Book Review: Growing Up Bin Laden by Jean Sasson, Najwa Bin Laden and Omar Bin Laden

Osama Bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man, was killed on 2 May 2011. Even after his execution, bin Laden remains an enigma. Why did the privileged child of a wealthy Saudi family give up a life of comfort and turn jihadi? What motivated bin Laden to resort to terrorism when no one else in his family adopted such violent tactics? Why is it that none of bin Laden’s children, especially his sons, have become terrorists? In order to find answers to these questions, I got hold of an account by one of Bin Laden’s sons and his first wife, which was published in 2009, two years before he was killed.

Najwa Bin Laden, a Syrian lady, was Osama Bin Laden’s first cousin and first wife. Omar Bin Laden was Nawja’s fourth son.
Jean Sasson is an American writer who has spent a big part of her life in the middle-east and has penned a number of books set in the middle-east.

Bin Laden’s father Mohammed Awad bin Laden was a Yemeni immigrant who rose to become one of the wealthiest men in Saudi Arabia. Osama’s mother divorced his father when Osama was very young and remarried his father’s employee Mohammad al Attas. Osama was brought up by his step father al Attas and rarely saw his father Mohammed bin Laden. Osama grew up to be a good boy, pious and obedient. A stickler for rules, Osama slowly became a fanatic Muslim, imposing his feudal and medieval values on his submissive wives and children. He forbade them modern comforts and expected them to live rough. To toughen up his family, he made them trek in the desert and sleep in the open. He made sure that he always had four wives, his women being little more than vehicles for reproduction, expecting all his children to become soldiers of Islam.

When Osama got into trouble with the Saudi government, he fled to Sudan, taking his family with him. When he had to leave Sudan, he went to Afghanistan, living in the caves of Tora Bora as a guest of the Taliban, his family with him. Bin Laden was a weirdo and it’s a surprise that his son Omar turned out to be so peace-loving and “normal”. Please read this fascinating book to find out more about bin Laden’s personal life.

Book Review: Escape To Nowhere, by Amar Bhushan

The Research & Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency, has had its share of defectors and moles – is there any decent-sized intelligence outfit in the world which has been totally spared such embarrassment? One of the most-known cases of infiltration involved an officer named Rabinder Singh who in 2004 fled to the US via Kathmandu, taking his wife with him. Rabinder Singh had already fallen under suspicion and was under surveillance by R&AW’s Counter-Intelligence & Security Division (CI&S). Amar Bhushan, author of Escape to Nowhere, headed CI&S and was largely responsible for the various decisions taken, including the decision to not to arrest Rabinder Singh until CI&S found out who exactly was his handler and the recipient of the information he was giving out. At that time, C.D.Sahay was Secretary (R), as the Head of R&AW is referred to. After Rabinder Singh’s flight, Amar Bhushan got a lot of flak. C.D.Sahay did not escape lightly either. Escape To Nowhere is literature and in the guise of fiction, albeit thinly disguised, Amar Bhushan attempts to explain (not justify) his actions.

Amar Bhushan calls himself Jeevnathan (sic) or Jeev for short. His boss C. D. Sahay is given the moniker of Wasan. Jeev has a wife, the ever suffering Manini or Mani for short. Rabinder Singh is called Ravi Mohan. The Principal Secretary and the National Security Adviser (NSA) to the Prime Minister at that time was Brajesh Mishra, christened Saran in this novel. R&AW is called the Agency and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) is called the Bureau. CI&S is called the Counter Espionage Unit (CEU).

Escape To Nowhere is an engrossing read, and as may be expected, it doesn’t show the R&AW in a good light. One gets the feeling that the bulk of R&AW employees are not in the Great Game for the greater good or even personal glory. Rather, they are normal government employees and behave just like every other employee of the Central government. There is corruption galore. Not just the big ticket type, but a lot of misdemeanours, drivers selling petrol in the black market, officers creating small nests for their post-retirement life, men watching porn in office and the like. But the worst culprit for me was CI&S itself. After Ravi Mohan falls under suspicion, we see Jeev and a few others hard at work, trying to decipher what the suspect is up to. They follow him and his wife round the clock, place video cameras in this office, put bugs in his car etc. Despite a lot of hard work, they are unable to figure out how he contacts his handler or who his handler is, in the first place. R&AW is meant to hand over matters like this to the Bureau, but Jeev doesn’t, though the IB has more resources and greater competency in this sort of work. Professional rivalry between the two organisations comes in the way.

Shockingly, the watchers don’t consider the possibility that the suspect might be in touch with his handler through the internet. Not once do Jeev and his underlings consider or even mention words such as internet or email, let along VOIP, which was how Ravi Mohan was communicating his handlers. Jeev and his assistants do know that Ravi Mohan has an effective cross-shredder at home, which he uses to shred documents after photocopying them, but they do not even think of the possibility that he might not be handing over hard copies of stolen documents to his handler! Towards the end, after the bird has flown, we are told that Ravi Mohan had two laptops, but Jeev isn’t shown to be surprised. There is no mention of the two laptops prior to that, but if Ravi Mohan was being watched all the time, including when he was at home, it is unlikely that the watchers did not know of the laptops.

As Jeev hunts for clues to Ravi Mohan’s handlers, we see Wasan argue for a quick end to whole episode, by confronting Ravi Mohan with the evidence they have and either forcing him to resign or even arresting him and giving him the third degree treatment. But Amar Bhushan will have none of it. He wants to do things by the book, follow the letter of the law as well as adhere to its spirit. He doesn’t want a repeat of the fiasco where two scientists working for ISRO were accused of passing secrets to two Maldivian women, arrested, harassed, put on trial, only for the courts to later dismiss all charges against them and criticise the Intelligence Bureau and the Kerala government for having proceeded against them on very flimsy grounds. There’s also the Samba scandal where a number of serving army officers were arrested and tortured on the mere suspicion of having sold military secrets to Pakistan, only for the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court to exonerate one of the prime suspects for lack of evidence. Bhushan suggests that the army men involved in the Samba case might have been really guilty while the two ISRO scientists were actually innocent. Jeev even goes to the extent of persuading Wasan to not inform the Principal Secretary and it is only on the 75th day after the watch was mounted that Wasan puts his foot down and gets Jeev to prepare a note for Saran the Principal Secretary. When Princi is informed, he is much more worried about the impact of the possible scandal on Indo-US relations and wants the matter to be handled quietly.

Ravi Mohan and his wife flee to Kathmandu on the 92nd day. Finally after the horse has bolted, we see Wasan take as much flak as Jeev and I ended up feeling sorry for Wasan (C.D.Sahay), but not for Jeev (Amar Bhushan), though Jeev comes across as a very honest man.

Bhushan’s English is functional, very much desi-English and his grammar slips on a few occasions, but the 332-page book has been reasonably well-edited, making it an easy read. Jeev’s long suffering, but loyal wife Manini makes pithy and sarcastic comments every once in a while and these serve to spice up the narrative.

Here’s a link to a very good review of Escape to Nowhere by B. Raman, former head of R&AW’s counter-terrorism division. Naturally, B. Raman takes a much more charitable view of Bhushan than I do.

Book Review: Che in Paona Bazaar, by Kishalay Bhattacharjee

Senior journalist Kishalay Bhattacharjee is a veteran of the North East. Not only did he grow up in Shillong, he also covered the conflict in the North East for seventeen years, while working for NDTV. Bhattacharjee’s offering Che in Paona Bazaar has a series of snapshots from Manipur, twenty two in total. Each of these vignettes offers a glimpse of life in Manipur and the rest of the North East for the common man. Bhattacharjee uses a fictional character called Eshei to tell his stories. Eshei seems to be the typical Manipuri girl. She can speak the lingo and knows the culture and food, but has spent a substantial part of her life outside the North East, in Eshei’s case, in Delhi.

Bhattacharjee writes well, his touch light and sure. When food is described, the reader gets to taste it. When Manipur’s or the North East’s history is narrated, we get to witness it. When Bhattacharjee tells us that the tribal areas of Manipur and Nagaland have been stripped of all wildlife due to excessive hunting, we feel outraged. The book’s title is derived from Paona Bazaar, Imphal’s most popular street which offers terrific bargains for those interested in buying Chinese goods. Umbrellas can be had for Rs. 50, mosquito-repellent tennis racquets for Rs. 90, fake Levi’s canvass shoes for Rs. 100 and pirated DVDs for Rs. 35 each. A majority of the items sold in Paona sport Che’s image.

However, the most important takeaway from Che in Paona Bazaar is that the people of Manipur are tired of the insurgency. Militants enforce their diktat through coercion. Bhattacharjee tells us that the man on the street wants ‘good roads, a salary without percentage cuts, drinkable tap water, electricity, good schools and security’. The average militant is a goon, out to extort money and doesn’t have much ideology. We are told that ‘six months after two dozen ageing women stripped publicly in protest against the Assam Rifles, a Meitei girl walked into a room to make love to a young army officer. There was nothing political about it. He had come from thousands of kilometres away and had connected with someone. Sex had nothing to do with borders and roots. It was merely an impulse to feel alive and desired.’ Bhattacharjee tells us that every Manipuri supports Irom Sharmila. ‘Not supporting Sharmila would be tantamount to treason in Manipur, but the support is only a posture. Her struggle has been painfully lonely.’ To be honest, I was not fully convinced that these anti-militancy feelings are Eshei’s and not Bhattacharjee’s.

Towards the end of the book, Bhattacharjee tells us that though he went to school in Shillong, he did not learn any Khasi. Shillong has the air of an educational town, like many hill stations developed by the British, but the locals are not educated in those institutions. Bhattacharjee wonders what is at fault – ‘the inability of the locals to assimilate the outsiders into the system or the haughty stubbornness of the plainsmen to adopt any of the local attributes into their own lifestyles?’ The key to resolving the militancy in Manipur and the rest of the North East could lie in the answer to this question.

Book Review: Road Humps and Sidewalks, by Kalyan C. Kankanala

What happens when a large and powerful MNC holding patent rights to a life-saving drug, hikes the drug’s price to such an extent that it becomes unaffordable for the common man? Section 84 of the Patents Act, 1970 provides that three years after a patent has been issued, the Controller General of Patents Designs and Trademarks may grant a compulsory licence to any third party to manufacture such patented product if certain conditions are met. One of the conditions, the most relevant in the case of overpriced drugs, is that the patented invention is not available to the public at a reasonably affordable price. On this basis, a year ago, the Controller General granted Indian drug manufacturer Natco Pharma Limited, a compulsory license for Nexavar (Sorafenib), a life-saving drug manufactured by Bayer AG, used for the treatment of cancer patients.

In Kalyan C. Kankanala’s Road Humps and Sidewalks, a similar situation arises. A mutant variety of the HIV virus has been wreaking havoc in India. Doctors at the Charaka Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad (CIMS) have called it the Immune Killer Virus and the killer disease has been christened Immediate Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (IIDS). Dr. Vishnu, a young doctor practising in a remote district in Andhra Pradesh accidently discovers that Nervir, a drug manufactured by German MNC Berminger is an effective antidote to the deadly IIDS. Nervir is an approved drug, approved for treating infections of the central nervous system and not for use against IIDS. Yet the good doctors at CIMS, who are called White Angels, start using Nervir, with gratifying results.

Berminger is no different from any other MNC – it is greedy for profits and doesn’t have a heart. When existing stocks of Nervir are exhausted, doctors find that fresh stock is not forthcoming. Instead, Berminger has plans to hike the price from Rs. 2,000 per injection to Rs. 40,000. At Berminger’s Munich office, Dr. Christian Muller, CEO of Berminger, declares, ‘We must make as much money as possible before the epidemic ends. As discussed during the teleconference, you must continue creating scarcity for Nervir, until the death toll reaches a sizeable number and then make the drug available at twenty times the current price.’

Enter Arjun Mamidi, a very young and blind lawyer who has just won a landmark case in favour of Smitha, the hottest property in Bollywood, against Celeb, Smitha’s PR firm for having used, without Smitha’s permission, her images to endorse men’s undergarments. Arjun agrees to assist the White Angels at CIMS, who are desperately trying to get fresh stocks of Nervir. Finally, one Moon Pharma agrees to make Nervir, in breach of the patent rights held by Berminger. Arjun tells his clients that they have two options: One to wait for Nervir to file a suit for an interim order, which would prevent Moon Pharma from manufacturing Nervir. ‘In response to their suit, we will construct a thorough reply to pose as many impediments as we can in their pursuit to stop us through a court order.’ The second option is ‘to file a petition to the court asking for permission to make the drug to save IIDs patients.’ I am not sure if an Indian court is likely to give permission to manufacture a patented drug. There is also no mention of or discussion of the option to seek a compulsory licence from the Controller General to manufacture Nervir under Section 84 of the Patents Act, 1970, but I am no expert in these matters and author Kalyan C. Kankanala is an intellectual property lawyer who I assume knows his onions.

One can’t help but like Arjun, the young hero of the novel. Blind, but still strong and handsome, Arjun did his law degree from the Reddy College of Law, a non-descript law school in Hyderabad. A successful mooter, he met his wife Shreya while taking part in a moot court competition organised by the National Law School, Bangalore. Shreya was representing the Kerala Law Academy. No one expected Arjun or his team to do particularly well. But they beat all expectations and won the competition. Arjun also won Shreya’s heart in the process, Kankanala tells us.

Arjun relies on some very good software, his guide dog Neo and Jose, his clerk and Man Friday to read and write and get around. While walking around with Neo, he relies on road humps and sidewalks to get a sense of direction. The book’s title is derived from these aids.

Spoilers Ahead

Kankanala uses his writer’s licence with free abandon, at the expense of realism, not necessarily a bad thing. Young lawyer Arjun has a classy, three thousand square feet office in the Banjara Business Centre though his only employee is Jose. There isn’t even a receptionist. When Berminger goes all out to stop Arjun, they send a hired killer to smash up Arjun’s office. Due to sheer luck and bravery, Arjun fights off Ibrahim, a former ‘military assassin.’ A second attempt is made to abduct Arjun and prevent him from attending court on the day Berminger’s suit is to be argued in court. Once again, Arjun fights off his assailants, with able assistance from his guide dog Neo, who we are told, loves cream wafers. There is a third attempt as well, this time to kill Arjun and I’ll leave it to you to read this book to find out if Berminger is finally lucky.

Greed isn’t restricted to Berminger. We find a corrupt academic, in the form of Professor Saran Das, once a good man who inspired Arjun, now ploughing the land for MNCs like Berminger. The Union Health Minister is no good either. There is even an attempt to bribe the Chief Justice to have the incorruptible Justice Shekar replaced while the court proceedings are on.

I wouldn’t say that Road Humps and Sidewalks is an outstanding work of fiction, but all in all, it is a good read, especially if you are interested in issues revolving around patent rights.

Book Review: Headley and I by Hussain Zaidi and Rahul Bhatt

A troubled young man of mixed parentage with one foot in his father’s Pakistan and another in his mother’s United States takes to drugs and drug dealing. Nabbed by the authorities in the US, the dealer turns approver and then, an informer. Later he also turns to fundamentalist Islam and joins the Lashkar-e-Taiba which uses him to reconnoiter various sites in Mumbai for a planned terrorist attack. During his various trips to Mumbai, the terrorist befriends two younger men living in Mumbai. One of them is the son of a celebrated film maker and the other, a man of humble means and a Shiv Sainik. After the 26/11 attacks, the two young Mumbaikars are shocked to find out that they have been unwitting pawns in a larger game, that they have helped the terrorist navigate his way around Mumbai. The Shiv Sainik had actually taken the terrorist to Sena Bhavan and allowed to take a number of photographs and video recordings.

Hussain Zaidi’s Headley and I is the real life story of how two innocent young men, Rahul Bhatt, Mahesh Bhatt’s son and Pooja Bhatt’s brother, and Rahul’s friend Vikas Warak, a fitness instructor and Shiv Sainik, met with David Coleman Headley during his various recce trips to Mumbai. There were a number of meetings and Rahul Bhatt in particular started to look up to David Headley as a father figure. When the truth came out, Rahul summoned the courage to reach out to the authorities and speak the truth, taking Vilas with him. In this, both men were immensely helped by Mahesh Bhatt who used his enormous clout to ensure that the two innocent young men were not unnecessarily detained by the police or harassed in any other manner. Vilas Warak lost his job, but never went to jail.

Incidentally Rahul Bhatt is a co-author of Headley and I though I suspect Zaidi wrote more than half of this book. Mahesh Bhatt has written the foreword.

Headley and I is a good, easy read but failed to excite me a lot because much of its content is well-known. In any event, it is not half as interesting as Zaidi’s Dongri to Dubai – Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia. Zaidi does a good job of showing Rahul Bhatt’s estrangement from his father and how Headley filled the void in his life. Rahul Bhatt comes across as rather naïve at times, which I guess is only fair.