Book Review Bulletin Jan 2019

An International Journal of

Book Review This bulletin brings out book reviews written and published by Contemporary Literary Review India (CLRI) and Authors & Books.

Authors Vinay Capila Jayanta Ray Sometimes, reviewers reveal the secret side of the authors even they are not aware of. —Khurshid Alam, Editor-in-Chief, CLRI

Copyright Š Contemporary Literary Review India All rights reserved.

Issue No 1 | January 2019 Book reviews help authors improve their marketing stand. Sometimes, reviewers reveal the secret side of the authors even they are not aware of.

CLRI reviews books. Send your book for review to clrijournal@gmail.com.

Contact: +91-87938-82210/ 98340-90643 605, Classic Exotica, S No 51/H1/1A Kondhwa Khurd, Pune-411048. https://literaryjournal.in http://www.leafpress.in https://authornbook.com

2

Send your book for review to clrijournal@gmail.com

Book Review on Vinay Capila’s Echoes From The Valley by Vinita Agrawal Echoes From The Valley by Vinay Capila is a fictional work about the painful exodus of Hindu Pandits from Kashmir—an ostentatiously Muslim state. Any book that is set in the ethereally beautiful state of Kashmir is almost a hedonistic read—with descriptions of majestic snow-capped mountains, ebullient rivers Jhelum and Lider, the verdant valleys and breathtaking violet saffron fields. However, the author points out that such a view of Kashmir is at best a romantic view. Though it is a work of fiction, the story is based on the real-time incidents that marked the terrible ousting of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley.

The author begins the story by describing the wonderful friendship between three friends—Ravi, Roshan and Bashir. Their bond, rooted in school days, matures into the later years of their life but acquires sadder flavors with the painful passage of time.

Their first tryst with the grim realities of this paradisiacal land occurs when the three friends plan an innocuous trek to the base of the Kolhai Glacier. Their adventure is interwoven with warmth, kindness and genuine help from the local Gujjars (sheepherders) and caretakers of the rest houses but is also fraught with talk of dangerous presence of terrorists nearby. They narrowly escape an attack on their life—thanks only to their fate. But the sense of unease and foreboding mars not just their trip but it leaves a mark to linger in their mind for life.

3

Send your book for review to clrijournal@gmail.com “I don’t like the sound of all this,” Ravi muttered. “Who are these people? What do they want? By all appearances they could be Afghan Taliban, but what were they doing in this valley, and where are they headed?”

Such are the ominous words from one of the protagonists which are sharper. Through this small incident Vinay Capila sows the seeds of unease and danger in the reader's minds. We are now prepared for gorier Contemporary incidents with devastating repercussions.

Literary It's odd how Bashir often refers to the areas south of his state as India and he plans to open a handicrafts shop in India. And this is the reality how the Seeks submission for locals in Kashmir perceive their identity. research papers, stories, Although it is disturbing to digest that poems, book review. while the Kashmiris are geographically and politically a part of India, their nationalities, their patriotic zeal and their mental identity belong to some independent territory or worse still to another neighboring country.

Review India

The author, Vinay, has spent a fair amount of his time in Kashmir.

His mother belonged to the state and he dedicates the book to her saying ‘her mind never left it (Kashmir).’ Vinay's tale of the rude ousting of Kashmiri Pandits is definitely a firsthand account—of delicious bakkarkhanis, kadam saag and bhaat, the Kheerbhavani Shrine in the interiors of Ganderbal and the descriptions of how the Pandeys had records of all the Hindu families living there.

His understanding of their tragic migration is personal but he takes the voices of three youths to describe the process. It is poignant to note that the exuberance and optimism of young minds soon fades into grey resignation in the face of injustice and insults that are beyond their control.

Somewhere towards the middle of this 137-page novel, one of the trio – Roshan and his family – faces the first direct loss of house and life because of the antagonism that terrorists fuel against the

4

Send your book for review to clrijournal@gmail.com Hindus within the Kashmiri society. The author says, rather poetically: 'The alienation was seeded in spring and it exploded in autumn. It appeared as if an invisible hand had hovered over the valley and covered it with its dark shadow.'

The author strives to highlight the mitigating actions of the army in the whole plot by bringing in the characters like Vikram, the commandant of the CRP Battalion, but he is ultimately forced to describe the situation in these words: '“Gulam Ali sahib, I would like to disagree with you. You talk of the ‘voice of Kashmiri people’. I would like to ask, who are the Kashmiri people? Are these thousand, or two thousand, or even ten thousand people who join processions, or stone vehicles, or burn shops and houses, the Kashmiri people? Is this the voice that needs to be heard that you are talking of? Or is it the silent majority, which includes most of us here, and the large number of people that Shafiq Ahmed sahib talked about just now, who have so far sat back in impotent patience, whose voice needs to be heard? Let us not be so naïve as to deny the fact that these agitations, and the turmoil we have been facing all these years, is sponsored by Pakistan and has been brought to our doorsteps by terrorists...'

As a reader, one wishes that the author had gone deeper into the roots of the problem, had exposed its ugly pith, had narrated some of the real horrors that Kashmiri Pandits had to endure in a decade of exodus. This would have uncovered the true picture of something that shook the very foundation of the life of the Kashmiri Hindus. The events Contemporary uprooted the victims from their soil and left them flailing in a sea of humanity Literary that largely ignored them and certainly did not provide any succor or Review rehabilitation, whatsoever.

India While Vinay Capila exposes this sad truth, the reader certainly looks for more on this greatly traumatic period in

Send your book for review to:clrijournal@gmail.com

5

Send your book for review to clrijournal@gmail.com the life of a wonderful, brilliant and beautiful community.

All in all, the book does a good job of refocusing our attention on the miserable plight of these people and also on the overall degeneration of the state of Jammu and Kashmir because of insurgency and terrorism.

Contemporary Literary Review India Send your book for review to:clrijournal@gmail.com

A smooth reading, that draws in the readers’ mind by describing the innocuous journey of three friends fated to end in gruesome repercussions in the long run. A book worth reading because it gives a firsthand account of the day-to-day life in the valley and of the fears and horrors smoking on its rim.

Perhaps the book could be summed up in these thoughts that float through Ravi's mind:

well

'Ravi sighed as he thought back on the words of the Gujjar patriarch: perhaps a benevolent God had guided the gujjars’ travels, to stand in their path to prevent an evil fate. Perhaps it was the not so benevolent God who had prevented Ravi from conveying the information to the security forces in Pahalgam. But then, who could decide on what God willed – and why? Maybe that was what God’s will was: to stand aside and watch the human puppets weave their tapestry. He could not be a Hindu god, or a Muslim god; an Indian god, or a Pakistani god. He could not take sides in the little machinations of puny people. To Him they were all the same. If they created differences amongst themselves it was their problem. If they thought they could convert a paradise into a hell, it was their folly. Perhaps in a decade or two they would come to their senses; for nothing was for ever, and, in any case, every phase was just an altered facet of what had been before. Till then ...'

Thought provoking words indeed of a land that had been usurped by a nation of infidels even though a majority of its people were Muslims, all because they had for generations acquiesced to being ruled by the Hindu kings.

6

Send your book for review to clrijournal@gmail.com

Title: Echoes from the Valley Author: Vinay Capila Publisher: Partridge Publishing Available: Amazon

About the Author Vinay Capila (70), a graduate from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, with Honours in English Literature is a retired person now. He has been writing short stories and poems since college days. He has published two books: one a collection of short stories titled The Revolution and Other Stories and a poetry anthology titled Little Matchsticks.

About the Reviewer Vinita Agrawal is a Mumbai-based, award winning poet and writer. Recipient of the Gayatri GaMarsh Memorial Award for Literary Excellence her poems have appeared in various journals including Asiancha, Constellations, The Fox Chase Review, Pea River Journal, Contemporary Literary Review India (CLRI) and over a 100 other national and international journals. She was nominated for the Best of the Net Awards in 2011 by CLRI. She was awarded first prize in the Wordweavers Contest 2014, commendation prize in the All India Poetry Competition 2014 and won the 2014 Hour of Writes Contest thrice.

Leaf Press Authors & Books Contemporary Literary Review India 7

Send your book for review to clrijournal@gmail.com

Book Review on Jayanta Ray’s Tales of Square Field by Meenakshi Jauhari Chawla The stories we tell ourselves tell the story of our life. Through those stories, we create, build and divine the world around us in our unique light. That is the way the world becomes ours — that is the way we derive meaning from it.

In this book Tales of Square Field, the author, Jayanta Ray, does precisely so — he injects into his physical world, his own mental creation, and the two worlds meld and move together in harmony. There is no friction between the two, no conflict between his mind’s creation and the physical entity.

On the other hand, he draws inspiration from the mirage he has, and in that way, imbues his banal existence with sense and sensibility.

Right upfront in the Prologue, Ray informs the readers that it has been an ‘eternity’ since the bond was created between Arjun, the humble schoolteacher, and the ‘highly sensitive flat land’ Square Field, in the ‘mofussil’ town of Baharampore in Bengal. Described variously as the ‘oxygen tank’, ‘nerve centre of activities’ and even ‘listless ground’ and ‘vivacious radiating body of landmass’ the SF begins to don a personality in the readers’ mind.

It is interesting to note the origin of this unusual connection—an introvert college student from a rural background thrown into an alien environment finds comfort in books and the make-believe worlds. It is a smooth and logical extension into the real world — the thinking and talking and deeply insightful flat piece of land he encounters on his daily trips to the school where he teaches or the NGO where he works or any place else.

8

Send your book for review to clrijournal@gmail.com Arjun, the protagonist, admits his behavior and frequent forays to the field are viewed by his friends as being a little ‘weird’, but his clear intellectual superiority in his college coupled with his love for the written word provides him the leeway to get away with it all.

Chapter 1 opens with a quote from The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, and that is illuminating: For the young teenager, the diary was a ‘source of comfort and support’ in the most difficult days of her life, Arjun views SF (Square Field) in a similar way.

We also get a view of the relationship between the protagonist and SF. SF tells him about an unfortunate woman, Sita, in domestic distress and asks Arjun to help her through the NGO, Asha, Arjun is associated with.

It may be a bit far-fetched, but SF gets to know what’s going on in Sita’s home and Contemporary details of her ‘SOB’ husband through its Literary extraordinary ability to ‘eavesdrop’ on other’s conversations that take place in Review its property. But let’s put aside our skepticism here, and get to the heart of India the matter. SF is Arjun’s conscienceSeeks submission for keeper, the alter-ego Arjun employs to research papers, stories, lead what he believes is a good life. Of poems, book review. course, it is itself not insignificant that Arjun enjoys teaching students, and bringing to life subjects like history and geography, while his young wife Minu teaches Indian music at their home. SF with its almost-always socially wellintentioned interventions takes Arjun to the next level of a well-lived life.

There are other instances when SF draws Arjun’s attention to a wrong that needs to be righted.

Life events overtake Arjun — his wife has a baby, school politics gets in the way, both sets of parents come to stay with the couple for short spans following the birth of a baby boy. Through it all, SF and Arjun remain bonded — and as the narrative progresses, the nature of the bond opens itself up to closer examination.

9

Send your book for review to clrijournal@gmail.com SF is a construct Arjun has created to mind his mind. SF is a piece of land Contemporary that Arjun loves for the peace it brings him, for the fact it probably reminds Literary him of his own agricultural roots back in a Bengal village, a long time ago. Review Through the SF construct, Arjun weighs his own thoughts, argues with India his opinions and holds forth from Send your book for review another point of view when he is faced to:clrijournal@gmail.com with a dilemma. On page 30, where Arjun and SF are holding forth on the state of workers and what the government can do, and should do, this is self-evident. Such intellectual cogitation must emanate from Arjun, SF can only be the medium.

The narration is interesting, if sagging in parts (like the murder in Chapter 6, or the academic session on Ramayana in Chapter 8).

The description of his visit to his parents (Chapter 2) to announce his wife’s pregnancy is crisp, on the other hand, and sweetly endearing in its minute detailing. The interception of his rickshaw by the goons in the guise of Comrades at dusk, as well as their looting of his mother’s laddus is humorous, and portrays the human side of the goons. The so-called Comrades can’t be so evil that homemade laddus can suppress their evil desire.

There are fitful descriptions of typical small-town activities — a game of cricket, a lost boy, moving pictures, even the unseemly happy allure of a budding illicit relationship with a student. There is a sense of ‘mofussil’ right through the book, and some more descriptions of nature, the Ganges and trees and flowers would have lighted up the town-images in the reader’s mind.

Though saddened by the devastation of its property, the disappearance of SF in the last chapter remains a bit of a mystery to the reader. It is abrupt and not totally convincing, but perhaps, the writer exercised his right of creation (and therefore annihilation), and thought it fit to do away with the alter-ego in the advancing life of Arjun, who was now well-set in his life

10

Send your book for review to clrijournal@gmail.com and ways, and probably, in his construction of a social conscience too. All in all, it is an engaging read.

Title: Tales of Square Field Author: Jayanta Ray Publisher: Frog Books (2016) Available: Amazon.

About the Author Widely travelled both in India and abroad, Jayanta Ray has already authored three works of fiction A Town by the River (2009), Withered Leaves (2011) and a Slice of Life (2013). An alumnus of JNU and a former student of Heidelberg University for short-term studies, he works as a freelance translator for German/English languages, besides pursuing creative writing. He lives in Hyderabad with his wife.

About the Reviewer Meenakshi Jauhari Chawla trained as a computer engineer but works now for an independent publishing house in New Delhi. Her fiction has been published in The Little Magazine and Sahitya Akademi's journal, Indian Literature. Her poems were part of a poetry volume entitled I, Me, Myself (Unisun, Bangalore, 2010) and the The Poetry Society (India) Journal (2010).

11

Send your book for review to clrijournal@gmail.com

Contemporary Literary Review India (CLRI) is a literary journal in English and publishes a wide variety of creative pieces including poems, stories, research papers (literary criticism), book reviews, film reviews, essays, arts, and photography of the best quality of the time.

CLRI is an internationally referred journal and publishes authors from around the world.

Make a Submission

Leaf Press publishes books, anthologies and academic books with ISBN. We bring out books in paperback, digital and PDF formats. We specialize in publishing English literary books including fiction, story and poetry anthologies, PhD thesis papers and critical analysis.

Make a Submission

Authors & Books promotes authors and publishes book releases, book reviews and interviews.

Leaf Press Authors & Books Contemporary Literary Review India 12