sat back in his chair and looked at him thoughtfully. The man still had some spine left, evidently. ‘Oh, go play with your toy soldiers,’ he said, sulkily, ‘don’t take more than three days. Dismissed!’ Once the General had gone, the Competent Authority smiled. He would get there. He always did. It was just a matter of time. t

Shovon Chowdhury is a Delhi-based amateur humourist. His blog, shovonc. wordpress.com, has been widely condemned. In his spare time, he does advertising work for clients who cannot find anyone cheaper. His grandfather ran away from Dhaka to escape the Japanese bombing of the city in 1945, not realizing that the war was about to end, and arrived in Calcutta just in time for the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946. These shared family experiences have left him deeply averse to sudden movement, which is why he has lived in Delhi for the past twenty years. He is too old to emigrate, but too young to give up.

D RU N K EN RATS AN D AN G RY POETS A Short Biography of Patna

Amitava Kumar It is not only the past that lies in ruins in Patna, it is also the present. Of course, the opposite is true too. While the past is reborn in the names of shabby hotels, or new trains that carry away Biharis anxious to leave their homeland, the present emerges, alive and kicking, from the dreams and ambitions of those who have long been denied their place in the shade. Part-reportage, part-memoir, Amitava Kumar’s Drunken Rats and Angry Poets pays mocking, affectionate tribute to a Patna whose citizens, including the subterranean ones, are witness to a world that is real, contradictory, challenging, and above all, entertaining.

pat n a : t h e r at ’ s g u i d e

Rats have burrowed under the railway tracks in Patna. When they emerge, they are set upon by predators. As citizens of a literal underworld, I imagine the rats escaping into a spreading web of small safe houses and getaway streets. We could choose to call it a city under the city, or if that is too sophisticated a description, then let’s just call it a dense warren of subterranean burrows. In places, the railway platform has collapsed. In my mind’s eye, I see a train approaching Patna Junction. The traveller sees the men sitting beside the tracks with their bottoms exposed, plastic bottles of water on the ground in front of them, often with mobile phones pressed to their ears. But at night the first inhabitants of Patna that the visitor passes are the invisible ones: warm, humble, highly sociable, clever, fiercely diligent rats. s

In the library at Patna University, rats had taken over a section of the stacks and, naturally, the library was closed. Also, there are ratsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;always in these stories, rats as big as catsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in the Beur Jail. After he was shifted there from an air-conditioned clubhouse that had served as a makeshift prison, and which has personal associations for me because I got married there, the jail was home for a while to the former Chief Minister, Lalu Yadav; he tended a vegetable garden in prison and issued orders to visiting politicians and bureaucrats; another inmate of Beur Jail is the former parliamentarian Pappu Yadav, on trial for the murder of a communist leader, who has used his time in prison to get degrees in human rights and disaster management. But, I digress. Rats! For some reason, even in the Patna Museum, home to Mauryan art and Buddhist relics, including the ashes of Lord Buddha, there are stuffed rats nailed to black wooden bases. About fifty feet away stands the magnificent, glistening third century BCE sculpture of the Didarganj Yakshi. A heavy necklace runs down the gap between her globular stone breasts, and in her right hand, she holds a fly-whisk flung languidly over her shoulder. And running away from her are stuffed rats, a small procession of them, rotting and seemingly blinded with age, breathing the air of eternity under dusty glass. Outside in the city, however, and, one can be certain, in other parts of the museum too, the rats are alive and dangerous. Newspapers periodically carry reports that babies have been bitten by rats. One such report even helpfully explained that it was the traces of food on the unwashed faces of infants that attracted the rodents. Rats are curious, especially regarding food, and they will eat anything. In the hospital in Patna where my sister works, nurses keep the radio on at night because they are firmly of the belief that the music keeps the rats from nibbling at their toes. t

In the middle of the night one winter, during a visit to Patna, I was sitting at the dining table with my jet-lagged two-year-old, watching a cartoon film on my computer. There was only a dim light on as I didn’t want my parents to be disturbed. We must have been sitting there quietly for half-an-hour when my little boy said, ‘Baba, what is that?’ He was pointing over the screen. There were two enormous rats walking away from us. They looked like stout ladies, on tiny heels, on their way to the market. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see them carrying small, elegant handbags. The next morning, when my son told my wife about the rats he had seen—he was confused at first and said that they were rabbits—my wife was alarmed. But no one else was. Despite how ubiquitous the rats were in Patna, or perhaps because they were ubiquitous, no one seemed to pay them much attention. I would bring them up in conversation, and people would laugh and launch into stories. One person told me that the Patna police had claimed that rats were drinking from the bottles of illegal liquor seized by the authorities and stored in warehouses. I didn’t believe the story—I said that I smelled a rat—and so a link was duly sent to me. In the press report, a senior police officer named Kundan Krishnan was quoted as saying, ‘We are fed up with these drunken rats and cannot explain why they have suddenly turned to consumption of alcohol.’

Amitava Kumar is the author of several works of non-fiction and a novel. His latest book, A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb, was judged the ‘Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year’ at the Page Turner Literary Award. He is Professor of English at Vassar College.

ÂŠ Simar Puneet

CONSOLATIONS AN D LA MENTATIONS Khushwant Singh In his new book, one of India’s great literary icons draws upon almost a century of uninhibited experience and seven decades of no-holds-barred writing to reflect on some of life’s pleasures, annoyances and abominations.

a d ay i n l o d h i g a r d e n s

Spring pays Delhi a very brief visit, and it is no time to be indoors. Before old age confined me to my flat, I spent my springtime afternoons in the city’s historic Lodhi Gardens. There, among the imposing tombs built by the Saiyyid and Lodhi sultans some six hundred years ago, surrounded by flowering trees and lulled by a warm sun and birdsong, I would sit and watch the world at leisure. Let me share with you my memory of a typical spring afternoon in Lodhi Gardens. At ninety-eight it is foolish to rely very much on memory. I turn therefore to my diary. This is what I saw on a late March afternoon in 1996: Death and rebirth go hand in hand in this season. Even as trees shed dry leaves through the day, new ones are taking their place: the most delicate of young leaves—pale pink and silky-soft—appear on the peepals and banyans. Some blossoms like the white and pink kachnars (bauhinias) are fading and others like the delicate mauve melitias are in full bloom.

It is also the time of courtship. Under a clump of purple bougainvillea, sparrows, rarely seen in Delhi now, are mating. The cock struts around his lady friend who pretends to be indifferent to his amorous advances. Then she changes her mind, squats on her slender legs and exposes her cloaca to let him mount her. He does, over and over again, and the seeds of new life are sown. A papeeha (hawk cuckoo) has wound itself up in a nearby tree and begun to call with great vigour. Pee-kahaan, it calls, pee-kahan(where is my beloved?) and waits to be found. Meanwhile, young couples conceal themselves behind hedges and bushes and grope and kiss under colourful dupattas. Every once in a while I hear a giggle or a gasp, but that is all. I wish some of them were bold enough to make love openly. It would be a sight to watch. 64

Most people in the park seem oblivious of the love games. They are busy walking or running. The regulars, many of whom I recognize, speed along the paved footpaths as if on urgent business. No strolling, no talking; no time for flowers or birds. A well-preserved, middle-aged woman comes jogging towards me and favours me with a smile, forgiving me for staring shamelessly at her bosom. Soon after, a very large lady in slacks marches briskly past the bench, her jiggling buttocks like giant melons. She has tied gajras on her plump wrists and walks with her head held high, swinging her arms. She is fat and flamboyant and she does not give a damn. Her confidence is delightful. I hope I will see her again. Not everyone is walking, though. There are several parties of picnickers sitting on durries, chatting loudly, with transistors blaring. They gobble parathas, pakodas, samosas and throw their empty paper plates around. Crows eagerly peck at the left-overs. There are at least a dozen cricket matches going on. The walls of t

ancient monuments are being used as wickets and fielders trample all over the flower-beds. I have a feeling these noisy hoodlums will soon drive people like me from the park. The thought is depressing. Then I turn my gaze to the Bara Gumbad, my favourite monument in the park. Its great dome rises triumphantly into the sky like a perfect breast, topped with a stiff, dark nipple. It lifts my spirits; all is well with the world again.

Born in Punjab’s Hadali village (now in Pakistan) in 1915, Khushwant Singh is one of India’s best-known and most widely read authors and columnists. He was founder-editor of Yojana, and editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India, National Herald and the Hindustan Times. His first book, The Mark of Vishnu and Other Stories, was published in 1950, and he has published several acclaimed and best-selling books of fiction and non-fiction in the six decades since. Among these are the novels Train to Pakistan, I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, Delhi, and The Company of Women; his autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice; and the two-volume A History of the Sikhs. Khushwant Singh was a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1980 to 1986. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974; he returned the award in 1984 to protest the siege of the Golden Temple by the Indian Army. In 2007, he was awarded India’s second highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan.

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B ET WEEN CLAY a nd DUST Musharraf Ali Farooqi Ustad Ramzi was once the greatest wrestler in the land, famed for his enormous strength and unmatched technique. Young apprentices flocked to his akhara to learn his craft, fans adored him, and rival wrestling clans feared his resolve that would never admit defeat. The courtesan Gohar Jan was just as renowned. Celebrated throughout the country for her beauty and the power and melodiousness of her singing, her kotha was thronged by nobles, rich men, and infatuated admirers.

Musharraf Ali Farooqiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s novel opens with a glimpse of these extraordinary characters in the twilight of their lives. Their skills are no longer what they once were, new challengers to their eminence have now arisen, their followers have melted away, and the adoring crowds are long gone. An immense catastrophe has laid waste to the country; its new inheritors and rulers have no time for the old ways and, stripped of their resources and their old powers, Ustad Ramzi and Gohar Jan must face their greatest challenge yet... Powerful and haunting, Between Clay and Dust is a triumph of storytelling and a poignant exploration of love, honour, redemption and the strength that great souls find to go on when everything is lost.

reviews

‘This is the most poignant, the most subtle, the most moving novel I have read in the past few years from this, or any, region. A natural storyteller, Farooqi imagines a world we thought we were familiar with and then pulls the rug out from under our feet…’ —Caravan Magazine ‘Between Clay and Dust is a haunting meditation on a man’s fanatical attachment to his art, status and power, and its fallout on his relationships… [M]oving, wise, and an incisive glimpse into our souls. It is also a great movie waiting to be made.’ —Open Magazine

‘Farooqi’s writing is too wise and too elegant to make this a romance instead of a tragedy. We are left with the notion that every history is underwritten by the minute, private failures of human beings. ‘ —Livemint/Wall Street Journal awa r d s

Shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2012 Longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2013

Musharraf Ali Farooqi, the author of Between Clay and Dust, was born in 1968 in Hyderabad, Pakistan, and currently lives in Lahore. His previous novel, The Story of a Widow, was shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2010. He is also the highly acclaimed translator of the Urdu classics Hoshruba and The Adventures of Amir Hamza, contemporary Urdu poet Afzal Ahmed Syed’s selected poetry and Urdu writer Syed Muhammad Ashraf ’s novel, The Beast. His children’s fiction includes The Amazing Moustaches of Moochhander the Iron Man and Other Stories, the picture book The Cobbler’s Holiday or Why Ants Don’t Wear Shoes and Tik-Tik, the Master of Time. t

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C H R ONICLE OF A CO R P SE BEA RER Cyrus Mistry

At the very edge of its many interlocking worlds, the city of Bombay conceals a near invisible community of Parsi corpse bearers, the khandhias, whose job it is to carry bodies of the deceased to the Towers of Silence. Segregated and shunned by society, often wretchedly poor, theirs is a lot that nobody would willingly espouse. Yet that’s exactly what Phiroze Elchidana, son of a revered Parsi priest, does when he falls in love with Sepideh, the daughter of an ageing khandhia...

Derived from a true story, Cyrus Mistry’s extraordinary novel is a moving account of tragic love that, at the same time, brings to vivid and unforgettable life the degradation experienced by those who inhabit the unforgiving margins of history. reviews

‘Cyrus Mistry’s new novel shines a light on a little-known segment of the Parsi community. It is brilliant and unsettling.’ —Khushwant Singh ‘[Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer] is an unflinching look at the lives of the nussesalars—the dirty little secret of the otherwise admirable Parsi community—which is presented through a combination of heart breaking candour and occasional ribald Parsi humour.’ —India Today s

‘Mistry’s pellucid prose, with many a memorable metaphor, makes for delightful reading. What lifts this narrative to greater heights is Mistry’s insight into Elchi’s milieu and mind. Peppered with grey humour, irony and tragedy, this well-crafted book is a winner.’ —Outlook

Cyrus Mistry began his writing career as a playwright, freelance journalist and short story writer. His play Doongaji House, written in 1977 when he was twenty-one, has acquired classic status in contemporary Indian theatre in English. One of his short stories was made into a Gujarati feature film. His plays and screenplays have won several awards. His first novel, The Radiance of Ashes, was published in 2005.

m o n s o on

P UNJAB A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten

Rajmohan Gandhi The book offers, perhaps for the first time, a history of the Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus of undivided Punjab over a 240-year period: from the 1707 death of Aurangzeb to the Partition of India under Mountbatten’s viceroyalty. Encompassing Punjab’s anarchic 18th century, the surprising Sikh rule that restored stability, the British conquest of Punjab, why many Punjabis assisted the Empire in suppressing the 1857 Revolt, the Punjab of the imperial high noon, how, playing on Indian divisions, the Raj undid imperial achievements, the tension between Indian freedom and the rights of Punjab’s Muslim majority, why separation occurred and its trauma was not avoided, and the future prospects, on both sides of the border, of Punjabis and Punjabiyat, the book sharpens our understanding of today’s India and Pakistan.

No text gives a better picture of life in 18thcentury Punjab than Waris Shah’s celebrated Heer, composed in 1766. Waris’s Heer superseded earlier versions because the blunt and earthy Punjabi of his verses was what the peasants spoke; because his bait metre offered the rhythm they loved; and because the love he narrated—the longing for each other in Heer and Ranjha, which Waris likened to the longing for God in each soul—was what, in reality or imagination, they too possessed. The Punjabi peasant or s

goatherd might not have known comfort or dignity, but he or she was capable of love, or of imagining it. In Waris’s story, Wahiduddin Ranjha (or Dheedo, as the village called him) was an unmarried, wayward but attractive Jat youth in Takht Hazara, east of the Jhelum, in upper Chej Doab. He loved buffaloes and his flute but, despised by his brothers and taunted by their wives—the latter resentful that Dheedo was not falling for them—he left his village and journeyed south. Before long, after crossing the Chenab and entering Jhang, he ran into Heer, the beautiful but arrogant daughter of the chief of the Siyals, who were Jats too but ranked ‘higher’ than the Ranjha clan to which Dheedo belonged.

Smitten by Dheedo, Heer found him a job as a herdsman in her father’s fields. When her ‘shameful’ love for an inferior like Dheedo was discovered, the family quickly arranged a more suitable match for Heer, but unexpected events intervened in her favour, frustrating the opposition of her parents and the views of a Qazi, who was brilliantly debated by Heer. Finally the local king and her parents appeared to permit Heer’s marriage with Dheedo. Happiness was at hand but the fates blasted it. ‘The ship sank even as it touched the shore.’ Heer was poisoned, whereupon Dheedo too ended his life. The text refers to ‘the stormy years’ when Heer was composed, but it is the older love story, not Punjab’s clashes of his time, that Waris recounts. How ‘a bleeding Punjab, turbulent and chaotic without a moment of peace and stability ’ produced powerful poetry has been explained by suggesting that despite constant t

clashes ‘there still were large areas left’, away from the routes of armies, ‘where peace prevailed’ and poetry could be composed and recited. Heer was turned to, and clung to, as knowledge of the violence, as distinct from the violence itself, spread to every corner of Punjab. Indeed, Waris himself appears ‘to have recited it to huge spell-bound audiences’. We can believe that the common people of Punjab identified with Heer and Ranjha, whose background was similar to theirs. Through the dice of war or fate, ordinary Punjabis were losing lives or loved ones. Through Heer, where love was stolen by fate, they felt closer also to those from whom love was stolen by war. In this period, there were Muslim poets besides Waris who wrote kissas or stories in the genre of Heer. Even if these other kissas did not attain equal fame, they were (and are) widely recited. The fact that none of them contained ‘an iota of communal bias or antagonism’ suggests, in the view of at least one writer, that—despite the clashes we have been recording— amity ‘among Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs… subsisted in the 18th century in Punjab’. If, therefore, we wish to imagine Punjab as it was during the last four decades of the 18th century, we can, among other things, picture to ourselves a large rural audience listening to Waris Shah—a laughing and crying audience of Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus, even perhaps including, to one side, a knot of women. Galloping horses and falling bodies should not be allowed to fill our entire mental screen. If there was war in Punjab, there was also peace.

Rajmohan Gandhi is Research Professor at the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, where he has taught courses in political science and history. His last book, A Tale of Two Revolts: India 1857 & the American Civil War (2009), looked at two 19th-century wars occurring in opposite parts of the world at almost the same time. A previous book by him, Mohandas: A True Story of a Man, His People and an Empire, received the prestigious Biennial Award from the Indian History Congress in 2007. It has since been published in several countries. In 2002 he received the Sahitya Akademi Award for his Rajaji: A Life, a biography of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1878-1972).

Other books by him include biographies of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Revenge & Reconciliation: Understanding South Asian History, and Eight Lives: A Study of the HinduMuslim Encounter.

F ILO MENA’ S JOUR NEYS Maria Aurora Couto In 1935, Filomena Borges married for love and moved from her village, Raia, to one of Goa’s most prominent and fashionable towns of the time, Margão. This move, from rural peace and simplicity to urban buzz and formality, was the first of many physical and psychological journeys she would make through a difficult life. Years later, when Filomena’s eldest child sets out to tell her mother’s story, she finds that the source of Filomena’s extraordinary strength and resilience may have been her childhood in Raia.

Filomena’s father, Joaquim Crisologo Borges, generally addressed as Crisologo, loved his wife in a quiet, undemonstrative way. Emotion—the expression of it—was reserved for amateur stage productions. He was a dreamer with literary ambitions, and it is likely that the temptation of working at his manuscript had kept him away at that critical time—the birth of his sixth child. There was also the printing to be attended to. He owned a printing press, and though he worked hard, though his work consumed him, it wasn’t a successful business. His inadequacies haunted him. He sighed, anxious to master the intricacies of typesetting; the two hours of work he had promised himself stretched into the night. He was alone, coping with the crackling machinery; its rattle grated on his nerves, disturbed his concentration. He felt his mind split into shreds with each clap of thunder and the drip, drip, drip of water from the leaky roof, behind his chair. He knew he ought to s

be at home. So many girls, he thought. Perhaps this time, it would be different. Perhaps. He needed tranquillity, peace to complete his task, to plan the layout. Santan had thought otherwise. Avo recalled that she had banged the door shut, and muttered to herself to give vent to her resentment and frustration. ‘Should he not have been here? He was so certain that it would be another son this time.’ Santan had seen his face light up in animated anticipation when talking about this possibility with his wife one Sunday when Santan had dropped in to discuss the due date and prepare herself. Lilia had said to her husband that they should pray for a healthy child, a safe delivery. Gender did not matter to her. Her only son and four daughters were all beautiful—‘My blessings,’ she called them, although there were trying times when she wept with exhaustion and exasperation. Later, the memory of his absence on that night would not let Crisologo be. Taunted by demons of guilt, listless and restless with anxiety, he tried to reach out to the living. Yet, the laughter of his children bouncing through the sala and into the backyard often strained his nerves. Except the sight of the little one, Filomena. He would watch her, unsteady on her tiny feet and fearful, her hands stretched out to find reassurance from walls, furniture, a dog in her path. He would see her staring at him and force himself to smile, but he couldn’t bring himself to approach the child and clasp her to relieve the icy chill within him. He dreaded being asked: where is Mãe? He feared the night. The recurring scene. It was always the same: Lilia smiling, bowl of canji in hand, the little frock she has embroidered for the baby on the chair by the bed. He stretches out his hand but he cannot touch her, she’s made of air. He often m

woke up screaming. His brooding despair began to affect his work. Pedro, who helped him with the press, would find him staring into space, the morning’s work untouched. He worried about the haunted look on his patrão’s face. He watched him crumble into himself. Tears flowed freely each time he recalled the morning he found his boss slumped in his chair, forehead icy cold, eyes staring into space: what had patrão done? How could he have abandoned his five children, he who was so kind and thoughtful?

In later years, Filomena never spoke of her father except to say that he was a gifted writer. If any of her children wanted to know more and pestered her, she warded them off without losing her temper. All she did reveal was that his death had been ‘a great tragedy’. Once she let slip his age: still in his forties when he died, four years after his wife. Questions about Filomena’s childhood were always deflected. She was happy to talk of the village, her cousins, her beloved uncle and aunt, her grandmother, but then came a quiet smile and steely look to signal a change of subject. Too much prying into the past did no one any good, she always said.

This is an excerpt from Maria Aurora Couto’s Filomena’s Journeys, a portrait of a marriage, a family and a culture that is based on the life of her parents. She studied in Goa, Dharwar and New Delhi (where she later taught English literature at Lady Shri Ram College). She is the author of the widely acclaimed Goa: A Daughter’s Story and Graham Greene: On the Frontier.

CO U RAG E AN D CON V ICTION An Autobiography

General V.K. Singh with Kunal Verma General V.K. Singh served in the Indian Army for forty-two years and retired as the Chief of Army Staff on 31 May 2012. One of the most decorated officers in the Armed Forces, he saw action in 1971 in Bangladesh and also in Sri Lanka as a part of the IPKF. Considered one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foremost experts in counter-insurgency operations, he was also known for the principled stand he took on many issues during his tenure, ranging from questioning arms procurement to the deployment of the Army against the Maoists. His story, written in collaboration with Kunal Verma, the author of several books on the Indian armed forces, takes us through the various stages in the life of a soldier in the Indian Army, starting from the National Defence Academy onwards. The book provides insights into the inner workings of the Army at various levels and its equation with the political establishment and the bureaucracy. Outspoken and candid, General Singhâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s autobiography is a revealing, compelling and occasionally controversial account of the Indian army as well as the story of a straight-talking officer who was never afraid to stand by his convictions.

Within a year of being commissioned into 2 Rajput, we were in action in East Pakistan. At first the battalion operated with the Mukti Bahini around Tura in Meghalaya, then fought its way to Chittagong where it accepted the surrender of a Pakistani brigade. s

ÂŠ Raghu Rai

After the Pakistani troops had surrendered, I went with a couple of officers from the battalion to the Chittagong Medical College. To our absolute horror, we had walked into a ‘race improvement camp’. Around a hundred women, most of them pregnant, stared vacantly at us. It took a while for them to understand they were free, at which point they begged us to shoot them. Repeatedly raped, they had nowhere to go with their unborn children. One had read about horrific Nazi deeds in World War II. The scene at the Medical College was just as shocking and unbelievable. After the surrender at Dhaka, similar reports of five hundredand-sixty Bengali women being rescued from Dhaka cantonment surfaced. They had been mainly picked up from the University and private homes by Pakistani soldiers and forced to work as sex slaves in military brothels. Many of these girls were also pregnant and carrying ‘war babies’. By then, most Indian army commanders were intent on limiting Mukti Bahini revenge attacks on not just Pakistani POWs but also the minority Bihari community, so the Pakistan Army as a whole got away with these atrocities. What was equally shocking was the fact that the United States, Pakistan’s main backer at the time, was fully aware of these incidents. Thirty years after the War, the US archives declassified documents that clearly state that the Nixon administration was receiving detailed reports from their own people of the ‘selective genocide’ that had been unleashed by the Pakistan Army. The fact that the United States continued to back Pakistan in Bangladesh and even sent its Seventh Fleet into the region in an attempt to influence the War, underlines how deep rooted US-Pakistan strategic ties actually are. The most horrifying part of the War was that none of the Pakistani officers (who were uniformly terrified of falling into the Mukti Bahini’s hands) showed even the slightest remorse for their deeds. m

While debriefing the POWs, I was asked by a Pakistani officer if I knew how many Bengalis could be killed with a single bullet. Seeing me gape at him in horror, he cockily said, ‘Twelve! I’ve actually tried it.’

TAG O R E FOR THE 2 1 st CENT URY REA DER Translated from the Bengali by

Arunava Sinha

Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta and is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in modern Indian literature. His reputation as a writer was established in the West after the publication of Gitanjali, which he translated into English. A poet, novelist and educator, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He was knighted in 1915, but surrendered the title in 1919 in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Tagore died in Calcutta on 7 August 1941. Tagore for the 21st Century Reader is part of the Aleph Classics library.

‘dead or alive’ It is difficult to explain how Kadambini returned to Ranihat. But she did not show herself to anyone at first, spending the day without food in a ruined temple. from

When the monsoon evening descended early, and villagers anxiously took shelter in their homes in anticipation of the deluge, Kadambini went out on to the road. At the threshold of her in-laws’ house she felt a moment of panic, but when she entered, her face covered by the end of her sari, the doormen mistook her for a maid and did not block her way—the rain intensified at this moment, and the wind picked up.

ÂŠ Bena Sareen

The lady of the house, Sharadashankar’s wife, was playing cards with her husband’s widowed sister. The maid was in the kitchen and Khoka, who was ill with a fever, was sleeping in the bedroom. Evading everyone’s eyes, Kadambini arrived in the bedroom. She did not know herself what impulse had brought her to her in-laws’ house, but she did know that she wanted to set eyes on the little boy one more time. She had not thought of where she would go or what would happen thereafter. In the light of the lamp she saw the sickly little boy sleeping with his hands clenched tightly. The sight made her agitated heart yearn—how could she live without clasping the child with all his sickness to her bosom at least once? She thought, ‘Now that I am gone, who will look after him here? His mother enjoys company, enjoys chatting with people, a game of cards—she was happy all this while entrusting the responsibility for the child to me, she had never had to bear the burden of bringing him up. Who will take care of him now?’ The little boy turned on his side, saying in his sleep, ‘Water, Kakima.’ Oh my god. You haven’t forgotten your Kakima, my darling! Quickly pouring out a glass of water from the pitcher in the corner, Kadambini took the child in her arms and gave him the water. As long as he was under the influence of sleep, the boy was not in the least surprised to have his aunt giving him his glass of water. When she had fulfilled her long cherished desire and tucked him back into bed after kissing him, he woke up. Putting his arms around her, he said, ‘Did you die, Kakima?’ ‘Yes, Khoka,’ she replied. m

‘You’ve come back to Khoka now? You won’t die again?’ Before she could answer there was a commotion—about to enter the room with a bowl of food for the boy, the maid dropped it with a clatter and collapsed on the floor, exclaiming ‘Oh!’ The lady of the house came running at the sound, her cards forgotten. She was petrified the moment she entered, unable to speak or to make her escape. All this scared the little boy, who sobbed loudly, saying, ‘Go away, Kakima.’

After a long time, Kadambini was feeling today as though she had not died—the familiar house, everything, the boy, her love for him, all of it was as alive as it had ever been, she could sense no gap, no gulf… ‘Why are you afraid of me, Didi?’ she pleaded. ‘Look at me, I’m just as I always was.’ The lady of the house could stay on her feet no longer, she fainted in a heap on the floor. Informed by his sister, Sharadashankar-babu appeared personally in the ladies’ chambers. His palms joined in supplication, he said, ‘Is this fair, Chhotobouma? Satish is my only male heir, why must you cast your eye on him? Are we not your family? Ever since you went he has been wasting away, his illness won’t leave him, he calls for you all the time. Since you have left the world, you must cut the strings now—we will perform your last rites suitably.’ t

Kadambini could take it no longer, she cried out frantically, ‘But I am not dead, I am not dead. How do I convince all of you I am not dead? Look, I am alive.’ Seizing the metal bowl from the floor, she struck herself on the forehead with it and her forehead began to bleed. ‘Look, I am alive,’ she said. Sharadashankar was transfixed, like a statue. The little boy called out to him in fear. The two women who had fainted remained on the floor. Shouting, ‘I am not dead, I am not dead, not dead,’ Kadambini left the room, climbed down the stairs and plunged into the pond behind the ladies’ chambers. Sharadashankar heard a splash from the room upstairs. It rained incessantly all night and the next morning—the rain did not let up in the afternoon either. Kadambini died to prove that she had not died.

Arunava Sinha translates classic and contemporary Bengali fiction and non-fiction into English. Seventeen of his translations have been published so far, two of which have won the Crossword translation award. Arunava Sinha was born and grew up in Kolkata, and lives and writes in New Delhi.

ÂŠ Prashant Sareen

D EG R EE CO FF EE BY THE YARD A Short Biography of Madras

Nirmala Lakshman Madras, which was renamed Chennai in 1996, is one of India’s oldest cities, and has been a major administrative, cultural and trading centre from approximately the first century CE. The seat of various Tamil dynasties, it was the first substantial stronghold of the British Raj, and has been the capital of Tamil Nadu since India achieved independence. It has about it several unique characteristics which set it apart from every other major urban agglomeration in the country.

Coffee was a big deal in my family, especially in my mother’s home—visitors always remarked on its unmatched quality. The family moved to Madras from Thanjavur in the fifties and brought with it a passion for coffee and a passion for intellectual pursuits—politics, philosophy and public affairs. There were lengthy discussions in the household at all times of the day and night on the major events of the day, and these were usually presided over by my grandfather who was deeply involved in the freedom movement and Gandhian politics. It seemed to me, as a small girl visiting my grandparents, that tumblers of strong, delicious coffee were available at all times of the day; sometimes these were sweet enough for a child but they s

were usually brewed strong and dark, like a supernatural drink that could bestow special powers on the drinker. My mother feared that her children would succumb to coffee’s allure, so while we were allowed to savour the aroma, we were forbidden to consume even a small fraction of the ample litres that were made every day. I remember how at four o’clock the milkman or paal karan would appear at my grandfather’s gate with his doleful cow, and would call out to the household to witness the milking and the subsequent transfer of the milk into a container. The container would be closely examined to ensure that there was no water already in it to add volume to the milk.

The milkman also sold packaged buffalo milk. My grandmother was tight-lipped about which creature’s milk went into the wondrous coffee that was served in her home. There were heated discussions between my uncles and grandfather about which milk made the best coffee (buffalo milk was the right answer) but I really doubt whether these discussions had any bearing on the matter: my serene, gentle grandmother would never let the whims of ‘nonprofessionals’ desecrate the sanctity of her recipe. An addendum to this is that as young parents we too wanted to continue the tradition of using fresh milk for our children only to discover one day (much to our horror) that the milkman had been regularly injecting the cow with a lactation enhancing drug at our gate just before milking. With this the idea of fresh milk was put out to pasture. The arrangement to obtain fresh milk would have had to be abandoned anyway as subsequently the Chennai Corporation issued a decree banning the presence of cows and buffalos in the city. Like most Indian cities Chennai became a consumer of packaged milk and with it came a subtle shift in the taste of filter coffee. t

To get back to my childhood experience of coffee, my mother had us wait until we were twelve or thirteen before we were allowed our first cup of coffee. We were restricted to one cup a day. We took great pleasure not only in the taste of coffee but also in the experience of drinking it—handling the customary tumbler and dabara (a traditional saucer with four-inch high sides) from which the coffee was drunk because to a certain extent it certified us as grown-ups. Our greatest delight was to raise our tumblers and pour the hot liquid from as great a height as we could into the dabara in order to cool it to a temperature at which we could drink it. This up-anddown movement, alternately transferring the coffee from dabara to tumbler, would enhance the frothiness of the drink, and a mean head of foam would ultimately crown the surface of the coffee.

Nirmala Lakshman is a journalist and Director of The Hindu, and has held senior editorial positions at the newspaper for more than three decades. She founded The Hindu Literary Review, and conceptualized and developed Young World, India’s only children’s newspaper supplement. She is the editor of an anthology of contemporary Indian journalism, Writing a Nation. Nirmala has a Ph.D. in postmodern fiction from Madras University and a master’s degree in English from the United States. She serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Foundation of India and is the Chairperson of its Media Fellowship Programme. She is also on the board of Pradhan, a prominent development organization.

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ACCI DENTAL IN DIA A History of the Nation’s Passage Through Crisis and Change

Shankkar Aiyar India in the 21st century is better off than it has ever been since the country achieved independence in 1947. Yet, the nation always seems to be teetering on the brink of disaster. The chronicle of the modern Indian state is one of missed opportunities, poor planning and shoddy execution, punctuated by a few shining examples of initiatives which have actually delivered. It would seem that everything the country has achieved has arrived by accident, catalysed by calamity. Is India’s inability to fulfil its potential—and achieve the superpower status it craves—a cultural and political flaw? In this learned and original work, Shankkar Aiyar examines India’s ascent through the paradigm of seven game changers: the economic liberalization of 1991, the Green Revolution of the sixties, the nationalization of banks in 1969, Operation Flood in the seventies, the mid-day meal scheme of 1982, the software revolution of the nineties, and the passing of the Right to Information Act in 2005. These turning points in the country’s history were not the result of foresight or careful planning but were rather the accidental consequences of major crises that had to be resolved at any cost. Through first-hand investigation and a thorough analysis of these

milestones, the author argues that, in order to be effective and bring about lasting change, India’s leaders must radically redefine the way they intend to meet the multiple challenges the country currently faces. If the lessons of history cannot be absorbed, the nation will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis.

reviews

‘Crisply written, engaging and thoroughly researched…introduces readers to the enablers who worked behind the scenes to keep India from tipping into disaster.’ —DNA

‘Written with a sharp eye for detail, the tract in somebody else’s hand could have become mechanical and verbose. But Aiyar knows how to write, apart from how to marshal his facts.’ —Sahara Times ‘Accidental India offers an alternate lens on modern India.’ —Business Standard

Journalist-analyst Shankkar Aiyar scooped the news of India pledging its gold reserves to the Bank of England during its worst economic crisis since the country achieved independence. His exposé of the hush-hush operation brought home to Indians, and the world, the magnitude of India’s woes. He has broken numerous front-page news reports and written over a hundred magazine cover stories. An award-winning journalist and columnist, he specializes in the interface of politics and economics. Aiyar has authored India’s Socio-economic Fault Line, a study of the country’s hundred worst districts. His research on twenty-five years of political t

corruption, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Smoking Gunsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, is part of the anthology, Writing a Nation. He majored in economics from Bombay University and has been a Wolfson Chevening Fellow at Cambridge University where he studied the life cycles of emerging economies.

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TI G ER F IR E The Definitive Book of the Indian Tiger Written & edited by

Valmik Thapar Tiger Fire is the definitive book of the Indian tiger by the world’s leading authority on the animal, Valmik Thapar. The product of four decades of research, reading and observation, this book brings together the best of 500 years of writing (from the earliest recorded encounter with the animal, found in the Baburnama, the autobiography of the first Mughal Emperor, Babur) art and photography on Panthera tigris tigris.

from the origins of the tiger b y va l m i k t h a pa r

Zoologists and other animal experts call the majestic striped big cat commonly known as the tiger, Panthera tigris. Panthera is the name given to the genus (group) of the four big cats in the world that have the ability to roar with spine-chilling effect—the tiger, lion, leopard and jaguar—although technically tigers do not roar in the same way lions and leopards do. The snow leopard has sometimes been classed as Panthera, although nowadays it is placed in its own genus, Uncia, and is believed to have diverged from Panthera about four million years ago. Roaring is made possible by the vibration of thickened vocal folds just below the vocal cords in the larynx. Snow leopards have less well-developed vocal folds and are thus not quite Panthera, whereas the smaller cats, which can only purr and scream, have narrow vocal folds. Tigris—the species name that differentiates s

the tiger from the other members of the genus, Panthera leo (lion), Panthera pardus(leopard) and Panthera onca(jaguar)—is classical Greek for ‘arrow’, from which both the straight and fast-flowing river Tigris and the speedy tiger get their names. from advent u r e s i n i n d i a by w . h . g . k i ngston (1880):

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As I had no gun, I took one of the pistols, with poor Staunton’s sword, and set out, accompanied by the little Ghoorka, in the hopes of knocking over a few birds, for I could not expect to kill any larger game. My companion was a short distance ahead of me, in an open part of the jungle, when I heard a roar, and presently caught sight of a huge tiger, creeping out from among the bushes. I expected to see the Ghoorka retreat to a tree near at hand, up which he might quickly have ascended: however, instead of doing so, he firmly stood his ground, eyeing the tiger. Had I possessed a rifle I should have remained where I was, but as there was close to me a tree with easily accessible branches, I stepped back until I got behind it, when, grasping one of the lower boughs, I swung myself up as rapidly as I could, until I was beyond the tiger’s reach. I did not feel that I was deserting my companion, because I saw that he was in no way afraid of the tiger. I guessed, indeed, that he could manage the brute quite as well by himself as with any assistance I might give him. I was not mistaken. The Ghoorka, waving his hookery—the only weapon he possessed—then shouted, and, stopping for an instant, stepped back a pace or two to induce the tiger to come on. I watched him anxiously. Out sprang the tiger, when with wonderful agility the Ghoorka leaped to the left, delivering a blow which cut off the animal’s right paw as it bounded on. On reaching the ground it looked round at its foe, and now, furious with pain and rage, made another spring at t

the Ghoorka; but he was as active as the tiger, and had also sprung round so as to be on the side of the disabled paw, with which it endeavoured to strike at him, but the blow was harmless, and was again avoided. The tiger, roaring and excited to the greatest fury by the pain it was enduring, once more sprang at the man; but as it did so he delivered a stroke at its throat which well nigh severed its head from its body. But the brute was not dead, and, still animated by rage, it was preparing for a last effort. As the Ghoorka stood watching it with his brilliantly black eyes, it made a final spring, this time to receive a blow on the back of the neck, which severed its spine. Over it rolled, and lay motionless. ‘You may come down, saib!’ shouted the Ghoorka, as he wiped his hookery on the grass, ‘the tiger will harm no one now. You did wisely to get out of its way, for by remaining on the ground you would only have impeded my movements, and would very likely have been seized by the tiger before I could rescue you.’ I agreed in this, and complimented him especially on his achievement, of which, however, he seemed to think but little. We greatly astonished our friends in camp when we returned with the tiger’s head and skin, for as they had not heard a shot they could scarcely believe that so fierce an encounter had been going on close to them. (1960): I was making for a strip of scrub jungle that fringes the bank of a large nullah. In there, if the peafowl eluded me, I might later put up some pig or come across a barking deer or a chital stag. Through this jungle runs a smaller nullah that joins the larger one. This is about ten feet wide and some six deep and I dropped down to its f rom the lonely t i g e r by h u g h a l l e n

sandy bed when I reached it. The banks are lined with many kinds of jungle trees. That day some of these were already in full leaf while others were performing that yearly miracle of producing delicate little leaves and buds from a rock-like soil seemingly devoid of a drop of moisture. Peafowl are difficult to surprise, but a stalk along the sandy bed of the nullah could be made in silence. A little farther down I hoped to find some of the birds feeding and get a shot before they could fly out of range. I started to creep forward and kept going for about ten minutes. Then, while edging round a bend, I was suddenly stopped dead.

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Just in front of me and apparently asleep under a patch of shade was a large leopard stretched on the sand. But there was something wrong. A closer look showed that its attitude was unnatural. The head was twisted grotesquely and one forepaw was slightly bent and held drunkenly in the air. The leopard was dead. As I started to approach it my nose told me that it had been dead for some time. A swarm of blue flies buzzed up as I came nearer and wafted the sickly-sweet smell of death more strongly to my nostrils. Something had eaten a small part of the hind-quarters and the sand all round the leopard was wildly churned; the sand was too dry to show what animal had been feeding. I began to look around me and almost at once spotted something else. A little farther down the nullah, hard against one bank, were the remains of what had once been a chital stag. All that was left now was the head, a few pieces of skin and splintered bone, and two almost whole ribs. Both animals had been dead for about two days, and I was just t

beginning to wonder what had happened when I noticed that a small flame-of-the-forest tree had fallen across the nullah some ten yards further down. It was blocking the nullah completely, but starting not far in front of it I could see in the sand the mark of a drag which disappeared into the foliage of the fallen tree; something heavy had been dragged through to the other side. I went up to the tree and, after tearing away some of the leaves and smaller branches, saw something black lying within two yards of me. It was the dead body of a huge wild boar. I climbed over the tree and looked down at it. The mask was set in a ferocious snarl and the one tush I could see was stained brown with congealed blood. The remains were fresh, the meat hardly tainted; but the body of the boar had been horribly ripped and torn and once again a little had been eaten off the hind-quarters. This was the work of a tiger, and if that bloodstained tush meant what I thought it did, the tiger had not had the fight all his own way. As I got up from examining the boar I suddenly realized that the jungle around me was strangely quiet. I looked up at the trees for vultures and found not a single one in sight. The truth came to me in the next second. Somewhere close at hand the tiger was lying up. It had to be: with the dead leopard lying pretty much in the open that was the only explanation for no vultures. It was now just six oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock and a little darker than usual. The black clouds I had noticed when leaving the house had crept up overhead and muffled thunder was vibrating in the stifling air. All at once I made for the bank and climbed quickly out of the nullah; its sandy bed now was an unhealthy spot for this was a likely time for the tiger to return for a feed. Once at the top of the bank I moved to a clump of saplings and stood listening. The jungle here was a

still scrub but very thick; the previous year it had been cut over and now, with the amazing rapidity with which forests revive, the old stumps had sent up several shoots to a height of many feet. Visibility in any direction was only a few yards. As I stood on the bank listening I was a little uneasy. To be so near the kills at a time when the tiger might come back to feed was asking for trouble, and I should have liked to know if it had already either seen or heard me. I was still thinking about that when, without the slightest warning, the tiger appeared about five yards in front of me.

Valmik Thapar has written twenty-seven books on the Indian Tiger. For a complete biographical note on the author, please turn to page 14. 108

IN DIA IN LOV E Love, Sex and Marriage in 21 St Century India

Ira Trivedi Economic prosperity and urbanization have had a tremendous impact on our society, and many of the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s traditional values have been jettisoned or entirely reinvented. Nowhere is this more visible than in the way we fall in love, view marriage and disregard sexual taboos. In her path-breaking book, the author presents, through real-life stories of phenomena like gay love, the mating game on college campuses, arranged marriage, divorce and the burgeoning porn industry, a comprehensive portrait of love, sex and marriage in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s India.

the marriage broker

Gopal Suri is a heavy-set man who is always dressed in tight shirts and black jeans. He wears shiny pointed shoes in the summer and cowboy boots in the winter. He has weasel eyes and reading glasses, which dangle from a long golden chain around his thick neck. He is bald, the gleam of his cranium matching that of his shoes. He works out regularly and his massive chest stretches the material of his shirt. His speech is staccato, and his manner is direct, almost fierce. He is not at all what I imagine a marriage broker to be; his general demeanour would be more fitting for a gangster or a hard-nosed businessman in the import-export trade.

ÂŠ Valay Singh Rai

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Since he started the A-Z Matrimonial Agency over a decade ago, he tells me he has arranged over a thousand marriages worldwide. I am impressed by the efficiency of the organization, which is run like a boutique investment bank or wealth-management firm. Individual teams, comprising persistent young women in their early twenties, are dedicated to different segments of society ranging from the middle-class to the elite. There is an in-house astrology team, which is made up of two technologically savvy young men who pull up birth charts on laptops, and a detective team, headed by a cranky retired colonel, which performs background checks on listed clients. A-Z has an extensive menu of services and various matrimonial packages: Middle-class, Upper-middle, Elite, Super Elite, and, lastly, a Superb Elite category. Gopal Suri, bursting with pride, tells me that this is something he invented. Being registered in a higher bracket gives you access to wealthier people. There is an option to upgrade. The agency’s brochure, filled with pictures of happy newlyweds (including one non-Indian, blonde-haired, blue-eyed couple), proclaims that it will take care of everything necessary to conclude a successful marriage. Its services include ‘showing’ the girl, relaying messages between the families concerned, supervising boy-girl meetings, negotiating wedding budgets, and being present at all wedding functions, from the engagement to the wedding reception. This investment banker of love specializes in organizing ‘live deals’—the term the agency uses to describe marriages sounds like something from the Goldman Sachs M&A (mergers and acquisitions) department. Gopal Suri’s language has its own idiosyncrasies, its own syntax, a

its own vocabulary, and its own grammar. This language has its origins in the matrimonial ads found in newspapers. No matter what the age of the clients, they are called ‘children’ or ‘kids’ if they are unmarried. In Gopal Suri’s world if you are not married you will always be a girl or a boy. If the girl or the boy is listed at A-Z, they are referred to as ‘those in question’. The girl’s family is referred to as ‘girl’s-side’, and the boy’s as ‘boy’s-side’, or simply as ‘the party’ or ‘interested party’. For example Gopalji (as I had taken to calling him) would tell me that ‘a party’ had called him to discuss negotiations. The crucial factor of age is relayed not by the client’s actual age but by the year in which s/he was born. So I would be ‘’84-born’ instead of twenty-seven, a thirty-year-old would be ‘’81-born’. The ‘budget’ is the amount of money the girl’s side is willing to spend on the wedding. 112

I befriend an employee of the agency, who is also a client. Sheena is a photographer and shoots pictures of A-Z’s clients; these will be attached to their CVs. She shows me some of her work—a girl sitting on her bed hugging a petal-pink fluffy teddy bear, her long hair styled perfectly. Sheena points out that she is wearing a salwaar kameez. Gopalji suggests that all the photographs be taken in Indian clothes or conservative western clothing, like a long skirt or jeans with a long-sleeved top. She shows me another one of a ‘boy’ (though in reality he looks distinctly middle-aged) wearing a tight t-shirt and standing next to his car, his hands folded selfconsciously over his belly. Sheena says that she likes to portray her clients’ hobbies or interests and passions through her photographs. The girl in the salwaar kameez loves stuffed toys; the boy loves cars and bikes. Sheena is thirty-two and looking for a match. Over the past five years that her family has been looking for a groom for her, she has t

met over fifty boys, primarily from online websites that her mother haunts. She tells me that the boys whom she meets online seem interested only in dating. In the beginning it was fun and interesting to flirt online, to email and to call each other, but apparently after the boys met her in person they didn’t seem interested in discussing marriage. They didn’t want to meet her parents or introduce her to theirs. After being frustrated many times over, Sheena felt it would be better to use the services of a marriage broker like Gopal Suri, so at least she wouldn’t get ‘duped by the boy’.

Ira Trivedi is the author of three works of fiction, There is No Love on Wall Street (2011),The Great Indian Love Story (2009), and What Would You Do to Save the World (2006.) She writes extensively for publications such as the Hindustan Times, Outlook and Forbes. When she is not writing, travelling or teaching yoga, Ira is a connoisseur of the darkest of chocolates and the bitterest of green teas. She makes her own chocolate and grows her own tea.

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Dream Villa 3 ÂŠ Dayanita Singh

G RAN D DELUSIONs A Short Biography of Calcutta

Indrajit Hazra As distinctive and full of surprises as anything he’s written, Indrajit Hazra’s exploration of Calcutta goes beyond the clichés about a metropolis that has been mined for its clichés by a long line of writers, artists, grumblers and tellers of tall tales. Part personal essay, part documentary, part cultural history, Grand Delusions is both intimate and provocative, and shines new light on a great and fascinating city.

‘The sun goes around the Earth once in a year.’ This line in wobbly English, on old concrete, is accompanied by a text-book sketch that shows a tiny Sun orbiting a giant Earth marked by angles of inclination and the position of the Pole Star. The message relays a fact, not an opinion. There is another statement of fact that comes as a corollary: ‘There is no life on the Mars, because Mars is not stationary as the Earth in the space.’ The guerrilla graffiti of Kartick Chandra Paul has been around since the mid-1980s, the time I started being a full-fledged observer of and participant in that experiment of a city called Calcutta. As a schoolboy, I would encounter the same geocentric message, the same diagram scrawled across the walls of houses, colleges, offices, cinemas, sweet-shops and on walls that guarded private plots of wild growth from public streets. This astronomical lesson was s

a counterpoint to the other, more pervasive variety of graffiti— political messages, caricatures and cartoons, with the ubiquitous hammer-and-sickle insignia or the hand of the Congress (it still mattered back then). Contrasted with this form of visual hysteria, K.C. Paul’s stern ruminations on a Ptolemaic universe had the air of Truth, so what if it was the wrong Truth.

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Paul’s scrawls were once everywhere. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, with blue-and-white striped flyovers and giant billboards advertising television reality shows and jewellery, there are far fewer signs to tell us that the Sun revolves round the Earth. The political graffiti has also almost vanished after the government of the time invoked the West Bengal Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 2006—not because of a sudden aesthetic awakening but to ensure that the rising rival political force of a street-fighting lady in chappals would not out-graffiti the ruling party. But on a wall under the flyover next to a busy Sealdah station coughing out and sucking in thousands of people, I found one whitewashed wall, turned grimy with dust and piss, which told me, to my bewildered delight, that the quiet heretic K.C. Paul was still around. The seventy-three-year-old man from Howrah has now moved more literally to the streets, setting up shop and bed at a busy south Calcutta crossing next to a bus stand. A Class 8 drop out, Paul worked as an apprentice with a car mechanic before joining the Indian army where, in 1962, he made his discovery. He had even written a letter to NASA, pointing out how Copernicus and company had got it very wrong. NASA’s polite letter that the heliocentric theory worked just fine for the world did not deter him. ‘There isn’t any demand now [for my pamphlets]. But as soon t

as I am proved correct, people will flock in the thousands to buy them,’ Paul had told a friend of mine who met him in 1988. In 2012, he told a reporter, ‘All those who ignore me today will have to come back one day and admit that I was telling the truth.’ K.C. Paul’s story is joined at the hip with that of his city, which still believes in its utterly special, if no longer central, position in the country it is a part of. Not commerce, not political power, not IT can displace ‘shonshkriti’, that most non-material and therefore most lasting of all things. And where else is shonshkriti to be found but in the ‘cultural capital of India’? If the present government’s project is to make Calcutta a ‘second London’, this is a more banal version of Calcutta’s supreme belief in its cultural superiority through what Schopenhauer termed the Will: ‘a mindless, aimless, non-rational urge at the foundation of instinctual drives and at the foundational being of everything’. Through the 80s and 90s, I grew up in a Calcutta that considered itself to be barely part of the hinterland of India, an island of culture and genteelness in which Dum Dum Airport connected to Heathrow and JFK, while Delhi and Bombay were Indian cities ‘out there somewhere’. Such delusions that have held up the city have also been protective for a metropolis in dysfunction and disrepair. Things fall apart and yet, like Magritte’s floating castle in the air, Calcutta exists.

~ Is it easier for someone like me, who lived in this city, held up by imagined and imaginary longings, for almost thirty years, to make sense of it? By knowing it intimately—if not well, the two being different things—I was part of this giant experiment in delusion. By leaving it, and having lived away from it for the last fifteen a

years—in another deluded metropolis; the city to which the capital of British India shifted from Calcutta in 1911—do I see my old home more clearly? After all, you don’t see the Mona Lisa from inside the frame; you have to stand in front of it. And yet, my feelings for this city that has greatly formed me are intricately tied to my experience of things that lie like concentric circles within it: family, friends, routes, myths and the view of the world from within this aquarium. And these feelings mark the way I see Calcutta. So while there are many meeting points between my notion of Calcutta and the Calcutta that ‘lies spread out there’, I can’t write a history of the city in the empirical, objective sense. I can only write a biased, coloured, palimpsestic story of a village that pretends to be a city. 118

Indrajit Hazra is a novelist and journalist. He was educated at St Xavier’s Collegiate School and Jadavpur University. He moved to New Delhi in 1998, where he wrote and published three novels—The Burnt Forehead of Max Saul, The Garden of Earthly Delights and The Bioscope Man—all set in Calcutta. He is currently working on his fourth novel, set in nearcontemporary Delhi. He writes the popular Sunday column ‘Red Herring’ in the Hindustan Times. Grand Delusions is his first book of non-fiction.

MU TTON KOR MA AT SHOKKYS’ Five Seasons in Old Delhi

Pamela Timms

The author and her family left damp and dour Scotland, where jobs were scarce and sunny days even more so, ready for an adventure of epic proportions in India. A year later, she was heading for disappointment, with life in Delhi’s expat bubble offering little chance of experiencing the ‘real’ India. And then, unexpectedly, she found a kind of refuge in the medieval chaos of the Old City where she stumbled upon a secret world that would fundamentally change her life.

The monsoon has done its best and worst. The skies have been washed blue and the colour green pops back into our lives; foliage desiccated by dust and drought for most of the year now gleams with vitality; parks, roundabouts, verges, even cracks in the pavement briefly sprout new growth. Heavy rains have ensured the farmers’ crops are safe for another year but the city’s drainage system has buckled under the annual deluge and flooding has gouged huge potholes in the roads. Much of Old Delhi resembles an archaeological dig, with rickshaw-wallahs and cart-pullers frequently toppling into giant craters. Although it’s still hot and humid, by the end of September there are signs that cooler days are on the way. The incessant hum and drip of air conditioners, the soundtrack to our summer, fades and as we throw open the windows, the sights, sounds and smells of our s

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neighbourhood start to press in again. I realize that for the last six months I have been without the tinkling bells of a neighbour’s early morning puja and the call of the muezzin from the mosque on the corner; I’ve missed the wafts of singed rotis and the elderly couple who potter around on their roof listening to All India Radio. Less welcome is the sight of the tubby, stubbly men in baggy grey vests walking up and down scratching their bellies as I drink my morning tea on the terrace. Even more alarming is the neighbour who seems to have developed a taste for all-nighter sessions of what sounds like The Dark Side of the Moon in Hindi. But, like the first swallow of an English spring, the truest and most welcome sign of cooler days ahead in Delhi is the arrival of the first shakarkandi-wallah. I spot him one morning when I’m wandering aimlessly in the backstreets of Ballimaran, relishing being outdoors for the first time in months. Similarly liberated from his summer hibernation, he strides through the gullies, beaming broadly, with a folded bamboo stand over his shoulder and a tray on his head. I see the tray first, bobbing above the crowds, its mound of pink, wrinkled, roasted sweet potatoes dotted with sunny lemons and kamrakh. As he approaches, I catch his eye to make him stop for me. He unfolds the stand, swings the tray down on top of it then selects a sweet potato from the embers. He cuts it in half and chops flesh the colour of soft winter sunshine into bite-sized chunks then tips the pieces into a small dried leaf plate, dresses them with lemon juice and a sprinkling of chaat masala and, with an expert flick of his wrist, mixes the whole lot together before inserting a toothpick and handing it to me. With a few stabs of the toothpick the tapas-sized, twenty-rupee portion is gone, every smoky, sweet, sour, spicy mouthful devoured greedily. Shakarkandi is one of Old Delhi’s healthiest snacks and a

yet even without ghee, sugar, salt or the slightest contact with a vat of bubbling oil, it manages to taste both comforting and indulgent. With the first mouthful my mental food calendar clicks over to a new season and suddenly I’m looking forward to bolstering winter dishes: the pies and stews which I’ll make at home over the next few months as well as the street food - the kebabs and aloo tikkis, the halwa and jalebis - whose smells will become almost unbearably desirable as the air cools.

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By December, sweet potatoes will be ubiquitous, piled high on carts all over the old city. Then, as temperatures plummet, their role will be more straightforwardly sustaining; they’ll be parcelled up by the dozen and carried back to homes in every gully to warm up old bones, sustain famished and freezing day labourers and help keep shivering traders on their feet till dinner time. But for now, this first soft sweet mouthful is a reminder that if the mango is God’s way of helping us endure the Indian summer, the sweet potato is our reward for surviving it.

Pamela Timms is a Scottish-born journalist who became a food writer when she moved to India and discovered a passion for its street food. She studied at the University of East Anglia and the Sorbonne, then began her working life in Paris. She returned to London to work for children’s charities before moving back to Scotland where she became a columnist with the Glasgow Herald. In 2005, she moved to India and started a blog, eat and dust. She writes the ‘Piece of Cake’ baking column for Mint, and organizes Uparwali Chai or high tea events in Delhi where she lives with her husband and three children.

TALES OF FOSTER GANJ Ruskin Bond ‘Straddling a spur of the Mussoorie range, as it dips into the Doon valley, Fosterganj came into existence almost two hundred years ago and was almost immediately forgotten.’ Thus begins Ruskin Bond’s new novel. When he has finished telling us stories of this sleepy hamlet, Bond has ensured it will never be forgotten.

I forget what took me to Fosterganj. Destiny, perhaps, although I’m not sure why destiny would have bothered to guide an itinerant writer to an obscure little hamlet in the hills. Chance would be a better word. For chance plays a great part in all our lives. And it was just by chance that I found myself in the Fosterganj bazaar one morning early in May. The oaks and maples were in new leaf; geraniums flourished on sunny balconies; a boy delivering milk whistled a catchy Rajesh Khanna song; a mule train clattered down the street. The chill of winter had gone, there was warmth in the sunshine that played upon old walls. I sat in a tea-shop, tested my teeth on an old bun, and washed it down with milky tea. The bun had been around for some time, but so had I, so we were quits. At the age of forty I could digest almost anything. The tea-shop owner, Melaram, was a friendly sort, as are most tea-shop owners, and when I told him of my decision to stay in Fosterganj for some time, he directed me to the local bakery. s

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Ruskin Bond with friends, mid-1960s.

Hassan, the local baker, had a room above his shop which he let out to the occasional summer visitor. An affable man, he was the father of a dozen children; I say dozen at random, because I never did get to ascertain the exact number as they were never in one place at the same time. However, they did not live in the room above the bakery, which was much too small, but in a rambling old building below the bazaar, which housed a number of large families—the baker’s, the tailor’s, the postman’s, among others. I was shown the room. It was scantily furnished, the bed taking up almost half the space. A small table and chair stood near the window. Windows are important. I find it impossible to live in a room without a window. This one provided a view of the street and the buildings on the other side. Nothing very inspiring, but at least it wouldn’t be dull. ‘Fifty rupees a month,’ said Hassan, and I gave him two months’ rent on the spot. ‘I’ll move in next week,’ I said. ‘First, I have to bring my books from Delhi.’ On my way back to the town I took a shortcut through the forest. A swarm of yellow butterflies drifted across the path. A woodpecker pecked industriously on the bark of a tree, searching for young cicadas. Overhead, wild duck flew north, on their way across Central Asia, all travelling without passports.

~ I hoped to finish a novel during my time in Fosterganj, or at least some short stories for magazines. But there was something about the atmosphere of the place that discouraged any kind a

of serious work or effort. Tucked away in a fold in the hills, a kind of Sleepy Hollow, its inhabitants had begun to resemble their surroundings: one old man resembled a willow bent by rain and wind; an elderly lady with her umbrella reminded me of a colourful mushroom, quite possibly poisonous; my good bakercum-landlord looked like a bit of the hillside, scarred and uneven but stable; the children were like young grass, coming up all over the place; the adolescents were like nettles, you never knew if they would sting when touched; there was a pretty girl like the blue sky opening up. And there was no brighter blue than the sky as seen from Fosterganj on a clear day.

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It took me some time to get to know all the inhabitants. But one of the first was Professor Lulla, recently retired, who came hurrying down the road like the White Rabbit in Alice, glancing at his watch and muttering to himself. If, like the White Rabbit, he was saying ‘I’m late, I’m late!’ I wouldn’t have been at all surprised. I was standing outside the bakery, chatting to one of the children, when he came up to me, adjusted his spectacles, peered at me through murky lenses and said, ‘Welcome to Fosterganj, sir. I believe you’ve come to stay for the season.’ ‘I’m not sure how long I’ll stay,’ I said. ‘But thank you for your welcome.’ ‘We must get together and have a cultural and cultured exchange,’ he said, rather pompously. ‘Not many intellectuals in Fosterganj, you know.’ ‘I was hoping there wouldn’t be.’ ‘But we’ll talk, we’ll talk. Only can’t stop now. I have a funeral to t

attend. Eleven o’clock at the Camel’s Back Cemetery. Would you care to join me?’ ‘Er—I’m not in the party mood,’ I said. ‘And I don’t think I knew the deceased.’ ‘Old Miss Gamleh. Would have been ninety next month. Wonderful woman. Hated chhokra-boys.’ He looked distastefully at the boy grinning up at him. ‘Stole all her plums, if the monkeys didn’t get them first. Spent all her life in the hill station. Never married. Jilted by a weedy British colonel, awful fellow, even made off with her savings. But she managed on her own. Kept poultry, sold eggs to the hotels. Even to your Hassan, who thinks she’s a flower pot!’ ‘What happens to the poultry now?’ I asked. ‘Oh, hens can look after themselves,’ he said airily. ‘But I can’t linger or I’ll be late. It’s a long walk to the cemetery.’ And he set off in determined fashion, like Scott of the Antarctic about to brave a blizzard. ‘Must have been a close friend, the old lady who passed away,’ I remarked. ‘Not at all,’ said Hassan, who had been standing in his doorway listening to the conversation. ‘I doubt if she ever spoke to him. But Professor Lulla never misses a funeral. He goes to all of them— cremations, burials, funerals of any well-known person, even strangers. It’s a hobby with him.’ ‘Extraordinary,’ I said. ‘I thought collecting match-box labels was sad enough as a hobby. Doesn’t it depress him?’ a

‘Oh no. On the contrary, it seems to cheer him up. But I must go too, sir. If you don’t mind keeping an eye on the bakery for an hour or two, I’ll hurry along to the funeral and see if I can get her poultry cheap. Miss Gamla’s hens give good eggs, I’m told. Little Ali will look after the customers, sir. All you have to do is see that they don’t make off with the buns and cream rolls.’ I don’t know if Hassan attended the funeral, but he came back with two baskets filled with cackling hens and a rooster to keep them company.

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One of India’s finest and most popular storytellers, Ruskin Bond is the author of several bestselling novels and collections of short stories, essays and poems. These include The Room on the Roof (winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), A Flight of Pigeons, Time Stops at Shamli, Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra (winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award), Rain in the Mountains, Roads to Mussoorie, and A Little Night Music. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Delhi Government’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.

BUSINESS TITANS Indrajit Gupta and Charles Assisi Business Titans by Indrajit Gupta and Charles Assisi puts the spotlight firmly on Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biggest billionaires and the business empires they preside over. It takes you deep into their giant conglomerates, traces the roots of their success, and offers a glimpse into their personal lives. The story of their rise is woven into a larger narrative about the entrepreneurial renaissance in the country that took off when India opened up its economy in the early nineties.

Today, despite their huge fortunes and celebrity status, Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wealthiest entrepreneurs find themselves on a slippery slope. Global competition, changing consumer tastes and new technologies are changing the rules of how business is conducted. Inside their homes, a new generation is being groomed to take over. They face the added challenge of living in a world that demands the wealthy step up to address serious social challenges. Against this backdrop, the book examines whether these businesspeople have a plan to stay relevant and retain their influence over the next decade. In trying to tell their stories, Gupta and Assisi have spoken not just to the central protagonists, but to people with unparalleled access into their minds and methods of working, to construct a narrative that attempts to understand business and India today. For all these reasons, Business Titans is an important book for anybody trying to make sense of contemporary India and the architects shaping its economic destiny. s

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Clockwise from top left: Azim Premji, Mukesh Ambani, Pallonji Mistry and Lakshmi Mittal.

The ten business titans featured in the book, ranked in order of their wealth, are as follows: Mukesh Ambani Mukesh Ambani’s peers believe he is the smartest man they know. His obsession with size and execution borders on the maniacal. He has $21 billion in personal wealth (this makes him the richest Indian in the world) and presides over a group with a turnover of $70 billion. How his ambitious plans for the future pan out remains to be seen. Lakshmi Mittal In a little over two decades, Lakshmi Mittal’s audacity led him to create a $93 billion behemoth called ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel-maker. But with appetite for the metal thinning, Mittal and his son Aditya are engaged in an uphill battle to keep their current net worth of $16 billion intact. Azim Premji After transforming vegetable oil maker Wipro into a software giant, Azim Premji invested $2 billion of his $12.2 billion personal fortune to improve primary education and emerged as a role model for the super-rich who have not yet found the time or inclination to engage in philanthropy. Pallonji Mistry Despite a net worth of $9.8 billion and his status as the single largest stakeholder in Tata Sons, very few people had heard of Pallonji Mistry. All that changed when his son Cyrus unexpectedly replaced Ratan Tata as chairman of the house of Tata. It is unlikely though that the reclusive ‘phantom of Bombay House’ will ever emerge from the shadows.

Dilip Shanghvi Dilip Shanghvi founded Sun Pharmaceuticals in 1982. Now worth $14 billion, it is India’s most valuable pharma company. In a move that caught everybody by surprise, Shanghvi, now worth $9.2 billion, dispassionately stepped down as chairman to bring in a global heavyweight. He believes to get bigger, you need somebody who’s built something bigger. Adi Godrej At the 116-year-old Godrej group, Adi Godrej’s astuteness makes him worth $9 billion and has ensured his children Tanya, Nisaba and Phiroza now have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build something grander than he was able to.

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Savitri Jindal ‘In our family, women do not venture out,’ Savitri Jindal maintains. But after her husband died in 2005, she presided over a business that quadrupled to $12 billion, of which she owns $8.2 billion. Her empire is now run by her four sons. Shashi and Ravi Ruia The brothers Shashi and Ravi Ruia play the perfect foil to each other when it comes to managing their $27 billion conglomerate spread across twenty-five countries. The older Ruia is focussed on the big picture while the younger one is obsessed with the nuts and bolts. This far they have managed to keep their personal wealth of $8.1 billion intact, but their backs are now up against the wall. The Hinduja brothers For decades, Srichand, Gopichand, Prakash and Ashok Hinduja, spread across London, Geneva and Mumbai and collectively worth t

$8.8 billion have tried to shake off a shadowy past. With the next generation of Hindujas now coming of age, their efforts are finally beginning to pay off. Kumar Mangalam Birla At age 28, when Kumar Mangalam Birla (who presently has a net worth of $7.8 billion) took over the AV Birla group, most people thought him incapable of managing a sprawling empire. His detractors admit they were awfully wrong in their reading of the now forty-six-year-old man in charge of a $40 billion conglomerate.

Indrajit Gupta is the editor of Forbes India. In the three years since its founding, under his stewardship, it has become the most influential business magazine in the country. Before this assignment, he was resident editor (Mumbai) at The Economic Times, the newspaperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flagship edition. He has also served as national business editor at The Times of India, and had stints with Business Standard and Business World. In 2011, he received the Polestar Foundation award for excellence in journalism. Charles Assisi is executive editor at Forbes (India) and part of its founding team. In earlier avatars, he was national business editor at The Times of India and editor of CHIP, a technology magazine with origins in Germany that he helped launch in India. His body of work over twenty years has fetched him two awards for excellence in journalismâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the Polestar Award and the Madhu Valluri Memorial Award.

ÂŠ Prabha Mallya

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T H E H U NDR ED NA MES OF DARKNESS Nilanjana Roy ‘Fish!’ He had never heard Beraal mew like that, but he had never seen the beautiful black-and-white hunter like this, either. The sleekness of the previous year had disappeared. As she purred her thanks and head-butted Southpaw, the tomcat felt a pang of sadness go through him, sharper even than the pain in his back paw. The long, silky fur that had shone so brightly the winter of their war with Datura and his ferals, just four seasons ago, was matted and dull. Beraal seemed half her size these days, more listless than any nursing mother should be. Her ribs were starkly outlined, and as she curled around him, still purring at the young tom, he felt the thinness of her flanks, saw how the skin hung slack and loose now that the flesh beneath it had melted away.

The jute sacks that he and Katar had dragged out for Beraal and her kittens, making a rudimentary shelter under the rusted Ambassador car behind the Nizamuddin garbage heap, were damp from the night’s bitter chill. But Southpaw settled down on the sacks gratefully, happy that there was a layer of comfort between him and the freezing earth. He watched, his brown eyes soft, as Beraal tore into the fish. The biggest of all of her kittens made tiny gnashing sounds as he ate, but the other two only licked at the scales and then settled back, waiting for Beraal to mash the fish into softer pieces for them. They were all smaller than they should have been, Southpaw thought. s

Beraal glanced up from her dinner, her whiskers radiating contentment. ‘I haven’t tasted fish in—since summer, Southpaw! Thank you for bringing this to us,’ she said. There were scraps of fish on her whiskers, and she cleaned them off with her tiny red tongue before taking another bite. Beraal had always been a fastidious eater, and her delicate habits had survived even the changes of the previous year. ‘Won’t you have some with us, Southpaw?’ she asked, remembering her manners. ‘There’s plenty—those two haven’t had much of an appetite since the fight with the rats. I think they bled too much, and haven’t yet recovered, though they ’re drinking my milk.’

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‘I’ve fed well,’ said Southpaw, ‘this is all yours.’ He could have eaten the tail, the belly and sucked the last shred of pink flesh off the last fishbone. If summer and the monsoons had been difficult for the cats of Nizamuddin, winter had been harsh, a lesson in cold, hunger and fear. But the tom took his cue from Katar and Hulo; if they could let their skin sag inwards and suck in their stomachs, saving the few morsels from their kill for the nursing mothers and the young kittens, so could he. Except for the ferocious gnawing sounds made by Beraal’s kitten, a rare sense of peace and contentment permeated the scene. The familiar, pleasantly comforting stench from the garbage heap made up for the harsh stink of burning plastic and rubber from one of the Bigfeet bonfires further down the road. Southpaw ignored the pain in his leg, preferring to focus on the distant sounds of traffic. He found them soothing, the wheeze of the buses, the roar of the trucks, the clipped clatter of the rickshaws. Beraal sat back, washing her whiskers, and then she washed her kittens, and combed her fur until it had lost some of its knots and tangles. The other two kittens squeaked as they made for t

her stomach, each finding its own particular nipple. Southpaw prevented the biggest kitten from choking on a fishbone—‘No bones until you have three moons behind you at least, little one,’ he said amiably. The kitten stared up at him, its eyes still tinged with the blue of youth.

~ It was almost morning by the time Katar and Hulo joined them. Southpaw saw the wince in the grey tom’s eyes as he jumped down beside Beraal; the cold stiffened his injured flank and hip. Katar had taken his licks in the battle with the ferals, but more than the scars from last winter, it was the new injuries, the ones the Bigfeet were responsible for, that had weakened him. Perhaps it was only that the fog and the damp of the night had flattened their fur, but Southpaw thought uneasily that neither of the big toms had ever looked so drawn. Hulo’s thick black fur parted in some places to reveal the shiny skin of old and new scars, and he seemed shrunk, as did Katar. They placed the night’s booty before Beraal. It wasn’t much at all—a few scraps from the butcher’s, carefully collected by Katar, a baby rat, so small that it would make a scant mouthful for the nursing queen. But Beraal touched her nose to each of theirs, her eyes shining in a way they hadn’t seen in many moons. Her green eyes gleamed with pleasure as she said, ‘I have something for you, for a change! See what Southpaw brought us; there was so much that we saved some for you.’ Hulo’s eyes widened when he saw the fish. Southpaw was astonished when the grizzled fighter let out a mew, as happy as any kitten might be. ‘Really, Beraal?’ he said, ‘There is enough?’ a

‘More than!’ said the young mother, sitting hastily on the oldest kitten, who had popped up to stake his sleepy claim to the last of the fish. He squirmed under her fur, but the warmth sent him back to sleep, and soon he was cuddling with his siblings. Hulo needed no further invitation. ‘Fish!’ he said. ‘A feast—I had forgotten its taste, it sings in the mouth. Thank you, Southpaw. Come on, Katar, don’t you want some?’ But Katar’s whiskers were out, interrogating the brown tom. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to raid the Bigfeet houses, Southpaw?’ he said. His mew was quiet, but all of them heard the anger behind it, and saw the way his tail was flicking from side to side. Southpaw said wearily, ‘You did.’ 138

‘And yet?’ said Katar, ignoring Hulo’s hissed invitation to come and eat it anyway, who cared where the brat had sourced it from. His sleek head was lowered, his back arching a little as he padded towards the younger tom. Anger lit slowly in Southpaw’s eyes, but it was unmistakeable. Instead of giving way before Katar, he got to his feet, careful not to let his injured paw touch the ground, and lowered his own head in challenge. ‘How many moons has it been since we’ve been slinking around like shadows, Katar? Scared to even step onto the roofs we used to roam so freely before? And has it helped? Have the Bigfeet stopped trying to hurt us, because we don’t go into their houses any more?’ The thoughts he’d kept behind his whiskers for so long came tumbling out, pell mell.

From the park behind the market, the first chirpings of the Babblers rose up in the air, telling them that dawn was here, but none of the cats paid much attention to the birds.

The Hundred Names of Darkness is the sequel to Nilanjana Royâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first book, The Wildings, also published by Aleph Book Company. For a complete biographical note on the author, please turn to page 21.

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B LAC K HILL Mamang Dai

In her third book of fiction, Mamang Dai brings her famed gifts of empathy and clear, lyrical prose to the story of three unusual people caught in the currents of love and history—a woman from the hills beyond Assam, a man from the high mountains further east and another, a priest, from a country across the great ocean.

Night was falling and every man, woman and child in Mebo was on alert for the return of a group of men who had left the village before dawn to meet the migluns, the white strangers at the foot of the hill. The men were approaching swiftly. They were coming up the hill, their feet pounding on the ancient paths. Gimur felt the ground shake and suddenly the village was alight with the brightness of bamboo flares. She caught a glimpse of the men at the head of the column. They were like gods, with their tall spears and shields and their war helmets resplendent with the feathers of the hawk and tusks of wild boar. Right in front was Lendem’s father, his chest like a bull’s, shining with sweat. ‘Hide your face, girl!’ her mother said but Gimur was thrusting forward and craning her neck to look at the warriors. She wanted to look at their faces and hear their words—how had they changed, what had they learned of the worlds beyond their hills? Her mother pulled her back again. ‘Hide your face!’ s

Gimur retreated into the house, only to emerge onto the veranda at the back where they dried paddy. It was empty at this hour, and she sat crouched, wrapping her arms around her knees, concentrating on the sound of voices and trying to hear what was being said. A liquid half moon was rising above the trees and she stared at it, willing it to rise faster. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. And when the moonlight had covered her face, and when she was asking the moon to float in her blood, when she thought she could rise above the hills like the moon, a shadow passed before her. Without a sound she opened her eyes like a clever animal, pretending they were still closed, but seeing everything in front of her. She saw a man staring at her. She thought he was standing on a big stone.

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Gimur did not move. She continued to pretend that her eyes were still shut. She saw his face, white in the moonlight like a rising spirit with burning eyes and a hard, angry mouth. He wore a black cloth wound round his head. ‘Who are you?’ she whispered. The man did not move away. ‘I am Kajinsha,’ he said in a harsh, grating voice. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I am talking to the moon,’ she replied. He did not say anything. She opened her eyes a little and saw that he was not standing on a stone as she had thought. He was tall, and he stood solidly in front of her, his eyes fixed on her face. He looked like a tiger, solitary, self-aware, as if ready to face anything. He was a stranger, and he was alone. She opened her eyes wider. She waited. She wanted him to say something more. t

‘Where is your village?’ She wanted to hear his voice again. But the man had slid away without another word. Gimur continued to sit there facing the breeze. Moonlight flooded the village. Everything was calm and peaceful, but suddenly, for no reason, Gimur felt strangely bereft.

~ Kajinsha had come from the east. He had travelled a long way, summoning up every ounce of stamina to cross the great mountains. He had never come this far before, but he was glad he had made the journey to the Abor village of Mebo. ‘It is there that the white men are going,’ he had heard some travellers say, and he had decided that he would track the migluns and follow their boats as they moved upstream. He kept close to the bank. Sometimes he was ahead of them, hidden among trees that sloped straight down to the water’s edge. He left no trail. He did not know how many days he had been shadowing the white men but he knew that the moon had not been born yet when he started his journey. Now it was full. He thought of the girl he had first seen from a distance, as he stood on a high rock. And then he had seen her again, with her eyes closed, talking to the moon. He remembered the blue tattoo on her chin. Who was she? He wondered if it had been a vision. ‘I’ll find out later,’ he thought. He had memorized the route. He would return.

Mamang Dai is a poet and novelist based in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh. Her published works include a poetry collection, River Poems; a book of linked stories, The Legends of Pensam; and a novella, Stupid Cupid.

Overture/House of Love ÂŠ Dayanita Singh

CIT Y ADR IFT A Short Biography of Bombay

Naresh Fernandes Over the course of 250 years, Bombay—a cluster of seven islands known to the Greeks as Heptanesia—was reclaimed from the Arabian Sea. By the 1930s, it had become the most cosmopolitan city in India, the place where the nation’s future was being created. But over the last two decades, Bombay’s social topography has seen another reconfiguration, splintering into islands of exclusion and privilege. City Adrift explores Bombay’s new topography and explores what this means for India in the 21st century.

t h e r e - i s l a n d i n g o f b o m b ay

One dusty afternoon, I made my way to Wadala to meet with sales representatives at a real-estate development whose advertisements had intrigued me. ‘Discover an island that dwarfs Mumbai’s seven other islands,’ they had commanded. For several weeks in 2012, the front pages of Mumbai’s newspapers were dominated by campaigns for gated communities that promised to sequester residents from the chaos of the metropolis around. Many of the ads emphasized that residents would be protected not only by high walls but also by closed-circuit TV cameras, smart-card entry systems and, occasionally, biometric devices. Though these complexes were completely dependent on municipal services for water and garbage removal, several had names that attempted to suggest that they were autonomous territories: Kohinoor City, Marathon Nexzone, Greendale Global City, among them. s

The twenty-nine-acre complex I was visiting would, when complete, have private roads and temperature-controlled lobbies. The ads also gloated that it would have ‘separate service lifts [to] ensure that the service staff remains largely invisible’. Underscoring its mission to keep the crumbling metropolis of Mumbai at bay, it is called Island City Centre. I thought that their publicity blitzkrieg meant that they’d welcome customers, but obtaining the meeting had not been easy. When I called the number they’d listed for potential customers to book an appointment ‘to discover a better life’, the woman who answered peppered me with questions. Where did I work? How much did I earn? Where did I live now? What was my budget?

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I declared proudly that I was a freelance journalist who intended to spend Rs 3 crore on a flat, a horrendously large sum of money that, I was certain, would instantly single me out as a supremely desirable client. It did not. The starting rate, the woman sniffed, was Rs 6 crore. She promised to have someone call me back but no one ever did. To be fair, her attitude was entirely in consonance with the tone of her firm’s advertisements. One had run with a headline stating: ‘The eighth island of Mumbai discriminates.’ A week later, I rang the number again, assuming a new, rather more affluent, persona. This time, I described myself as an editor instead of a journalist, and assured them that I had Rs 7 crore in my kitty. This seemed to have boosted my credibility enough to allow me access to a darkened room in which a well-produced video presentation was being screened. The publicity material for Island City Centre reiterated that precarious state in which Mumbai finds itself—‘vehicles are increasing, the population is expanding, the city’s resources are thinning’. But this ‘integrated enclave’ with t

‘branded residences’ and shops, a place with golf putting greens, cricket nets and flats with motorized curtains, would be ‘a far cry from the city outside’. After the presentation, a polite sales representative showed me floor plans for apartments in one of the buildings, an 84-storey tower that would be a companion to an 83-storey skyscraper next door. It was easy to imagine getting used to a place ‘where business is discussed over a game of billiards and fine wine’, but the starting price for a three-bedroom flat would take several lifetimes of freelance journalism to cobble together. I downed my muddy Nescafe, grabbed the black brochure and headed for the door.

Naresh Fernandes is a consulting editor to Time Out’s Indian editions. He is the author of Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay’s Jazz Age, which won the Dr Ashok Ranade Memorial Award and the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize. Fernandes is a Poesis fellow at New York University’s Institute of Public Knowledge.

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{ n ow i n p ap e rb ack }

The F r e e t hi nke r’s P raye r Book Khushwant Singh Khushwant Singh does not believe in God. Yet he wakes up before dawn to listen to Sikh hymns, recites the Gayatri Mantra, and knows large parts of the Bible and the Quran by heart. He likes being known as a dirty old man who delights in malice, but is in fact fanatically disciplined and generous to a fault. He has lived an extraordinary life—marked by contradiction, mischief, compassion, courage and wisdom (though he denies all these charges). Where does this unusual agnostic turn for inspiration and strength? The Freethinker’s Prayer Book gives us some answers.

In this eclectic and deeply personal collection, India’s grand old man of letters brings together prayers and precepts by prophets, poets and philosophers, and his favourite passages from the seminal texts of the world’s major faiths. The Bible and the Guru Granth Sahib speak to us from these pages, as do the Quran and the Vedas. The songs of mystics and saints like Kabir, Rumi and Teresa of Ávila mix with the verse of poets like Ghalib, Tagore and Keats. In the final section, Khushwant Singh shares some of his own life codes and those of the rebels and mavericks he most admires. Full of spirit, wit and good sense—and as free of humbug as the man himself—this is a book of inspiration, comfort and entertainment for every discerning reader. s

reviews

‘[The Freethinker’s Prayer Book] is a beautiful collection of quotations that needs to be kept by the bedside, readily available to those who wish to reach out to read, feel and understand profound thoughts, most elegantly expressed.’ —The Tribune ‘One of those books you should always have around, to turn to words on any page on any day, that seem to strangely make sense at times when nothing else does.’ —First City ‘An astonishing anthology of non-denominational verses from all the great religions.’ —Mani Shankar Aiyar

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Khushwant Singh is, arguably, India’s best-known and most widely read author. For a complete biographical note on the author, please turn to page 65.

THE DYNAST Y Two Hundred Years of the Nehrus and the Gandhis

Pranay Gupte The Dynasty is the definitive work on the world’s most extraordinary political family. The Nehrus and the Gandhis constitute the longest-lived political dynasty of the modern world. Its origins can be traced back 200 years to Kashmir, where the Nehrus belonged to the Kashmiri Brahmin Pandit class. The dynasty has been in power for nearly a century, starting with its founder, British-trained lawyer Motilal Nehru, who was twice president of the Indian National Congress. It has produced three prime ministers—Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. The current leader of the Congress Party, Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, is widely perceived as the most powerful woman in contemporary politics. Her son, Rahul Gandhi, is the front-runner for the position of prime minister at the next general elections, if not before.

The Nehrus and the Gandhis are unique in that they have reinvented themselves from age to age to constantly remain relevant to the role of leading, or waiting to lead, one of the world’s most complicated, and socially diverse nations—a nation soon to be demographically the world’s biggest, overtaking China in a decade. And, as India’s role in the comity of nations grows larger, it is critical to understand the one family that has led the country for much of its life as an independent nation and looks likely to lead it for the foreseeable future. s

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ÂŠ Raghu Rai

The Nehrus and the Gandhis matter in the modern era because of the dynasty’s durability and its nexus to the masses in India. It is impossible to overstate the affection that members of the dynasty have received from a vastly poor country. For more than four decades, ever since I started my career as a journalist and author, I have been intrigued by these questions: How did they gain and retain that affection and loyalty, even though they did not spring from the poverty of India? What explains their charisma? How did they come to be respected by other world leaders, in democracies and dictatorships alike? The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has enjoyed enormous popularity and power, suffered enormous tragedy (Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were assassinated), and reversals of fortune; yet, except for a brief period—during the time of Indira Gandhi, and again after her death—it has ruled by popular mandate, unlike other dynasties and autocracies in South Asia and the East. The dynasty did not spring from business wealth—like the Kennedys and the Bushes—but derived its legitimacy from the will and acclaim of India’s masses. Those teeming masses have always turned to the Nehrus and Gandhis for solutions to political and economic problems, to help pull them out of grinding poverty. Even when the dynasty’s promises of poverty alleviation have fallen short of expectations, it could be justifiably said that it wasn’t because the Nehrus and Gandhis made false pledges but because they weren’t able to overcome the system. Say this for them: They always tried their best, in their own special a

way, to hold fissiparous India together. They have paid a huge price for adhering to this commitment. But they could not have done any less.

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How accurate is it to compare them to the great political dynasties from around the world, such as the Kennedys? Not very, it must be said, for only John Fitzgerald Kennedy got to become president of the United States. But the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has already produced three prime ministers, two prime-ministersin-waiting—and Sonia Gandhi, who wields unparalleled power. A comparison to the Bushes, perhaps? They have never connected with the masses as the Nehrus and Gandhis have. So what’s the mystique all about? Why does it endure, even in this age of growing scepticism with politicians? Does the answer lie in Indian history, in the faith of the people in their leaders? Is the mystique explained by the fact that all through recorded Indian history, the polity has always been organized around a central dominant figure or dynasty—medieval kings, the Mughal emperors, the maharajahs, the British? This book will seek to find in-depth, plausible answers to these and related questions.

Pranay Gupte is a well-known international author, editor, foreign correspondent, teacher, and senior strategist for conventional and social media. An economics and political-science graduate of Brandeis University, he also attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Mr. Gupte was a staff reporter and a foreign correspondent at The New York Times for fifteen years, covering Africa, the Middle East and Asia. He was subsequently a global-affairs columnist at Newsweek International for t

eighteen years, and a contributing editor at Forbes and Asian Finance. An elected life member of the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Mr. Gupte also speaks widely on the lecture circuit, and has been a panelist or moderator at events organized by renowned organizations such as the World Economic Forum, the World Bank, and the United Nations. Mr. Gupte has written, co-written or edited fourteen books. His best-known work is Mother India: A Political Biography of Indira Gandhi.

ÂŠ Valay Singh Rai

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UNEQ UAL IN DIA Stories of India’s Destitution

Harsh Mander That destitution and great inequality persist in Rising India is now an indisputable fact. Harsh Mander and his colleagues from Aman Biradari—Amod Shah, Ankita Aggarwal, Ashwin Parulkar, Jeevika Shiv, Kanchan Gandhi and Saba Sharma—go beyond dry statistics to bring us face to face with the India that we are afraid to see.

d e at h o f a fa r m e r

His son Babu found him dead in the cowshed behind their home. Kusara Mallagaud had drunk pesticide late the previous night. He had succumbed to the epidemic that has stalked rural India for well over a decade now—it has claimed the lives of over 22,000 farmers, and shows no signs of abating. Babu, barely nineteen, was now, suddenly, the oldest male member of the family. He had dropped out of school to help his father with the farming, and Kusara would occasionally confide in him, but even he had no idea how bad things were. A month before he died, Kusara had spoken to his son about the enormity of his debts. He owed the moneylender close to three lakh rupees and hid from him like a thief. Babu had suggested that they sell their holdings of twoand-a-half acres of land, but his father was adamant he wouldn’t do that; the land was all they had. He would find a way, he had said. In six consecutive years of drought in Medak district of Andhra s

Pradesh, Kusara Mallagaud of Pallepahad village had extracted virtually nothing from his plot of land. He took a loan from the village moneylender to dig a borewell in the third year of drought. It was dry. Desperate, he took more loans. Four more borewells failed, as the water table in the village fell dangerously low.

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Every year, farmers like Kusara have to beg for loans: to buy seed, fertilizer, pesticide. Earlier, nationalized or cooperative banks would give them credit, but this has all but stopped. The private moneylender has a virtual monopoly and charges three to five per cent compound interest per month. Much of his credit is in kind, in seeds and other inputs for farming. Often these are spurious or overpriced, but the farmers have no option but to buy from the moneylender, rather than from the open market or from certified sellers. Earlier, farmers would store their own seeds, but today the technology of hybrid seeds and commercial farming no longer enables them to do this. The new technology also demands chemical fertilizers and pesticides. And fertilizer, electricity and water subsidies to farmers have shrunk in compliance with the prescriptions of the World Bank and IMF. As a result, input costs for farmers have soared. In a good year, farmers make a profit. But what happens in a bad year? It is not just the monsoons that can fail them. In post-liberalization India, farmers have been left at the mercy of global markets. Even a good harvest can be calamitous for them if global prices, of which they have no advance knowledge, crash. In theory, the Indian government still guarantees procurement of their produce at a minimum assured price, but in practice mandis only purchase from t

large farmers in prosperous regions. The small farmer, desperate for cash, is forced to sell his harvest to the moneylender who buys it at whatever price he chooses, often reselling it later at much higher prices in the mandi or the open market. It’s a vicious cycle. The moneylender does not need to use brute force to reclaim his loans. It is enough to stand in the village square and shame his debtors by talking of their unpaid debts. This humiliation alone drives most farmers to sell their land, jewellery, cattle, even their homes sometimes, to repay their debts. Or it drives them to suicide. One of the first engagements of the prime minister of the UPA government after he assumed office in 2004 was to commiserate personally with the survivors of farmers who had committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh, and to promise a ‘new deal’ to the Indian farmer. And yet all that they have got from the state is a ‘relief package’ of soft loans for farmer households—to which they qualify only after the farmer has killed himself—and a ‘moratorium’ on past loans that is unenforceable because the farmers remain dependent on the same usurious private sources for credit in the future. Not surprisingly, then, the spate of farmer suicides continues. It doesn’t take an understanding of complicated economics to address the problem, only the will to do it. What is needed is a massive expansion of rural credit for small and marginal farmers, protection from the vagaries of global markets, expanded subsidies for agricultural inputs, promotion of watershed development for rainfed areas together with appropriate low-cost, low-risk technologies, and assured procurement from small farmers at support prices. But, there hasn’t been any sign of the statesmanship, compassion and courage that the country’s leadership must display to pull rural India back from the brink. a

Harsh Mander’s books include Unheard Voices: Stories of Forgotten Lives, Fear and Forgiveness: The Aftermath of Massacre, Fractured Freedom: Chronicles from India’s Margins and Ash in the Belly: India’s Unfinished Battle against Hunger. He works with survivors of mass violence, street children, homeless persons and people living with hunger.

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THIS UNQ UIET LAN D Dispatches From India’s Fault Lines

Barkha Dutt In last year’s edition of The Book of Aleph we ran an excerpt from This Unquiet Land that brought alive the horrors of the 1999 Kargil War in which the Indian army repulsed Pakistani invaders. In this extract, Barkha Dutt writes about the aftermath of that war.

More than 500 Indian soldiers died in Kargil; over a thousand were wounded. The estimate of how many lives Pakistan lost has fluctuated dramatically—from Pervez Musharraf ’s 357 to Nawaz Sharif ’s 2700. Pakistan officialdom’s first recognition of the men it had forced into mindless conflict came eleven years after the war; its army website listed 453 soldiers in the ‘Martyrs’ section; it said they had been killed in the ‘Batalik-Kargil’ sector. It is impossible to eliminate the possibility of another outbreak of hostilities between India and Pakistan. This is more likely than not, given the rising extremism within Pakistan, the use of terrorism as an instrument of war and the unstable interface between Pakistan’s domineering security establishment and its much-weaker civilian arm. From his experience at the helm in 1999, the former Chief of the Indian Army, General V.P. Malik argues that ‘the effectiveness of a nuclear deterrent depends on the threshold and the threshold is very dynamic’. In other words, in a future conflict between India and Pakistan, if either country were to cross a certain threshold, nuclear confrontation would become a very real danger. Every point s

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of near-war between India and Pakistan, after the Kargil conflict, has been white-flagged by American pressure. But the future cannot trust the consistency of past patterns; there are no guarantees that Western intervention will be timely the next time; and there will be a next time. Perhaps no one understands this vulnerability more than a soldier who has seen war. In 2009, ten years after my first exposure to a war zone, I returned to the mountains of Kargil with three men who had carried the painful weight of their own memories for over a decade—Vishal Thapa- whose thoughtful stoicism as a young Captain gave context and meaning to the night I spent holed up in a bunker; Vishal Batra- the by-now-iconic-Vikram Batra’s twin who hadn’t been able to bring himself to visit the place where his daredevil brother was killed until now; and Y.K. Joshi whose leadership as a commander had inspired a spate of Hindi films. Joshi, now a brigadier with the army, brought along his seventeenyear-old daughter, not even a teenager in 1999, so she could understand the brutality and horror of what he had seen. It wasn’t easy for a father to explain to a young girl why the code of war meant that when you are ‘up there your battalion is your family. You think about that; you think about the boys… You think about the (mountain) feature you’re going up to. You just don’t think about your family. It can’t come in between. If I think about that, I can’t do this. That’s how it has to be.’ And it was just as difficult for him to confront his own recollections, none of which had faded with time. Wasn’t it just yesterday that he had turned around to talk to Ranbir, the soldier manning the rocket launcher right next to him, and seen a bullet go through his forehead, leaving a gaping hole in the skull, even before he could complete his sentence? a

Vishal Batra, a private banker, who had once contemplated being a soldier, but then left the heroics to his twin brother, was overwhelmed, like so many of us ‘civilians’ had first been, by the unvarnished beauty of the mountains, a beauty that seemed beyond human comprehension. That a war had been fought here was unimaginable to him. As we sat on a rock under a benign blue sky and stared out at Batra Top, named after Vikram, as a tribute to his courage, we began to cry, a swift wind drying the tears on our cheeks.

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‘Yeh Dil Maange More’—Vikram’s spontaneous conversion of a Pepsi punch-line into a slogan of bravado—had made him one of the most identifiable and revered heroes of the war. But when the headlines faded and the cameras retreated, a family was still left behind to cope with the loneliness of loss. That precise moment, the moment when Vikram’s pyre had to be lit, was the moment Vishal remembers as the one when he stopped being afraid of death. ‘You know when we took him for his final rites, the body was taken from the coffin and the tricolour was handed over to Mom. I was holding his body in my hands; it was the first cremation of my life. It was painful, Barkha. Whatever fear I had of death went away.’ In the shadow of the mountains where his brother had been killed, Vishal wrote Vikram a letter, wanting him to know that their shared childhood was what gave him the strength to keep on living. He read it out aloud; then, standing in silent salute, we left the single sheaf of paper there, fluttering in the wind, for it to be lifted to the skies, along with the leaves and the dust. The quietest among the three men was Vishal Thapa, as reflective and contemplative as he had been ten years ago, that night in t

the bunker, when the war was raging. His lens on life had always been unusually clear-sighted. ‘It (could be taken to be) politically incorrect, but I would just say this much; I don’t think any soldier would want a war. It’s the developments and the situations, whatever. So basically everybody is just following orders…We kill because of our profession and not by choice, right. If we kill someone, one of ours will also die. So, it’s part of a job. Take it or leave it.’ The first time that Vishal Thapa brought his students from the high-altitude battle-school where he now taught to Kargil he couldn’t sleep at night. The silent silhouette of the mountain peaks was an auditory shock; in his mind he could only hear the drumfire of bombs and the reverberations of rockets. The peace was disorienting, perhaps because war had made it seem so elusive and so fragile that it almost felt like a mirage. Thapa, then an ordnance officer attached to an infantry unit, had fallen in love with the very mountains where he once saw so many die. ‘I walked away loving the mountains. Mountains don’t see the difference in colour, caste, creed; no Pakistan, no India. They judge everybody the same way. They are pure. It’s we human beings who fool around.’

Barkha Dutt, one of India’s leading journalists and television anchors, is Group Editor with NDTV, the country’s premier news and current affairs network. She became a household name with her reporting from the front lines on the Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan in 1999. Since then she has reported from conflict zones across the world, including Kashmir, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt and Libya; in addition to her war reporting, she has reported from the field on virtually every important national story. a

Her work in the studio is as distinguished as her reporting. She hosts two highly regarded shows, We The People, the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s longest running talk show, and The Buck Stops Here. She has won over forty national and international awards including the Global Leader for Tomorrow award from the World Economic Forum, the Commonwealth Broadcastersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Award for Journalist of the Year, and the Asian Television Award for Best Talk Show. She is the youngest journalist to have received the Padma Shri.

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G R EY HOR NB ILLS AT DUSK Nature Rambles Through Delhi

Bulbul Sharma The sparrows have fled Delhi, the monsoons are not what they were and there will soon be more flyovers than trees in the city. But the kingfisher still hunts here, the solitary hare rushes around at night, and the hornbill comes visiting. We only need to know where to look. Bulbul Sharma takes us on brief journeys of discovery.

The monsoon in Delhi is hot and humid for us, but it is a perfect time for the birds. Dark clouds hover in one corner of the sky and then begin to move slowly like a herd of elephants. The Pied Crested Cuckoo, a handsome bird always dressed for a formal black-tie dinner, heralds the rains from the topmost branch of the peepal tree. It has the most unmusical call for such a good-looking creature, but makes up for that unfortunate trait with unbridled enthusiasm. As we walk awkwardly on the wet and muddy path that surrounds Humayunâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tomb, a flock of Little Green Bee-eaters comes out to hunt. A feast awaits them: termites, ants, beetles and crickets. Like tiny green paper planes, the bee-eaters take to the air, circle for a moment and then effortlessly catch their lunch on the wing. The rain does not seem to bother them at all, while we sweat and grumble about mosquitos. Every lane, ditch and garden is green with wild plants and if we walk around the ridge we may even hear little streams gurgling secrets to s

one another, but we wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see them. A White-breasted Kingfisher knows exactly where they are, though. It sits on an electric pole, a lazy sage or an enlightened monk, pondering the meaning of life. Or, perhaps, only taking the time to decide whether to catch a young frog or a grasshopper today. And in the gulmohar, its leaves washed clean by the rain, a pair of dumpy Coppersmiths huddle close together, fat raindrops falling on their red-capped heads. In the large peepal tree, the Brown Doves coo listlessly as usual, but the energetic sparrows are chatting loudly. There is great excitement of some kind, probably a male sparrow has run off with anotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mate and the peepal is abuzz with sparrow gossip. It is good to see the sparrows here, since their numbers are swiftly dwindling in Delhi.

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While the sparrows fluff out their damp feathers and gossip industriously, menace hovers nearby. The crows, especially, will soon pay the price for being complacentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or, more accurately, for being foolish. Its glossy head wet and glistening as if combed back with gel, the male koel eyes the nests on the peepal tree. The female, its partner in crime, is lurking on a high branch, waiting for her chance. The couple are masters in the art of deception, con artists could learn a trick or two from them. While other birds spend hours building their nests and then put in a lot of effort feeding and protecting their brood, teaching them how to eat with their mouths open, how to fly and how to catch the juiciest worms, the koels dedicate themselves to having a good time. They fly around singing and chasing each other happily around trees. The male picks out ripe berries for his beloved to eat, and she lets him. When the wooing is over and it is time for the female to lay her egg, the game of deception begins. t

The koels select a poor, unsuspecting nest owner, usually a babbler or a crow, and then one morning the male koel goes out to pick a fight. While the crows, owners of the nest, accept the challenge and fly out to defend their home and honour, the female koel swiftly moves in and lays a single egg in the unguarded nest. Sometimes she may lay two, if she’s in the mood. Then the koel couple fly off into the sunset, chuckling (yes, they do, silently). This impostor egg hatches before the rightful heirs of the nest have emerged, and not only does the hatching gobble up all the food the foster-parents bring home but it often pushes out the real babies from the nest—the bird-world equivalent of slaughtering one’s siblings to eliminate competition to the throne. Then one day the impostor flies away, leaving the duped crows shocked and confused. ‘Where did we go wrong?’ they caw to each other like disappointed parents, as the young koel begins to sing far away. It is a brutal business, really. But we forgive the koel because of its song, the sweetest in the harsh summer before the rains.

Bulbul Sharma is an artist and writer. She also works as an art teacher for children with special needs. Her books include two collections of short stories, My Sainted Aunts and The Anger of Aubergines; two novels, Banana-flower Dreams and The Tailor of Giripul; and two books of non-fiction, Shaya Tales and The Book of Devi. She has also written four books for children—A Book of Indian Birds, Manu Mixes Clay and Sunshine, The Ramayana for Children and Tales of Fabled Beasts, Gods and Demons.

ÂŠ Eitan Simanor, Getty Images

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ALL OF US IN OUR OWN LIVES Manjushree Thapa Tara and Bishnu, who share little besides their Nepali origin, return to the country of their birth: she to start a new life after separating from her husband in Toronto; he to settle his half-sister’s future upon his stepfather’s death. When her work with an international aid organization brings Tara to Bishnu’s village, their lives intersect, bringing into sharp focus questions of identity, freedom and belonging, and the stark social and political realities of contemporary Nepal.

Maleah, Maleah: if she could see where he was from would she love him more, would she love him less? She of the tides and oceans, of fishing boats and papaya groves: what would she make of these back breaking hills? Would she find them as bitter as he did? Or would she see beauty in them? Would she ever even come here? Bishnu bathed at the tap, the water stinging his flesh, quickening his pulse and reawakening him to the world of desire. His limbs were swollen from lack of salt, and his body was stiff from the thirteen days of austerity that he had observed for his stepfather’s mourning. As he towelled off and dressed, he looked out at the spread-out gulmohar trees near the old mud huts. Several concrete houses had cropped up since his last visit three years ago. The terraced fields were covered, in this season, with corn. Beyond lay the blue hills with their sparse forests, where he and his friends s

used to pick gooseberries as boys. How green everything was here, even in the wintertime. He’d forgotten that. Or he had grown unused to such greenery in the desert. Granting him leave from Five Spices, Harkrishan Dulal had said to him, ‘Exactly thirty days, son. If you don’t return in thirty days, then…’ Bishnu had told Maleah he would be back after the funeral. He had not specified when; and she had not asked. Arriving in Nepal he had steeled himself for the worst—and yet, from the first glimpse of Kathmandu through the airplane window to the long, winding drive back to the village, he had found himself staring at the greenery, astonished by its feeling of abundance. He had to remind himself that it was deceptive. From a young age he had turned away from here. It always surprised him when he returned. 174

He had reached the village just in time to say farewell to his stepfather. He had had his hair shorn, dressed in white, and lit the pyre—as a son should—placing the first flame in the mouth of the man who had raised him. And, as a son should, he had spent, thirteen days on a thatch mat, receiving the company of mourners. At mealtimes he had eaten only the plainest food. He had slept under thin, meagre blankets. These austerities had freed him. His stepfather’s wish had been fulfilled. Bishnu’s responsibilities here were almost met. As he finished dressing, Leela called out to him from the porch of the family house: ‘Dai, hurry up! The food is getting cold.’ She was standing with her hands on her hips, as their mother used to. Since Bishnu’s last visit his sister’s features had sharpened, her dark eyes and full lips how exactly like their mother’s. t

In her manners, too, she brought back their mother, though Leela was more fine-boned than their mother had been. At twenty, she looked barely sixteen. ‘Aren’t you done bathing?’ she said. ‘This is your first proper meal. I’ve made all your favourite dishes!’ Bishnu gathered his towel, soap and razor, and followed Leela into the house. She bustled about, serving the meal. ‘It’s nice to see you back in normal clothing, Dai. All these old rituals… I hated seeing you in white.’ She placed a chair for him at the head of the table, the chipped laminate table just as it had been when Bishnu had come into this house. Bishnu still remembered the day his mother fled her first marriage by eloping with his stepfather. She had brought along Bishnu, aged four-and-a-half. With this he had lost his biological father and relatives, his birth village, his past: all unspeakable and forever unmentioned after the scandal. ‘Would you like hot water with your meal?’ Leela asked. ‘Cold is fine,’ Bishnu said. She poured him a glass, and served the meal—rice, black dal, cauliflower and potatoes. Then she served herself, and for the first time since his return they ate together. They did not broach any big subjects—How long will you stay, Dai? What will you do now, Bahini?—but lingered, instead, on diversions. Leela asked Bishnu about the Oasis Hotel, the Five Spices Bistro, his life in the desert, and he was happy to tell her about it: w

‘All the kitchen staff are Nepali, Bahini, every single one. We live in the same house, sharing rooms. We talk our own language, eat our own food. If it weren’t for the heat, some days it’s like we’re living in Kathmandu.’ ‘Is it really, really hot?’ ‘Unbearable in the daytime.’ A vision of Maleah came briefly, powerfully, to Bishnu: Maleah in the hallway, laughing, showing him the goosebumps raised on her arms by the hotel’s air conditioning. He saw the moles on her inner arm: two of them, side by side. He smelled the scent of her skin. He waited for the vision to pass. 176

Manjushree Thapa is one of Nepal’s best-known and most respected writers. Her previous novels are Seasons of Flight and The Tutor of History. Her other published work includes a collection of short stories, Tilled Earth, and four books of non-fiction—The Lives We Have Lost: Essays and Opinions on Nepal, Forget Kathmandu: An Elegy for Democracy (shortlisted for the Lettre Ulysses Award), A Boy from Siklis: The Life and Times of Chandra Gurung and Mustang Bhot in Fragments. She has also compiled and translated The Country is Yours, a collection of stories and poems by forty-nine Nepali writers.

M A P S FOR THE MORTAL MOON Essays and Entertainments

Adil Jussawalla Adil Jussawalla’s poetry is now part of India’s literary history. He is also an extraordinary essayist, with a style and sensibility entirely his own that can both flay you and calm you. For more than forty years he has written for the popular press, bearing witness to cultural shifts and political change. The best of these essays have been collected in this volume, compiled and edited by Jerry Pinto.

the joys of xerox

A sheaf of xeroxes sent by poet Darius Cooper from San Diego, California, reminds me that it’s so easy to lose touch. Writers stop writing to one another or emigrate and you suddenly realize that it’s ten years since you last heard from X or twenty since you got news of Y. One of the xeroxes I was sent was of the cover of a special issue of The Massachusetts Review which concentrated on South Asian expatriate writing and art. It listed a few writers I knew and many I didn’t know. My heart leapt. It was good to learn that Indian writing was alive and well wherever the writers had settled. But where have some of them settled? I’ve really lost touch. Lawrence Bantleman, for instance. Graffiti, his first book of poems, published in 1962 when he was nineteen (by P Lal, Writers Workshop), signalled the arrival of a subtle new talent and was instantly noticed. Moving from Calcutta, where he was based, s

ÂŠ Bena Sareen

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to New Delhi, he edited the literary section of the journal, The Century, published three more books of poems and then vanished into Canada. Vanished, I say, though we did keep up a fitful correspondence before he stopped it altogether. From the Writers Workshop catalogue I notice that Lal has also published a couple of his plays. But even if I were to get in touch with him through Lal, the nature of his journey has been such that it has taken him very far away and I’m afraid we may have little in common now. Is that important? No. What’s important is to realize that beneath the tip of visible writers is the mass of invisible ones. Some of them deserve to be read, or re-read as the case may be. I’m sure Bantleman is one such writer. As is Victor Anant, whose novel The Revolving Man, published in London in the 1950s, took on the issue of racism when most of us were being naïve about it. Whatever became of Anant, you may ask. But if there’s ever going to be a detailed map of Indian writing after independence, he must feature on it. Closer home is Kewlian Sio and I’m glad to say that I do know where he is, though we hardly meet. His stories, published in the quarterly, Quest, immediately attracted attention and his first collection, A Small World, singled him out as a warm, sympathetic and sensitive storyteller. Sio continues to write stories and poems unnoticed as, I believe, he would prefer to be, but there’s another kind of invisibility he wouldn’t have wished on himself. If we haven’t read his first collection or his latest, Dragons (both published by Lal) it’s not out of his choice or ours. Those authors who don’t disappear via immigration like Sio, our book trade makes disappear via inadequate distribution. I’m in no position to single out Lal for this state of affairs though it’s quite fashionable to do so. As a publisher, I find I’ve had to confine the sales of books I’ve published largely to Bombay. To get the situation to change I’d w

require resources of imagination and cunning which I regret I lack at the moment (they’ll come back, they’ll come back). There’s a whole attitude to books and writers that needs changing; publishers are only part of that attitude.

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The change could begin in a small way by using the humble xerox. Nissim Ezekiel used to cyclostyle his new poems and pass them around among friends before they were collected in a book. When the books went out of print, as they all did, one by one, he had to xerox them and pass copies around. I believe a xeroxing programme would resurrect many long-buried, forgotten books. If nothing else it would help younger writers get a more detailed picture of the literary terrain than the one that exists now, dominated as it is by only the canonical writers. Not that they’re much better off. All Ezekiel’s poems except his most recent ones are available in Collected Poems (Oxford University Press) but where would you go if you wanted to pick up A.K. Ramanujan’s Relations? Or Comrade Kirilov by Raja Rao? Don’t come to me, though I have copies of both. But if you do, I’ll ask you to get them xeroxed. Start your own home publishing programme by xeroxing a favourite book of yours which is out of print and which you’d like others to read. Sell it at cost to a friend, at a profit to those who aren’t friends and at twice the price to an enemy. If you’re averse to such practices, get the book xeroxed anyway and exchange the xerox for a xerox of some other out-of-print book you covet but which doesn’t belong to you. Of course, if you covet all the volumes of the fifteenth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and have only an early Kahlil Gibran to offer in exchange, the deal may not work. But I’m serious. Good books have to be kept in print and xeroxing them is one way of doing it.

Adil Jussawalla is a poet. He has written three books of poems, Landâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s End (1962), Missing Person (1976) and Trying to Say Goodbye(2012). A fourth book of poems for young people, The Right Kind of Dog, is expected soon. Jussawalla also put together the near-legendary New Writing in India (1974).

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ÂŠ From the private collection of Iqbal Malhotra

CA P ITAL CIT Y A Short Biography of Delhi

Malvika Singh Malvika Singh’s love affair with India’s capital city began when her family moved there from Bombay in the 1950s. Her personal account of Delhi past and present explores the still magnificent ruins of Delhi’s monuments, its vigorous and colourful markets, its broad and treelined avenues, its famous university, tucked away on the Ridge, and bustling Chandni Chowk. Intertwined with this narrative, is Singh’s own story of the life she forges within the city, the remarkable Delhiites she has met, and the turbulent changes, both political and social, that she has witnessed over the decades. While she mourns the Delhi that once was, her spirit is buoyed by the indomitable spirit of the city.

I was born in Bombay, an open and vibrant city that was at its very best through the 1950s, the first decade of Independence. Social hierarchies were not obvious; what people did was what mattered. As I was beginning to find my feet, and get comfortable in Bombay, our small family decided to move to New Delhi, to which city my grandfather had retired. He had commissioned Mr Heinz, a very popular architect, to design our house. My mother had insisted on having her own space and so we lived in a cottage built for us on the back lawn. We became a ‘joint family’ overnight, and I began to learn the difficult rules of give and take, of patience and adjustment. s

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That was fifty years ago. Our home sat on Kautilya Marg, a broad and very quiet road, a radial artery that ended at the edge of the Ridge, a green, untouched lung of Delhi. This wilderness area had been suggested as a possible venue for the building of the new Imperial Capital but the then Viceroy, Lord Hardinge had famously responded, ‘if you tamper with nature, nature will destroy you.’ Raisina Hill was anointed the ‘site’ for the Capital instead and the green belt of the Ridge was conserved. Given the location of our home, it felt as though we were living in the wild, with no friendly or intrusive neighbours, no bazaar, no vendors of fruit and vegetables, no flower sellers, no nomadic minstrels, no bandarwallahs or bhalu-wallahs, no kalai-wallahs or kabadi-wallahs. As nearby Chanakyapuri grew and developed into a new colony, these ‘specialists’ found their way to our homes and the few other intrepid souls who lived in the vicinity, and slowly and steadily the cultural ethos of Dilli started to enter New Delhi. We did not lock our front door except at night, and only for form’s sake. Tall silver oak, jacaranda and laburnum trees guarded the lawn that was lined with flowerbeds and two tangerine trees that fruited profusely. The memory of my grandmother’s sharp and tangy ‘real’ bitter marmalade still makes my mouth water with longing.

~ Images of my grandfather, a retired general of the Indian Army who was more British than the British, eating his phulka with a fork and a knife, still make me laugh. He was a delightful man who worked hard at everything he was fascinated by. He taught himself about classical Indian bronzes and wrote a book called Icons in Bronze, he learned about classical Indian art, took endless photographs when t

he travelled and left us iconic pictures of China in the 1950s. In addition to all this, he wrote a book called The Morale Builders on the Army Medical Corps that he had been at the helm of. He would spend hours colour-tinting black-and-white photographs of my beautiful grandmother, telling her discreetly how much he loved and cared for her. I learned what ‘gracious’ meant in those early years as I ‘apprenticed’ under his extraordinary eye and range of interests… Life was different in 1950s Delhi. When the imposing gates of Teen Murti House were open, children would be encouraged to visit the rear lawns and play with the pet pandas and often, with Chacha Nehru. I recall a memorable moment when we sneaked into the grand house and peeped through the key-hole of his study, and were thrilled to see the Prime Minister reading at his desk. He came out later and asked to be photographed with us and not the other way round. Such was the stark difference between then and now.

Daughter of the late Romesh Thapar, Malvika Singh is the publisher of Seminar, a prestigious monthly magazine of ideas, founded in 1959. She has authored several books: Bhutan: Through the Lens of the King; New Delhi: Making of a Capital; Delhi: India in One City; and Snowdon’s India. She has edited Delhi: The First City; Chennai: A City of Change; Hyderabad: A City of Hope; Kolkata: A Soul City; Lucknow: A City Between Cultures; Mumbai: A City of Dreams; Freeing the Spirit: Iconic Women of India. She has also worked extensively in theatre and film, and was decorated as a Dame in the civil merit honours list of the King of Spain in 2009.

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O F B IR DS AN D B IR DSONG M. Krishnan India is home to over a thousand species of birds- ranging from glittering sunbirds, peacocks and pheasants through unassuming inhabitants of town and countryside like crows, sparrows and pigeons to those that are rare and threatened like the Indian Bustard. In this book, many of them are brought to vivid life by one of the country’s greatest naturalists and nature writers. M. Krishnan’s prose is studded with evocative descriptions of nature, literary allusions, stylistic flourishes, humour and, most rewardingly, precise observations and original insights into over a hundred species of birds in a variety of habitats. This is a work that will delight bird lovers of every stripe. As Zafar Futehally, one of the country’s best-known ornithologists says in his foreword, ‘Every piece in this collection has something original even for the seasoned naturalist.’

reviews

‘Of Birds And Birdsong is a book to which a reader would go back time and again. The stories want to make you want to snatch a pair of binoculars and head to the nearest green spot to go birdwatching.’ —DNA

‘[Of Birds and Birdsong] should be mandatory reading for anyone remotely interested in birds and should be compulsory reading in schools for its value as a natural history text as well as for its literary content.’ —Ranjit Lal in Time Out ‘You should read this book if you know nothing about birds, and, equally, if you marvel at them or enjoy watching them and listening to their calls. Madhaviah Krishnan, one of India’s greatest naturalists, and incontestably our finest nature writer in English, will hold you spellbound with his lapidary descriptions of birds...’ —Praful Bidwai in Outlook

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As a naturalist, M. Krishnan (1912-1996) had few peers. A brilliant writer and photographer, his writing was showcased to fine effect in a newspaper column called ‘Country Notebook’ that appeared continuously in the Sunday Statesman for forty-six years. Although two posthumous books that feature his photos and writing have been published—Nature’s Spokesman edited by Ramachandra Guha and Eye in the Jungle edited by Ashish and Shanthi Chandola with T.N.A. Perumal—Of Birds and Birdsong is the first collection of Krishnan’s pieces to focus exclusively on birds. Krishnan was awarded the Padma Shri in 1970. Shanthi and Ashish Chandola are well-known wildlife cinematographers, writers and photographers. This is the second collection of Krishnan’s writing that they have edited.

alread published

in 2013

GHALI B A K H N AV I AND

BD U L L A H

B I L G R A MI

T H E A D V E N T U RE S O F

AMIR HAMZA

d e

ranslated by

USHARRAF

LI FAROOQI

‘The Iliad and Odyssey of medieval Persia, a rollicking, magic-filled heroic saga... in an interpretation so fluent that it is a pleasure to sit down and lose oneself in it.’ — William Dalrymple in The New York Times Book Review

T H E A DVENTUR ES OF AMIR HAM ZA Translated by

Musharraf Ali Farooqi

The first translation into English of a beloved medieval IndoPersian epic, The Adventures of Amir Hamza is the gripping account of the exploits of Amir Hamza, the greatest warrior of his time, defender of the True Faith, lover of blindingly beautiful women and scourge of infidels, demons, trolls, devs and assorted evildoers. In Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s extraordinary translation, which took nearly a decade to finish, Hamza’s magical world comes thrillingly alive.

Musharraf Ali Farooqi is an author, novelist and translator. His novels include Between Clay and Dust and The Story of a Widow. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed translation of the Urdu classic, Hoshruba: The Land and the Tilism, the first book of a projected 24-volume magical fantasy epic; Urdu writer Syed Muhammad Ashraf ’s novella, The Beast; and a selection of contemporary Urdu poet Afzal Ahmed Syed’s poetry, Rococo and Other Worlds.

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C H ANAKYA’S NEW MANIF ESTO Pavan K. Varma

Chanakya (c.380-270 BCE) was classical India’s greatest thinker and teacher. Through his unparalleled ability to devise resultoriented military, political and administrative strategy, he overthrew one king, crowned another and paved the way for the establishment of India’s first great empire. His seminal work, the Arthashastra, arguably the world’s first comprehensive treatise on statecraft and governance, was written approximately two thousand years before Machiavelli’s The Prince. What would Chanakya do if confronted with the various crises that beset contemporary India? Using this question as the starting point for his book, celebrated writer and thinker Pavan K. Varma has drawn up a practical and detailed plan, modelled on the Arthashastra, to bring about reform and change in five key areas that require urgent attention—governance, democracy, corruption, security, and the building of an inclusive society. Whether it is laying the foundation for an independent and effective Lokpal, or decriminalizing politics and successfully weeding out the corrupt, the solutions he proposes are substantive, well within the constitutional framework, and can make all the difference between intent and action. Chanakya’s New Manifesto is both a call to action as well as a deeply insightful account of the challenges facing the country today. It is a book that should be attentively read by everybody with a stake in India’s future.

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Pavan K. Varma studied history at St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and took a degree in law from Delhi University. He has been press secretary to the president of India, official spokesman of the Foreign Office, director general of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and India’s ambassador to Bhutan. Having taken premature retirement from the Indian Foreign Service, he now seeks to be actively involved in public life.

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Pavan K. Varma has authored several acclaimed and bestselling books, among them, Ghalib: The Man, The Times; Krishna: The Playful Divine; The Great Indian Middle Class; Being Indian: The Truth About Why the 21st Century Will be India’s; Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity and When Loss is Gain. He has also translated into English the poetry of Gulzar, Kaifi Azmi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

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E M AN D THE B IG HOOM Jerry Pinto

‘She was always Em to us. There may have been a time when we called her something ordinary like Mummy, or Ma, but I don’t remember. She was Em, and our father, sometimes, was The Big Hoom.’ In a one-bedroom-hall-kitchen in Mahim, Bombay, Imelda Mendes—Em to her children—holds her family in thrall with her flamboyance, her compelling imagination, her unspoken love, her sometimes cruel candour. Through this, her husband—to whom she was once ‘buttercup’—her son and daughter learn to cope with her mania and her frequent wish to die. Later, looking back, the son tries to understand the mother and the unusual man who courted, married and protected her—as much from herself as from the world. A searing, and at times darkly funny, study of mental illness, Jerry Pinto’s first novel is also deeply moving story of love and family relationships. awa r d s

Winner of the Hindu Literary Prize 2012 Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize 2013 Longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2013 reviews

‘Em and the Big Hoom is a beautiful book, a child’s-eye view of madness and sorrow, full of love, pain, and, unaccountably, much a

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wild comedy. One of the very best books to come out of India in a long, long time.’ —Salman Rushdie ‘Deeply engrossing, finely-tuned, and told with a moving and luminous clarity, this is a splendid and memorable debut.’ —Arundhathi Subramaniam, The Hindu ‘An extraordinary achievement, flawlessly written, variously textured, and full of convincing characters.’—Eunice de Souza, Pune Mirror ‘A marvellous debut, sensitive, livened by crystal-cut prose and Pinto’s trademark mordant humour. This is the best Indian novel in years.’ —Prayaag Akbar, The Sunday Guardian

Jerry Pinto has been a mathematics tutor, school librarian, journalist and columnist and is now associated with MelJol, an NGO that works in the sphere of child rights. His published works include a book of poems, Asylum, and Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb, which won the National Award for the Best Book on Cinema in 2007. He has also edited an anthology of writings on Goa, Reflected in Water, and co-edited (with Naresh Fernandes) a similar anthology on his native city, Bombay, Meri Jaan.

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BUSINESS SUTRA A Very Indian Approach to Management

Devdutt Pattanaik

In this landmark book, best-selling author, leadership coach and mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik shows how, despite its veneer of objectivity, modern management is rooted in Western beliefs and obsessed with accomplishing rigid objectives and increasing shareholder value. By contrast, the Indian way of doing business— as apparent in Indian mythology, but no longer seen in practice— accommodates subjectivity and diversity, and offers an inclusive, more empathetic way of achieving success. Great value is placed on darshan, that is, on how we see the world and our relationship with Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Business Sutra uses stories, symbols and rituals drawn from Hindu, Jain and Buddhist mythology to understand a wide variety of business situations that range from running a successful tea stall to nurturing talent in a large multinational corporation. At the heart of the book is a compelling premise: if we believe that wealth needs to be chased, the workplace becomes a rana-bhoomi—a battleground of investors, regulators, employers, employees, vendors, competitors and customers; if we believe that wealth needs to be attracted, the workplace becomes a ranga-bhoomi—a playground where everyone is happy. Brilliantly argued, original and thoroughly accessible, Business Sutra presents a radical and nuanced approach to management, business and leadership in a diverse, fast-changing, and increasingly polarized world.

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Devdutt Pattanaik has written over twenty-five books and 400 articles on Indian mythology for everyone from adults to children. Since 2007, he has been explaining the relationship between mythology and management through his column in the Economic Times; the talk he gave at the TED India conference in 2009; the show Business Sutra which ran successfully on CNBC-TV18 in 2010, besides numerous lectures at Indian universities and management institutes. Trained to be a doctor, he spent fifteen years in the healthcare (Apollo Health Street) and pharmaceutical (Sanofi Aventis) industries and worked briefly with Ernst & Young as a business adviser before he turned his passion into a vocation and joined the think tank of the Future Group as its Chief Belief Officer.

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ON HIN DUISM Wendy Doniger

Through this magisterial volume—which she calls ‘the book of my books’—Wendy Doniger, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest and most original scholars of Hinduism, enlarges our understanding of an ancient and complex religion to which she has devoted herself for half a century. Comprising a series of connected essays, On Hinduism examines many of the most critical and contested issues in Hinduism, from the time of the Vedas to the present day: Are Hindus monotheists or polytheists? Is it possible to reconcile images of a god with qualities (saguna) and without qualities (nirguna)? How can atheists be Hindu, and how can unrepentant Hindu sinners obtain salvation? Why have Hindus devoted so much attention to addictions, and why have they always been ambivalent about non-injury (ahimsa)? How have Hindu ideas about death, rebirth and karma changed in the course of history, and what do dogs and cows tell us about Hinduism? How and under what conditions does a pluralistic religion, remarkable for its intellectual tolerance, foster intolerance? The book closes with short autobiographical essays in which Doniger looks back upon her academic career—complete with its Orientalist heritage, self-critiques and controversies—and talks eloquently and movingly about the influence of Hinduism on her own philosophy of life. Drawing upon Doniger’s writing over forty years, On Hinduism is scholarship of the highest order, and a compelling analysis of one of the world’s great faiths. a

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Wendy Doniger (Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Flaherty) was born in New York City on 20 November 1940. She first trained as a dancer under George Balanchine and Martha Graham and then went on to graduate from Radcliffe College, summa cum laude, and to complete two doctorates in Sanskrit and Indian Studies (from Harvard and Oxford). Having taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies, at the University of London and at the University of California at Berkeley, she has been a full professor in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago since 1978 and, since 1986, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions. She is the author of translations of Sanskrit texts, including the Rig Veda [1981], the Laws of Manu [1991], and the Kamasutra [2002], as well as books about India (Siva: The Erotic Ascetic [1973], The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology [1976], Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India [1998] and, most recently, The Hindus: An Alternative History) [2009], myth (Other Peoplesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Myths: The Cave of Echoes [1984] and The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth [1999]), sex (most recently, The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade [2000]), and love (The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was [2005]). And she was the first girl whom Francis Ford Coppola ever kissed.

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Spr i ng 2013 p10

Exotic Aliens VALMIK THAPAR

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p15

A Pleasant Kind of Heavy and Other Erotic Stories ARANYANI

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The Wildings NILANJANA ROY

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p22

The Taliban Cricket Club TIMERI N MURARI

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Summ e r p26 The Kingdom at the Centre

of the World OMAIR AHMAD

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206 p31

A Song and Two Seasons CHETAN RAJ SHRESTHA

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Rupi Baskey HANSDA SOWVENDRA SHEKHAR

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p46

Shadow Play SHASHI DESHPANDE

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p50

The Competent Authority SHOVON CHOWDHURY

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p58 Drunken Rats and Angry Poets:

A Short Biography of Patna AMITAVA KUMAR

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Lamentations KHUSHWANT SINGH

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p66

Between Clay and Dust MUSHARRAF ALI FAROOQI

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Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer CYRUS MISTRY

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Mo n s oo n p74 PUNJAB: A History from

Aurangzeb to Mountbatten RAJMOHAN GANDHI

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Filomenaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Journeys MARIA COUTO

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p83 Courage and Conviction: An

Autobiography GENERAL V.K. SINGH with KUNAL VERMA

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Reader Translated and Edited by ARUNAVA SINHA

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A Short Biography of Madras NIRMALA LAKSHMAN

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the Nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Passage through Crisis and Change SHANKKAR AIYAR

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Aut um n p102 Tiger Fire: The Definitive Book

of the Indian Tiger VALMIK THAPAR

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Marriage in 21st Century India IRA TRIVEDI

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p114 Grand Delusions:

A Short Biography of calcutta INDRAJIT HAZRA

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Seasons in Old Delhi PAMELA TIMMS

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p123 Tales of Fosterganj RUSKIN BOND

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p129 Business Titans INDRAJIT GUPTA and CHARLES ASSISI

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p134 The Hundred Names of

Darkness NILANJANA ROY

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p144 City Adrift: A Short Biography

of Bombay NARESH FERNANDES

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p151 The Dynasty: Two Hundred

Years of the Nehrus and the Gandhis PRANAY GUPTE

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Destitution HARSH MANDER

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p161 This Unquiet Land: Dispatches

from Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fault Lines BARKHA DUTT

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Wi nt e r p168 Grey Hornbills at Dusk: Nature

Rambles through Delhi BULBUL SHARMA

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Essays and Entertainments ADIL JUSSAWALLA

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p182 CAPITAL City: A Short

Biography of Delhi MALVIKA SINGH

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about us

Aleph Book Company is an independent publishing company founded in May 2011 by David Davidar in partnership with R.K. Mehra and Kapish Mehra of Rupa Publications India. Ravi Singh joined the start-up about six months later as co-publisher. Aleph will publish approximately fifty books this year in these subject areas: literary fiction and quality non-fiction in the following genresâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; history, biography, memoir, narrative non-fiction, reportage, travel, current events, music, art, science, politics, nature, religion, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and business. For further information on how to submit your manuscript and where to buy our books please visit our website www.alephbookcompany.com Everything we do owes much to the efforts of the team of professionals who make the firm what it is. The founders and directors of Aleph Book Company would like to gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the following people who were instrumental in putting together, marketing and distributing The Book of Aleph: Volume Two and the books on the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s list. In alphabetical order they are: Aienla Ozukum, Ankit Pahwa (and his team), A.K. Singh (and his team), Chander Shekhar (and his team), Dibakar Ghosh, Hina Mobar (and her team), Meenakshi Singh, Neeraj Gulati, Raj Kumari John, Ritu Vajpeyi-Mohan, Simar Puneet, Sudeshna Shome Ghosh and Trisha Dutt. The Book of Aleph: Volume Two was designed by Bena Sareen The Aleph Logo was designed by Rymn Massand

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Calligraphy on rectos, ‘Aleph’ in Kufic script, by Asad ul Ghafoor Gaad PHOTO CRE D ITS

Unless otherwise specified all photographs are courtesy of the respective authors. t