Book Review: “Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia” by Sam Dalrymple

 

Sam Dalrymple’s Shattered Lands is a debut history book that reframes the end of the British Indian Empire as a series of five interconnected partitions between roughly 1937 and 1971.

The book tells the story of how a vast, sprawling "Indian Empire", administratively uniting what became modern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar (Burma), and even Gulf protectorates like parts of Aden, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait under British rule from Bombay or Delhi, fragmented into about a dozen nations in a relatively short period. Rather than treating the 1947 India-Pakistan Partition in isolation (the most famous and traumatic), Dalrymple integrates it into a broader narrative of imperial unravelling driven by hasty British decisions, nationalist movements, personal ambitions of leaders, and geopolitical pressures.

The five partitions that S. Dalrymple delves into are Burma's separation (1937), Separation of Arab/Gulf protectorates and Aden (around 1937–1947), The Great Partition of 1947 (India/Pakistan), the integration/absorption of 550+ princely states into independent India and finally, the breakup of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh (1971).

S. Dalrymple draws on deep archival research, untranslated memoirs, interviews across languages (including Bengali, Urdu, Burmese, Arabic, Konyak), and personal stories to humanize the events. He emphasizes how these were not ancient ethnic/religious inevitabilities but modern, top-down decisions in committee rooms and war cabinets, often by outsiders or elites detached from the human cost. The prose is vivid, cinematic, and narrative-driven,  blending big-picture geopolitics with individual tales of loss, exile, resistance, and reinvention. It highlights ongoing legacies: disputed borders (e.g., Kashmir), insurgencies, stateless people, suppressed memories, and how these fractures still shape South Asian (and broader Asian) conflicts and identities today.

Overall, S. Dalrymple tries to show that modern South Asian borders are recent, artificial, and born of empire's hasty retreat rather than primordial hatreds,  a "tragic tale" of shattered unity, dispossession, and foreclosed possibilities, yet one told with energy and colour.

S. Dalrymple’s narrative is compelling and unputdownable, his prose is vivid and cinematic, his storytelling has strong character development through the deployment of quotes. S. Dalrymple is the first historian (that I know of) who has connected the five partitions that took place in the sub-continent into a single story, linking Burma to Gulf to Bangladesh.

Shattered Lands is full of trivia about various politicians ranging from Gandhi to Jinnah to Nehru and the roles they played in the various partitions of this sub-continent. After reading Shattered Lands, my opinion of a number of leading figures has changed, in a few instances, substantially. I will not spoil it for you by disclosing more in this review, but will leave it to you to read this excellent book for yourself. 

When S. Dalrymple tells us that Arab states such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai which were legally part of “India” as per the Interpretation Act of 1889 and Burma were part of an undivided India and the five partitions of “India” were not entirely unavoidable, he is saying that, if events had panned out differently, each of the partitions could have been avoided. At first, my mind boggled to think of an “India” in which, not only Burma, but even Oman and Abu Dhabi are a part of. However, by the time I reached the end of Shattered Lands, I did start to believe that the five partitions could have been avoided. Needless to say, it would have been wonderful if they had been avoided.

I have been a big fan of S. Dalrymple’s father William Dalrymple – I have read most of William Dalrymple’s books. Just like his father’s works, S. Dalrymple’s debut writing is also characterised by extensive archives, multilingual interviews and counterfactuals grounded in evidence. S. Dalrymple humanizes suffering and highlights legacies like statelessness, suppressed languages and ongoing fault lines and is very strong on patterns of division and identity. With a balanced yet empathetic tone, S. Dalrymple acknowledges complexities, the British role, nationalist leaders' flaws, and ordinary people's tragedies without oversimplifying. Shattered Lands is a valuable educational tool, especially for younger readers, but I don’t see Indian universities making it prescribed reading, though they ought to.

S. Dalrymple’s book is also very timely and relevant as it reframes current conflicts (e.g., India-Pakistan, Kashmir) historically.

Highly recommended!

Book Review: Broken Threads: My Family from Empire to Independence, by Mishal Husain

 

Well-known UK-based journalist Mishal Husain, formerly with the BBC and now with  Bloomberg, has written a touching personal memoir that traces the story of her great-grandparents and grandparents who migrated from parts of British India that are now in independent India, to newly created Pakistan. Broken Threads is written in simple, but elegant English, contains scores of minor stories, plots, incidents and anecdotes and is filled with beauty, joy, loss and pain. Husain, the raconteur, is always neutral and even when she narrates a particularly harrowing incident, she gives both points of view and moves on, without dwelling on it. Broken Threads has been on my reading list ever since it was released almost two years ago, but it is only now that I have managed to read it.

Husain’s paternal grandmother Mary, an Anglo-Indian from the Madras Presidency fascinated me the most. Mary’s father Francis Quinn was an Irishman who was born in India and spent his entire life in India. A widower, Francis had two teenage sons (Bobby and Kitty) when he met a teenage girl named Mariamma, who was the same age as his sons. After he had two daughters with Mariamma, one of whom was Husain’s grandmother Mary, a local Irish priest shamed Francis Quinn into marrying Mariamma instead of continuing to live with her in sin. Francis had a good job – he was a tax and licensing inspector – and he had four more children with Mariamma, before he died in a freak accident in his house.

I am assuming the name Mariamma is the name for girls common in Tamil Nadu, derived from Mariamman, the popular Tamil deity. However, Francis seems to have met Mariamma (pronounced Maariamma) at a place by the sea called Anakapalle, which is not far from Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. To the best of my knowledge, Mariamma is a Tamil name and not a Telugu name, but I could be wrong. Husain tells us that Mariamma’s native language was Telugu, but she also says that for Francis Quinn, home was near Madras and Francis’s teenage sons ‘often went to the beach where they met and became friends with Mariamma, a Hindu girl of about their age’.

FYI and apologies for further digression: In Kerala, Mariamma (pronounced Mariamma) is a common name for Christian women and is derived from Mary (Mary + Amma = Mariamma).  No, I don’t think Husain’s great-grandmother Mariamma was a Malayalee Christian girl.

Mariamma’s daughter Mary Quinn (Husain’s paternal grandmother) completed her school education thanks to the support and benevolence of a bunch of Catholic nuns. After finishing school, the nuns sent Mary to a special hospital in Lahore to train to be a nurse.  One of the convent girls had already gone to Lahore and the nuns were comfortable with the idea of Mary following suit. I could easily picture a flock of conservative nuns sitting across a table and discussing the risks and rewards of sending Mary from Anakapalle to Lahore for her nursing studies, though Husain does not take any extra effort to paint this picture.

At Lahore, Mary meets a kindly medical student named Mumtaz, who had made his way there from Multan in Southern Punjab. Just like Mary, Mumtaz is also from a traditional background, a small-town boy struggling in the big, bad, city of Lahore. Mumtaz’s family were Sunni Muslims, but not the hyper-fanatic types. Husain tells us that the family had many links to Multanis from the Shia sect of Islam and when Shia religious processions came past the house, they would stand in the doorway and offer water. Sweets were exchanged with Hindu and Sikh neighbours for Eid, Diwali and Dussehra.

Needless to say, Mumtaz and Mary fall in love and get married, despite opposition from Mumtaz’s Muslim parents who are traditional folk and did not like the idea of their eldest son marrying outside the community.  Husain tells us that this opposition from Mumtaz’s family continued even after Mumtaz and Mary got married and had children. I do not wish to divulge the exact reactions of Mumtaz’s family in this regard, which I found to be extreme, despite Husain’s matter-of-fact tone in describing it. Please do read this excellent book to find out more.

Husain’s maternal grandparents Shahid and Tahirah grew up in what was then United Provinces, later Uttar Pradesh. Shahid grew up in Lucknow and later went to college in Aligarh. Shahid’s parents were Syeds who traced their origin to the Prophet and had migrated from Arabia to central Asia in the 13^th century, then to Afghanistan and finally to India in the beginning of the 19^th century, where they built on their reputation as men of learning in the Mughal court. After the Mughal power started to fade, they moved to Lucknow and earned a living as writers, religious scholars and poets. Shahid’s mother Feroze’s ancestors had fought for the British in the First Anglo-Afghan war and then in the 1857 uprising, after which they were rewarded with a gift of land outside Lucknow. Tahirah went to the Lady Hardinge Medical College in Delhi.

Though Husain’s maternal grandparents and paternal grandparents are from different parts of British India, they have so much in common, in terms of values, outlook and willingness to learn and adapt. For example, Husain tells us that her maternal grandmother Tahirah’s parents were of Kashmiri origin and they settled in two different parts of Punjab. Tahirah’s grandfather was a tailor, and he managed to get a contract to supply uniforms to the Raj. With that money, he managed to educate his children. Tahirah’s father Ataullah became a doctor and did his Master’s in Germany. When Tahirah’s maternal grandmother Ameernissa was fourteen, her father died and her mother was cut-off from his property. So, Ameernissa’s mother would go to the market in Lahore, wearing purdah, buy baskets of whole wheat and unhusked rice, hand process them at home and sell them back into the market, which allowed the younger children to stay in school.  Ameernissa’s mother and Mariamma seem to be cut from the same cloth!

Husain’s maternal grandfather Shahid manages to join the British Indian army as a Kings Commissioned Officer. Husain’s paternal grandfather Mumtaz too joins the British Indian army and worked as an army doctor at various places in British India, before being attached to the Royal Airforce. Both men join the armed forces because their financial circumstances aren’t too good and they get paid well as army officers. Both men see some action during the Second World War and survive. Husain’s descriptions of her grandfathers’ wartime experiences are exceptionally good. Shahid saw action in Rangoon and in other parts of Burma. He developed an eye problem, and his vision was seriously impaired, which caused him to be evacuated by air to Calcutta. I am not going to divulge more here.  Please buy a copy of Broken Threads to find out for yourself.

The best thing about Broken Threads is how Husain unveils the character of each of her grandparents, anecdote by anecdote. One gets the feeling that Husain is learning more about her family as she tells us her family’s story. For example, Husain remembers a time when she was living in the UAE with her parents and her paternal grandparents Mumtaz and Mary were in Saudi Arabia (because Mumtaz was working for the WHO). Whenever her grandparents went to visit them in the UAE, Mary would use the opportunity to go to mass since the UAE had churches and Saudi Arabia didn’t.

Interspersed with her family history are snippets of Indian history and the stories from India’s freedom struggle. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan is someone who Husain has very high regard for, and rightly so. We are told that Sir Syed witnessed the violence of 1857 first-hand. When the rebellion began, he saved the lives of a group of Europeans at Bijnor who were besieged by the mutineers. At the same time, his own family was in besieged Delhi. An uncle was killed by the East India Company’s troops, and his own mother was close to death. Nevertheless, he led a campaign to push the Muslim community in British India to educate themselves, instead of pining for what they had lost. Towards this end, he managed to set up a college in Aligarh, the place where Husain’s maternal grandparents Shahid and Tahirah grew up.

Husain’s narration becomes much more vivid and intense as she describes the run-up to India’s independence.  Her paternal grandfather spent most of the war in Quetta, except for a posting in Calcutta which made him a witness to the Bengal famine. Mishal quotes Ian Stephens, editor of the Statesman, in order to describe the Bengal famine, not just explain it through her grandfather. After the war, Shahid was appointed as Auchinleck’s private secretary, which gave him a ring-side view of history being made.

Field Marshal Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck had spent much of his childhood in India and knew India very well. Under Auchinleck, the British army stopped Rommel at El Alamein in 1942. Churchill sacked him nevertheless, since he didn’t agree with Auchinleck’s suggestions for winning the war and appointed Montgomery who benefitted immensely from Auchinleck’s planning. Posted in India, Auchinleck supported General Slim’s fight in Burma.

Husain is a big fan of Auchinleck, but does not hesitate to criticise him when required. For example, she says that ‘when the first INA trial took place in the autumn, the flaws in the system Auchinleck had devised were immediately apparent’.  Husain’s description of why Auchinleck decided to hold trials for INA soldiers in the Red Fort is one of the various reasons you should read Broken Threads.  How and why, both sets of Husain’s grandparents, including Mary, opted for Pakistan over India, is yet another.

Husain is no fan of Lord Mountbatten and quotes Shahid to state that "his whole image and career has been built up because he is a member of the Royal Family."  Soon after Mountbatten's arrival in Delhi, he asked Auchinleck to sack Shahid, as he did not believe a Muslim should be serving as Auchinleck’s Private Secretary. Mountbatten’s own Private Secretaries were both British, but he did have a Hindu, the senior civil servant V. P. Menon, as his constitutional and political adviser. Menon seems not to have been regarded as a problem in the way Shahid was. Nothing came of the row because Auchinleck put his foot down and Mountbatten backed off.

Mountbatten was a man in a hurry, one who took important decisions on the basis of how it would affect British prestige. For example, Mountbatten (aka "Pretty Dickie") decided that Indian troops should be used when civil authorities asked for Army support, though Auchinleck advised him that Indian soldiers being repeatedly exposed to scenes which might well involve the targeting of their own community would make them partisan. India's police forces had already become partisan. When Abul Kalam Azad begged Mountbatten to exercise patience and delay partition saying that creating Pakistan in the then current atmosphere could lead to yet more bloodshed, Mountbatten casually assured him that once partition was accepted in principle, he would issue orders to see that there were no communal disturbances anywhere in the country. Mountbatten did not consult Auchinleck on the plan that was sent to London that May to maintain law and order. Mountbatten had no confidence in Auchinleck and did his level best to keep him in the dark.

Was Mountbatten biased in favour of India? If yes, how did that impact the partition and Kashmir’s accession to India? Broken Threads has a number of anecdotes that would help one make up one’s mind on these important points.

Husain underplays the influence and power Shahid had at his disposal when working as Auchinleck’s Personal Secretary, but she doesn’t fully succeed. For example, we are casually told that when Shahid’s politically active sister Jamila, who had been a committed leftist and Communist, wanted to know more about Jinnah, Shahid ‘agreed to take her to see Jinnah, and they went together to his large house on Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi.’  It’s a private meeting and Jamila’s tone isn’t too polite, but Jinnah addressed all her points, though it took him a very long time. When Shahid and Jamila took their leave, Jamila kissed Jinnah’s hand and said she had been converted to his way of thinking. The Quaid smiled at him. ‘Look, my boy, I have not wasted my time,’ he said. ‘I have gained a worker.’

How did Husain’s grandparents fare in Pakistan? On the whole, they did well but didn’t really get along with the army men who took over from Pakistan’s elected representatives. Husain tells us that Shahid told Ayub Khan that Martial law needed to end as soon as possible and that if he sought political power, he should set a date for elections, resign from the Army and run for office. Shahid felt that his views were not acceptable to Ayub Khan.

For me, the best (or the saddest) take away from Broken Threads is how relatable Husain’s parents, grandparents and the rest of her family are, and how tragic it is that a sub-continent populated with such good folks got partitioned with so much bloodshed. 

Highly recommended!

Broken Threads is available in India on Amazon.

Book Review: A Teashop In Kamalapura & Other Classic Kannada Stories

Series Edited by Mini Krishnan

Translated by Susheela Punitha

Human values have evolved over time, and this change became so very evident when I read Harper Colins’s “A Teashop In Kamalapura & Other Classic Kannada Stories”, a compilation of short stories in Kannada written many decades ago, some over a century ago. The change in values is especially true with respect to how women were viewed and the social expectations placed on their shoulders. There are 18 stories in this collection and the oldest story in this collection was published in 1900. Most were published before India’s independence and the penultimate one, Shankar Mokashi Punekar’s ‘Bilas Khan’, though first published in 1985, is set during the reign of Emperor Akbar. From the brief bios of the authors of these stories provided at the end of this wonderful book, I gather that none of the authors are alive today.

The various nuances of the relationship between a husband and wife forms the core of many stories. Patriarchy, and the submissiveness of the wife, is not only taken for granted, but is also celebrated in many stories. When Srinivasa Kulkarni tells us in ‘A New Tongue’, which was written in 1933 that ‘most men are strict with their wives; fearing that they may lose their hold on them if they were indulged,’ it does not seem to be out of place in that era. Predictably, at the end of the story, the husband and wife resolve their differences, and the wife runs into her husband’s arms and declares that he is her God. I could sense the author (Srinivasa Kulkarni) looking on with approval as the wife did so. In Kadengodlu Shankarabhatta’s ‘My Alarm Clock’, the wife Venkamma has a sharp tongue, blindly believes in and rigidly follows rituals of purity and refuses to take any allopathic medicine. When the Venkamma falls ill, the husband makes a lame attempt to get her to take proper medication and fails. I could not make up my mind if the author also disapproved of the wife’s attitude or if he was just a fly on the wall, observing and reporting as the events unfolded. ‘My Alarm Clock’ was published in 1934.

‘Vani’s Confusion’ by Kodagina Gowrama has a mélange à trois, involving two women and a man. Indu is a single woman, who is good at housekeeping and domestic chores. Vani, married to Ratan, is not. The effect of Vani’s sloppiness on Ratan’s life, is devastating. When Ratan, a successful doctor, comes home for his lunch, his midday meal isn’t usually ready. Why don’t you hire a maid, I wanted to scream, but author Kodagina Gowrama is definitely not on Vani’s side. Indu gets close to Ratan, but she is a good woman and draws back a bit. Or does she? Please do read this very interesting story to find out how it ends and also to get an idea of how society viewed woman in 1939, the year this story was published.

Panje Mangesharaya’s ‘At a Teashop in Kamalapura’, the first story in the collection and one of the three best stories in this collection, reminded me of RK Narayan’s writing. Poornaswami Iyengar, aka Ponswami, is street smart and colourful character who is good at his business of running a teashop. Ponswami’s teashop in Kamalapura could be straight out of Malgudi, though Kamalapura is by the sea. Ponswami’s yarns make his customers spent more than they would have otherwise. Then one day, the genuineness of his stories is questioned and Ponswami has to find a solution, else his business will suffer, and so Ponswami brings in Gundacharya, leading to more trouble and fun. Please do read this story to find out for yourself how the story ends. ‘At a Teashop in Kamalapura’ was first published in 1900. 

Malleshi from Kerura Vasudevacharya’s ‘Malleshi’s Sweethearts’, first published in 1912, reminded me of the hero of at least three movies (Tamil and Hindi) I have seen in the late 80s and early 90s. Healthy, goodlooking, hardworking, innocent, guileless and loyal, women make fun of him, and Malleshi takes it good-naturedly. Finally, there is a happy ending, as befits a feel-good story of this sort, where everyone is good at heart and means well. S. G. Sastry’s ‘A Gift for the Festival’, first published in 1941, reminded me of movies from the 60s and 70s where good and evil are so clearly demarcated and some human being are the personification of purity and sacrifice.  

At least one story is so adorably simplistic, it reminded me of the parables and anecdotes that my primary school teachers used to educate us and make us better human beings. I am referring to ‘The Child, A Teacher’ by Nanajangudu Thirumalamba, first published in 1914/1915.

‘The Battered Heart’ by Saraswathibai Rajawade is actually a murder mystery, but at the end of the story, after all the dead bodies have been buried and created, after all the dead bodies have been buried and created, the author gives her readers a philosophical ending, which philosophical ending, which I found to be fascinating. ‘The Battered Heart’, first published in 1938, is one of the three best stories in this collection.

‘Who’s the Thief?’ by Mundkur Narasimha Kamath (M.N. Kamath) is a crime story and the detective is the district Collector who resolves the theft and punishes the guilty with ease. M.N. Kamath is full of praise for the Collector and the British system of justice, though the collector levies taxes on farmer. Till the end of the story, I wasn’t sure if the Collector was a Briton. On one hand, since this story was published before India’s independence (in 1941), I thought that the Collector was unlikely to be an Indian. On the other hand, the reader is told that the Collector was familiar with Tulu, Konkani and Kannada. M. N. Kamath doesn’t reveal the answer till the end. Do please read ‘Who’s the Thief?’ to find out more about the Collector and how he delivered justice.

'The Story of Jogi Anjappa’s Hen' also involves a crime, but Jogi Anjappa is such a colourful character that this story by Dr. Masti Venkatesha Iyengar has shades of Panje Mangesharaya’s ‘At a Teashop in Kamalapura’. Also, I ended up liking Jogi Anjappa much more than I liked Poornaswami Iyengar, especially on account of the injustice he is dished out and which he accepts with stoicism. There is also a twist at the end of this interesting story and so I would rate this too as one of the three best stories in this collection. 'The Story of Jogi Anjappa’s Hen' was first published between 1945-1955. 

A few of the short stories raise cudgels against injustices in society. For example, Ajampura Sitaram’s ‘The Girl I Killed’ revolves around Chennamma, a devadasi who has been dedicated to God. The reader cannot help but feel sorry for Chennamma and the tragic position she has been placed in. ‘The Girl I Killed’ was first published in 1931.

‘The Master’s Satyanarayana’ by Koradkal Srinivasarao is a heartbreakingly sad story of a daily-wage labourer’s children being cruelly deprived of tasty Rasabaale bananas from a banana tree that the entire family had lovingly tended for many months. Srinivasarao pretends to be a mere narrator, but the pain and anguish in his narration make it clear what his thoughts are when the Landlord demands that his labourer hand over all the bananas in lieu of an unpaid debt. On a different note, I clearly remember my mother narrating to me, over four decades ago, a story with a very similar plot, but one set in Kerala. I am not sure if Srinivasarao borrowed his plot from a tale common in South India or if Srinivasarao’s tale became popular in other South Indian states. ‘The Master’s Satyanarayana’ was first published in 1938.

The plot for Sara Aboobacker’s ‘Between Rules and Regulations’ revolve around the shariah rules for issuing talaq and later nullifying it. Caught in this web are divorcee Zohra, her hungry children and her widowed mother. One can’t help but feel sorry for Zohra and angry towards those who abide by such rules. In this story which is the last one in this collection, Aboobacker does an excellent job of showing the angst and pain of humans who are caught in the web of such rules, even as she shows that the victims are to some extent culpable since they play along. ‘Between Rules and Regulations’ was first published between 1985 - 1995. 

‘The Idol That Chennappa Destroyed’, first published in 1953, is the touching story of the conflict between a man’s compulsion to earn a livelihood and his faith and values. Author Yarmunja Ramachandra tries to stay neutral, but it is clear which side he is on. ‘The Idol That Chennappa Destroyed’’s style of narration is similar to that of ‘The Master’s Satyanarayana’, but the underlying belief systems are very different.

In many stories, the author does not form judgements, though it would have been easy to do so. In Shyamaladevi Belagaonkar’s “The Scion of a Family or a Secret Gift”, Keshava, the scion of a rich family is unable to procreate, but his mother Gangabai, the matriarch of the family, is desperate for an heir. The solution that is proposed and implemented, over the objections of the scion’s wife Ramabai, would not be palatable to anyone in this day and age, but is actually quite practical. Shyamaladevi Belagaonkar does not sit on a high horse and put out a moral commentary, but just gets on with this very interesting tale. “The Scion of a Family or a Secret Gift” was first  published in 1939.

Like other Indians, Kannadigas too migrate and work overseas. For some, the departure is permanent and the motherland becomes a distant dream. For many others, the life overseas is a short stint and this is the case with Maadhu, who is in England for ‘further training’. The story by H. V. Savithramma, which was first published in 1965, is aptly named ‘An Episode’ since it is only an episode in Maadhu and Grace’s life. Grace is a single woman and gracefully offers companionship to Maadhu during his stint in England, knowing that Maadhu has a wife in India who is waiting for his to return. When the time comes for Maadhu’s departure, she refuses to accompany him to Dover (not Heathrow, mind you) and returns to her single life with sadness and grace. Maadhu goes back to his unsuspecting wife, but with sadness in his heart, missing Grace a lot. Then at the end, there is a sudden twist in the tale, which takes away much of the sadness from poor Maadhu. This was the only story in this collection which I did not like, though it is well written and reflects the values of a different era.

In “Two Ways of Living”, Anusuya Shankar (who used the penname Triveni) narrates her tale through a horse that pulls a Tonga. The horse has feelings, including romantic feelings as well as a strong sense of justice and fairplay. ‘There is no creature as heartless as Man; everyone else has to grow weary satisfying his self-interests …’ the horse feels, even as its master Usman feeds it just enough dry hay to do the day’s work and whips it mercilessly to pull the Tonga at his behest. Amidst such continuing torture, the horse is still able to observe Usman’s customer rich man Chandu show extreme callousness in his dealings with his spouse. The horse metes out a suitable punishment for Chandu, but suffers much more in the process. Please read this fascinating book to find out what exactly forced the horse to take such an extreme step and its consequences for the horse. “Two Ways of Living” was first published between 1955 - 1965.

Shankar Mokashi Punekar’s ‘Bilas Khan’, is the penultimate story of this collection and also the longest one. It runs to around 30 pages and is set on a relatively grand scale during the reign of Emperor Akbar. At the beginning of the story, Tansen (one of Akbar’s navratnas) moves to Delhi, leaving behind his first wife and their son Bilas Khan. In Delhi, Tansen impresses the Emperor with his musical abilities and does well in general, acquiring more wives, children and wealth. Bilas Khan is almost forgotten by Tansen, but not vice versa. Let me not divulge more here, but leave it to you to read this story and find out what happens to Bilas Khan and his famous father.

Translator Susheela Punitha has done an amazing job in capturing the sounds, smells, ethos and values of the bygone eras in which these stories were written, as well the linguistic nuances of Kannada prose. I was not surprised to learn (from the About the Transaction section at the end of this wonderful book) that Susheela Punitha received the first Translation Award for English in 2015 for her translation of UR Ananthamurty’s Bharathipura.

Mini Krishnan, the Series Editor, has once again done an outstanding job with this collection. A few months ago, I had reviewed a similar Series on Classic Malayalam Short Stories, which was also edited by Mini Krishnan.

A Teashop In Kamalapura & Other Classic Kannada Stories is available on amazon. 

Book Review: The Second Marriage of Kunju Namboodiri & Other Classic Malayalam Stories

Book Review: The Second Marriage of Kunju Namboodiri & Other Classic Malayalam Stories

Edited by Mini Krishnan | Translated by Venugopal Menon

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial (18 March 2025)

I must begin with a confession: the vast majority of fiction I’ve read over the years has been penned by native English speakers. This long-standing habit has, somewhat inevitably, made me rather exacting when it comes to Indian authors writing in English—only the very best truly stand out. However, reading translated works from Indian languages is an altogether different experience. They remind me, time and again, of the immense literary talent that lies scattered across India, often inaccessible to large swathes of the population simply because these writers express themselves in languages unfamiliar to most Indians.

Malayalam is my mother tongue, and though I speak it with reasonable fluency, my reading skills scarcely extend beyond billboards or headlines. Having never lived in Kerala, I’ve missed the chance to internalize the finer nuances of literary Malayalam. Thankfully, Venugopal Menon’s translation of these classic Malayalam short stories (written between 1891 and 1924) captures the spirit and cadence of that bygone era so deftly that I felt transported—immersed in a time when the Indian freedom struggle was still finding its feet.

What stands out most in this collection is the strength of the storytelling. Every narrative has a well-formed plot, and while readers of the original Malayalam versions may have additionally delighted in the richness of the language, it’s clear that the primary goal of these authors was to tell a compelling story—and that they most certainly do. I won’t spoil any of the plots here; discovering them is part of the joy. I urge readers to experience the collection firsthand.

Equally remarkable is the vivid glimpse these stories offer into life a century ago. In one tale, a pickpocket caught by the police is sentenced to twelve lashes and six months in jail. Imagine—a time when, under British rule in the Madras Presidency, corporal punishment was not only legal but formally executed by the police! Legal dramas pepper the collection too—carbon copies, forged handwriting, upright and corrupt lawyers alike, bribe-taking policemen—painting a nuanced picture of the colonial-era judicial set up. Yet, at the heart of most stories lies the deeply human terrain of love, arranged marriages, and family ties. And here, strikingly, we see how little human nature has changed. Many of these plots could unfold in our own time.

Another admirable thread running through these stories is their reformist spirit. Many of the authors use their narratives to champion women’s rights. One tale rails against child marriage, another satirizes ritualistic excesses, while yet another cleverly flips gender roles—casting a wife as wiser and sharper than her self-important husband. The titular story, The Second Marriage of Kunju Namboodiri, offers a rare window into the customs of the Namboodiris of Kerala, especially their relationships with Nair women and the often-stifling lives of Namboodiri women confined within the illam.

Tipu Sultan’s invasion of Malabar provides the historical backdrop for a pair of stories written by C. Kunhirama Menon (M.R.K.C).

At the end of the book, there are brief notes on each author and the note on M.R.K.C tells us that M.R.K.C. drew inspiration from historical settings but populated them with fictional characters, showing little concern for strict historical accuracy.  M.R.K.C lived from 1882 to 1939 and Tipu’s invasions of Malabar primarily occurred between 1789 and 1792, during the Third Anglo-Mysore War. Tipu had earlier accompanied his father, Hyder Ali, in a 1766 invasion of Malabar. 

The stories themselves are wonderfully digestible. Most span around ten pages, with the shortest being a mere three and the longest, twenty. Though all stories have been translated by Venugopal Menon, the tone and texture of the prose vary from story to story—reflecting the diversity of the original authors' voices.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this evocative collection of Malayalam classics. It is both a literary and cultural time capsule, and Venugopal Menon’s translation makes these stories accessible and enjoyable to readers unfamiliar with the original language. I highly recommend this anthology—it’s available on Amazon, and it’s well worth your time.

Book Review: “Learning to Make Tea for One – Reflections on Love, Loss and Healing”, by Andaleeb Wajid

 

People cope with the loss of loved ones in different ways. The follow-on healing is usually a lengthy process and, in some cases, is never completed. When a prolific and well-known fiction writer loses a loved one, how does the writer cope? Does the process of writing fiction play any role in the coping or the subsequent healing?  

Well-known writer Andaleeb Wajid was hit with multiple tragedies during the cruel summer of 2021, when India faced its second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Andaleeb, her husband and mother-in-law were hospitalised by Covid-19 and only Andaleeb made it back home.

Andaleeb is well known for her simple and elegant prose and she does not deviate from her tried and tested writing style, despite the extreme bereavement. Staying true to her style, Andaleeb tells her readers how her husband and mother-in-law died, the circumstances surrounding their death and how she found it very difficult to accept that her husband was no more. Having covered the fundamental bases, Andaleeb starts to tell us more, how she met her husband, how and why they got married, the sort of life she led as a married woman, the family she became a part of and how she has been reconciling herself to her changed circumstances.

Did Andaleeb have a love marriage or an arranged marriage? Did her lifestyle change drastically after she got married to Mansoor? How many kids did Andaleeb and Mansoor have, if she had any? Was Mansoor also into writing fiction or in of the other arts? Was Andaleeb happy after her marriage? It would be unfair if I gave away any of the answers in this review. Andaleeb is one of the best among the current crop of Indian writers and I do encourage each of you to buy “Learning to Make Tea for One – Reflections on Love, Loss and Healing” and find out answers to the questions above. You’d also end up reading a very fine piece of writing in the process.

An excellent and extremely sad and poignant read.

Almost exactly six years ago, I had reviewed one of Andaleeb’s books on Winnowed. 

Book Review: “565: The Dramatic Story of Unifying India” by Mallika Ravikumar

When the British decided to partition their Indian colony and exit the sub-continent, the fate of five hundred odd Princely States hung in the balance. Many of the Kingdoms were powerful, with standing armies and did not like the idea of joining either India or Pakistan. From the point of view of Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru, allowing a bunch of independent principalities to fester inside the Indian Union was not an option at all. So, Home Minister Sardar Patel and a small, but very competent team rolled up their sleeves and got down to the mammoth task at hand. When Patel asked Lord Mountbatten to help him win over the various Indian prices and convince them to join the Indian Union, Mountbatten agreed to help, provided Patel agreed to his conditions. Patel agreed, provided he got a basket of apples. A basket of 565 apples to be precise.

The story of how Sardar Patel and his team convinced a motley bunch of egoistic and truculent princes to give up their independence and join the Indian Union has been described in a few history books in summary fashion, but, now, for the first time, a well-known Indian fiction writer has brought to life the story of how “more than 500 princely kingdoms were threaded together into a union – in record time and against all odds – to create the India we now have”. Mallika Ravikumar calls her book a “work of creative non-fiction, inspired by real events in history and rooted in research.” I don’t think there can be a better description of 565: The Dramatic Story of Unifying India. Ravikumar acknowledges that she has taken creative liberties in the writing and presentation of her book, all in good faith. At the end of every chapter, a “Did It Really Happen This Way?” section details Ravikumar’s sources and delineates a boundary between what definitely happened and what probably happened.

565: The Dramatic Story of Unifying India has thirteen chapters, each dealing with a significant or interesting integration, ranging from Travancore to Hyderabad and Kashmir. Each of these chapters can be read independently as a separate story. Every chapter is full of twists and turns that keeps the reader engrossed. More importantly,  565: The Dramatic Story of Unifying India is set in an era when, in every princely state, the ruler was considered divine and the will of the people was unimportant, something unthinkable today. Many Princes did not want to give up their rights and privileges, though some did do so willingly.

Ravikumar writes in elegant, but simple prose that is an excellent conductor for the electric thread that runs through 565: The Dramatic Story of Unifying India. Each of the thirteen chapters is a treasure trove of historical anecdotes, thrillers that can put the best of Hollywood or Bollywood in the shade and sagas of courage and sacrifice, all of which combine to make the book unputdownable. One just gallops from one chapter to another and before one realizes, this book comes to an end, making one want for more. At the end of the twelfth chapter (The integration of Jammu and Kashmir) when an Indian air force  Dakota piloted by Wing Commander Bhatia hovered over Srinagar, verified that the crowds surging towards the dusty and unkempt airstrip at Budgam airport were locals waiting to welcome Indian troops and not Pakistani raiders looking to ambush, and disgorged Lieutenant Colonel Rai and his men amidst delighted shrieks of ‘Khushamdeed!’, I thought Ravikumar’s story telling couldn’t get any better, but it actually did.

I used to think I knew everything significant about the happenings in 1946/47, but I didn’t know that the Nizam of Hyderabad tried to purchase Goa from the Portuguese so that Hyderabad could have a seaport or that three young members of the Arya Samaj (Narayan Rao Pawar, Gandaiah Arya and Jagdish Arya) made an abortive attempt to assassinate Sir Mir Osman Ali Khan Siddiqui Asaf Jah. I knew nothing at all about Tripura and it was a revelation to find out how selfish Prince Durjoy Kishore and Diwan Mukherjee took the support of the Muslim League to try and wrest Tripura for Pakistan. However, Maharani Kanchan Prava stood firm and ensured that her late husband Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya Debbarma Bahadur’s wish for Tripura to join India was implemented.

In addition to big stories, one also gets to know a lot of trivia about that era. Did you know that the head of a province of British India too was referred to as “Prime Minister”? Thus, Balasaheb Gangadhar Kher, Prime Minister of Bombay until 1950, when the Constitution of India was adopted. I don’t want to divulge too much info here and ruin the book for you. Go on, do read 565: The Dramatic Story of Unifying India and find out how Sardar Patel bagged a basket of 565 apples for India.

A few takeaways from William Dalrymple’s “The Golden Road”

 

This isn’t a review of William Dalrymple’s latest offering “The Golden Road”. Rather, the notes below are merely jotting from a jumble of thoughts (in no particular order) in my head after I finished reading yet another magnificent tome from a person who is probably the finest modern-day historian, with an India focus.

1. Between 250 BCE and 1200 CE, India was the world leader in knowledge, ideas and soft power and people in South-east and Central Asia and even China, admired India. India offered to the world its religion, art, music, dance, textiles, technology, astronomy, mathematics, medicine and the world lapped it up.

2. After Rome captured Egypt, for 300 years after that, a Golden Road of the open oceans caused Indian exports to flow to Rome and resulted in a drain of Roman gold/wealth into India. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, this Indo-Roman trade ceased and Indian businessmen began to focus on South East Asia. Across South-east Asia, Sanskrit became the lingua franca for the elites, who also adopted the worship of Hindu gods.

3. Buddhism became a pan-Indian religion under Emperor Ashoka and then spread into Sri Lanka, Tibet, China and Korea. Buddhism became popular, first with the merchant class, then with the ordinary people of South-east Asia. Theravada Buddhism remains the dominant religion today in much of that region. China has the largest number of practicing Buddhists in the world.

4. During the Indian era, there was a steady trickle of Indian preachers, artists and even doctors to China, which came increasingly under India’s spell. Wu Zetian, founder of the Wu Zhou dynasty, who ruled China for 45 years, was an admired of many things Indian. She officially elevated Buddhism above Taoism

5. Xuanzang (Huen Tsang) the Chinese traveler came to India for a 17-year, 6,000-mile journey, mainly to the great Indian centres of learning. Of this, he spent 5 years in Nalanda.

6. Nalanda was the best University in existence at that point in time. According to Xuanzang, lectures at Nalanda were given in a hundred different halls each day. The students studied diligently without wasting a single moment. They studied the texts of the different schools of Buddhism, as well as the sacred Vedas, logic, Sanskrit grammar, philosophy, medicine, metaphysics, divination, mathematics, astronomy, literature and magic. Nalanda’s library was nine storeys high and contained three divisions: the Ratnadadhi, the ‘Sea of Jewels’, the Ratnasagara, the ‘Ocean of Jewels’, and the Ratnaranjaka, the ‘Jewel-Adorned’. Any manuscript could be borrowed, though Nalanda regulations held that it must be stored in the niche in the monks’ cells next to the square central courtyard.

7. The great Khmer King Jayavarman II who united Cambodia, set the foundation of the Angkor period. Suryavarman II built the Angkor Wat, the largest Hindu temple in the world, dedicated to Lord Vishnu. The Khmers were allies of the Cholas and Jayavarman, Suryavarman et al were largely influenced by Indic values.

8. The rulers of Srivijaya (based in modern-day Indonesia) tried to double-cross the Cholas and Rajendra Chola retaliated by sending a Chola armada all the way to Sumatra, possibly in a joint operation with the ships of the Tamil merchant guilds.

9. The powerful Chief Vizier of Baghdad, Khalid ibn Barmak, was a Buddhist convert to Islam. The the Barmakids were an important Buddhist family from Balkh, which converted to Islam and became prominent members of the Abbasid court in the second half of the 8th century.

10. Genghis Khan’s campaign in Central Asia caused tens of thousands of Persian-speaking refugees to flee from to the plains around Delhi. As a result, Delhi became one of the world’s biggest cities and the centre of a cosmopolitan, culturally Persianate sultanate, full of learned madrasas staffed by refugee scholars, sheikhs, artisans and poets who had fled from Central Asia. Sanskrit and its vernacular derivatives Khari Boli, old Punjabi and Braj Bhasha, continued in use, but Persian became the court language as well as the language and diplomacy.

11. Invasions by Turks and Afghans did result in the destruction of many Hindu temples and Buddhist monastries, some of which were repurposed as mosques. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Indian school textbooks and most academic histories were written by left-leaning historians who underplayed the violence and iconoclasm that came with the Turkish invasions, partially in the interests of what they saw as ‘nation building’ following the terrible inter-religious violence that had taken place during partition.

12. It is unclear if Nalanda was burned or destroyed by Islamic invaders. However, it is a fact that Nalanda’s near neighbour, the great monastery of Odantapura, was destroyed by Bakhtyar Khalji’s Turkish troops. A similar fate was visited upon the monastery of Vikramashila.

These notes are not meant to be a summary of The Golden Road and do not even capture the essence of this wonderful book which runs to a little over 600 pages, of which, endnotes take up around half the space. Please do read The Golden Road yourself to appreciate it properly. The Golden Road is available on Amazon.

Book review: For Pepper and Christ, by Keki Daruwalla

 

Keki Daruwalla, a prominent Indian author, passed away on September 26, 2024. To my shame, though I had known of Daruwalla and his writings, I hadn’t read any of his works. When I heard of his sad demise. I hastily scanned through the list of his books, purchased For Pepper and Christ and read it as fast as I could, which, thanks to my other commitments, took me two months. 

“In the fifteen century, Portugal was a poor country of just about a million, but it had ambitions- the poor need to have more ambitions than the rich. Why not? They wanted gold and slaves and spices; and they wanted to cut out Venice and Genoa who bought pepper, ginger and cinnamon from the Ottomans and Mamluks at excessive prices and sold them to Europe at even more exorbitant rates. What a ducat could buy in Calicut, cost over sixty in Venice.”

 The Portuguese desperately wanted to find a way to India so that they could load their ships with spices and sell them in Europe where Indian spices fetched a fortune. The spice trade was controlled by the Arabs and they did not really want to give up their monopoly. This was an era when none knew for sure how the oceans ended and continents began, when maps were rare and involved more of guesswork and less of cartography. The Portuguese believed that the paradise kingdom of Prester John existed and looked for him everywhere, from Africa to Asia. The Arabs (whom the Portuguese called the Moors) were good fighters on land, but were totally outmatched by the Portuguese at sea, especially since the Portuguese had guns mounted on their ships.

In For Pepper and Christ, Daruwalla uses three narrators. The first voice is that of Brother Figueiro, a member of Captain-Major Vasco da Gama’s fleet on the 1497-98 voyage, as also the one in 1502. The second speaker is young pilot Taufiq, who hails from Oman and ended up showing Vasco da Gama the way to Calicut. Taufiq has lived in Gujarat as a boy, while accompanying his father on the latter’s sailing trips. He has sailed under the guidance of the legendary Ibn Majid and his feeling his way around the world. When Daruwalla starts his narration, Taufiq has been sent to Cairo for his studies at al Azhar and has made friends with Ehtesham, the painter and Murad, an eccentric, but street smart lad. Then, there’s also a neutral narrator, to fill in all the gaps. 

In Daruwalla’s own words, a historical novel is neither history nor fiction. Or perhaps, it is both. Daruwalla does not grudge spending pages on history. There are frequent references to the crusades of the past, as bitter memories spill out from the mouths of Cairenes, even as the Mamulks who defeated the Mongols control Cairo. Daruwalla’s history writing does distract the reader from the story, but then, there is no real story, since when one reads  For Pepper and Christ, one reads the history one already knows, the history of Vasco da Gama’s discovery of the trade route to India, but that’s not true, I tell you. Daruwalls is a good story-teller, as he tells us the story of Taufiq and his friends Ehtesham and Murad and of Muhtasib, who torments all three of them in various ways. The famous navigator Ibn Majid (under whom Taufiq trained) gets a look in.

Muhtasib, the feared inspector of weights and measures, lords it over the people of Cairo and I found his character to be just as fascinating as that of the Vasco da Gama. Muhtasib thinks painting is akin to creation, an action reserved for Allah, and hence, blasphemy. So, he is not too fond of Ehtesham the painter, who has taken on a contract to paint his pictures inside a Coptic church in Cairo. ‘Doesn’t a potter make his urns, doesn’t a farmer create his wheat, or a weaver his cloth? Are they committing a crime against Allah?’ Ehtesham asks Mutasib and this argument we know, continues even now in the 21^st century.

Daruwalla’s narration is placid most of the time, even when he tells us of the Portuguese pouring boiling oil on abducted pilots as they are forced to reveal the sea route to India. The Portuguese suffer a lot as they journey around the Cape. “Scurvy had already taken a toll of our men before we reached Mozambique. Their hands and feet had bloated, the gums turning purple and swelling to an extent that they draped the teeth.” Daruwalla’s language is like that of the ocean, with many dangerous currents underneath.

Are the Portuguese the most cruel folk in the entire saga? The Portuguese are best at organised violence, but the Arabs and even the Zamorin are no laggards when in comes to cruelty. Interestingly, the King of Cochin, a rival of the Calicut Zamorin, is keen to have ties with the Portuguese and Daruwalla has a Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka try and fix deals for the King of Cochin.

Vasco da Gama and the rest of the Portguguese have only hatred and distrust for the Moors. On landing in Calicut, they mistake the hindus for Christians and looks for ways to persuade them to evict all moors. The gifts that they Portuguese have carried with them are very inadequate, but they persist and survive. Vasco da Gama never takes goodwill on face value, never brings his ship too close to the shore (lest it be captured) and does not hesitate to take hostages  whenever he has a demand.

Daruwalla describes in gory detail how the Portuguese under Pedro Álvares Cabral bombarded Calicut in 1500–01, when they returned for the second time and caused a lot of death and destruction in Calicut.  The incident of the pilgrim ship Mirim is also described in detail. On returning to India in October 1502, at Madayi in Kannur, da Gama's fleet intercepted Mirim, a ship of Muslim pilgrims travelling from Kozhikode to Mecca. Da Gama looted the ship and killed all its passengers, including a number of women and children, by burning the ship. Those who jumped into the sea were speared and killed.

Taufiq had shown the Portuguese the route to Calicut without suffering any tortures, but he later repents (as he finds out how cruel the Portuguese can be) and punishes himself. Please read this excellent novel to find out how Daruwalla provides for Taufiq’s punishment.

 On the whole, I found For Pepper and Christ to be an excellent read, one which any history buff would enjoy.  Highly recommended. I do wish I had been lucky enough to have 'discovered' Daruwalla earlier and hope I manage to find time to read at least some of his other books in the near future.

Re-Reading Amitav Ghosh’s Shadow Lines

Recently I re-read Amitav Ghosh’s Shadow Lines and was once again reminded why this book is one of my favourites and the best work of fiction till date by Ghosh. This note isn’t meant to be a review of Shadow Lines, but just a bunch of jottings based on my most recent reading.

• Is there any Indian who had a middle-class upbringing who did not listen wide-eyed to tales narrated by ‘phoren’ relatives? One listened to every word they spoke, remembered the street or lane or boulevard they lived in, the names of their ‘phoren’ friends and greedily asked for even more details. This is essentially what the unnamed narrator does as he gets us started on the story of Tridib and the rest of the Datta Chaudhuris and the Prices.
• This time, I was for some reason reminded of David Copperfield’s opening scene when I re-read the opening lines of Shadow Lines.

Thirteen years before I was born, my father’s aunt, Mayadebi, went to England with her husband and her son, Tridib.

 

I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

• Set in England and Bengal from the 1930s to the late 1960s, Shadow Lines depicts a bye-gone era that we've seen only in black & white movies. I think I enjoyed Ghosh’s description of a post-World War II England a lot more this time than in my previous reading. I think it is England which has changed a lot more than Calcutta.
• Neither the narrator nor Tridib nor any of the Datta Chaudhuris seem to have experienced any serious racism in England, save for Ila’s doll Magda’s traumatic experiences at the hands of Denise. I guess racism reared its ugly head in the UK only in the early 70s.
• The narrator’s grandmother, who is Tridib’s aunt, reminded me of David Copperfield’s aunt. Her attitude to Tridib who she considers to be a loafer and a wastrel, is on the same lines as David Copperfield’s aunt’s attitude to various characters in Dickens tome. These ladies form their opinions fast and stick with them
• In this reading, Nick Price came across as two-dimensional. I distinctly remember being impressed and awed by Nick Price and later hating him and feeling sorry for Ila when I read Shadow Lines long time ago. This time, I didn’t particularly feel sorry for Ila or hate Nick. A sign of age or maturity or cynicism?
• The grandmother’s omelette - a leathery little squiggle studded with green chillies. The omelettes I ate as a child were very different - they were soft and fluffy. Many years after I read Shadow Lines, I actually ate such an omelette at a wayside Dabha. Is the leathery nature of the omelette a reflection on the grandmother’s character?
• I found myself looking at the narrator with contempt this time. The narrator is in awe of Ila, possibly has a huge crush on her, though she is his second cousin. Towards the end, the narrator has a scene with May, his deceased uncle Tridib’s lover and partner. Why isn’t there a single mention of a relationship with someone outside the Datta Chaudhuri and the Price families? We know that the narrator is doing a Ph.D. on the textile trade between India and England in the nineteenth century and that he received a year’s research grant to go to England to collect material from the India Office Library for his thesis. Towards the end of the novel, there is a stray reference to a ‘thesis’, implying that it is incomplete and the Ph.D not yet in the narrator’s bag. Definitely a loser!
• [SPOILER ALERT] Finally, the billion dollar question. Is May responsible for Tridib’s death? I know, May made her peace with Tridib, but I never did and re-reading Shadow Lines did not help me sort out this pending issue one bit. I was back to where I started. For years, May used to think she had killed him. She thought she was the reason Tridib got out of the car. However, later she worked out that there was no reason for Tridib to have plunged into the mob to save her. She was always safe, she was a white woman, the mob wouldn’t have harmed her and Tridib should have known that. So when Tridib jumped in to save her, he was actually just making a sacrifice.
• I still struggle to buy May’s argument. I think May should have known that Tridib would have tried to protect her from the mob, even if he thought that it was highly likely that the mob wouldn’t have harmed her. There was no way Tridib could have stayed in the car when May was fighting the mob. Knowing Tridib as well as she did, there was no way May could have assumed that Tridib would have stayed in that car when she was battling the mob. No way May, I can’t bring myself to absolve you from responsibility for Tridib's murder.
• Also, when May says Tridib was actually just making a “sacrifice”, is she implying that he was committing suicide? I just don’t see why Tridib would want to commit suicide at that juncture. Were things so bad for him then? No, definitely not. So, is May saying Tridib needlessly sacrificed himself for her? Maybe.

Book Review: Boundary Lab: Inside the Global Experiment Called Sport, by Nandan Kamath

 I just finished reading Nandan Kamath’s Boundary Lab and I’m a changed person. Never ever will I look at competitive sport in the way I used to before I read this tome. Each and every chapter in Boundary Lab starts with an intriguing question and then commences a slow and deep dive into the issue. Is body building a sport or a beauty pageant? Why was garbage not cleared after the IPL match between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Delhi Daredevils in April 2012? Can a sporting event’s official broadcaster call on the governing body of such sport to engineer the tournament’s design to guarantee atleast least one match between arch-rivals (India-Pak for cricket, Australia-NZ for rugby, Argentina-Brazil for football) in the course of the tournament, during prime time? Should India bid to host the Olympic Games? Are the benefits of hosting the Olympic Games worth the expense? Was Azharuddin actually cleared of all match-fixing charges? When in 2012 the Andhra Pradesh High Court lifted the life ban imposed by BCCI on the former Indian captain, did it amount to a clean chit for Azharuddin, as he immediately claimed ? Is there immunity for those causing injury to opponents in the sporting area? What if the injury has been caused intentionally, such as when Mike Tyson bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear or when at the quarter-finals of the FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil, Neymar was deliberately pushed from behind by Colombian defenders, cracking his vertebrae and debilitating him for the rest of the tournament?

Kamath writes in simple but elegant English as facts, issues, arguments (for and against) wrestle inside the paper pit to throw up conclusions, which are logical and sensible. Boundary Lab is a must-read for all sports buffs and all those are interested in knowing more about the laws that underpin sporting activities in India.

Nandan Kamath is a trustee of GoSports Foundation, the Principal Lawyer at LawNK and a co-founder of Sports and Society Accelerator

Book Review: Plentiful Springs by Anjaly Thomas

 

Plentiful Springs is the bittersweet, growing-up story of Siana, a stubborn, intelligent,  creative and articulate girl born to a Keralite-Uttar Pradesh couple and brought up in villages, estates and boarding schools in and around Mangalore and Wayanad. Siana’s best friend is her diary to whom she confides everything. Much later, after law school and a career in journalism that takes her to Dubai and various trouble-torn parts of the globe, Siana is left wondering if the bad things actually happened or if she had imagined them. She reads her diary again and re-traces her steps before she can be sure of what had actually transpired.

 

Anjaly Thomas is an excellent writer who does not let fine language come in the way of a riveting story, one that will make you root for Siana, hate her abusers and make you want Siana to get her life back. Thomas keeps her prose simple and straight-forward and gets on with her story. Siana’s diary entries are interspersed with narrations in third person and Siana’s extensive correspondence with her various friends. Since we are talking of the 1980s and 1990, we are talking of correspondence through inland letter cards. Travel is usually through public transport or auto-rickshaws. Money is tight and tempers run high everywhere. Corporal punishment is par for the course for Siana as is domestic violence for her mother. Many of those in power, teachers, wardens and fathers abuse their power and strength freely, but amidst all that, occasional kindness and humanity shines through. Siana’s indomitable will and her never-say-die spirit pull her through, despite her occasional moroseness and bad temper. There are springs aplenty throughout the dreary landscape!

 

I really enjoyed reading Plentiful Springs, though at times in the early stages of the 348-page tome, I did wonder where the story is headed to. Thomas, however, has an excellent instinct for timing and she gathers the various loose ends and brings the story to a gentle climax at the end.

 

Thomas’s characters are all real and three-dimensional folks, especially Siana. They smile, laugh, cry, make mistakes and fix things. Siana isn’t your pink dress wearing sensitive princess, rather she’s a warrior woman who will kick you in your balls if you harm her. Thomas gets you to know Siana so well that I could sense how Siana would behave, when towards the end, Siana has to make certain crucial decisions.

 

One of the best things about Plentiful Springs is the manner in which Thomas has captured the 1980s, the 1990s and early 2000, when India was so very different from what it’s now. Life in various estates of Managalore and Wayanad are also detailed with precision. Thomas has time-stamped the story throughout and that helps the reader place the story in its proper context. For example, Thomas would have her reader know that in April 1981, Siana’s father left Uganda for good, in June 1982, at the age of six, Siana started boarding school, in 1993, Siana starts a five-year course at the Mangalore Law School, so on and so forth.

 

Please don’t read the brief paragraph below. Instead, do buy a copy of Plentiful Springs and read this excellent work of fiction for yourself.

 

Spoilers Ahead

 

The evidence was always blowing in the wind. In addition to being abused by the butler at her first boarding school, Siana was also abused by Him. Siana’s diary has at various times, recorded such abuse. Even after Siana is a teenager, Siana hates staying at home, in fear of abuse. We don’t see Siana complain to her mother, herself a victim of domestic violence, about the abuse. In a way, since the reader knows Siana well, the reader also knows that’s typical of Siana’s character and eyebrows won't be raised, though the situation does tug one’s heartstrings. However, isn’t this typical of abuse within most families? I wonder if there ever can be a solution to these issues. Strong, kick-ass women like Siana can provide answers, hopefully. I end this review by raising a toast to brave Siana as she ‘gets on with the rest of her life’. I'm sure Siana will continue to find many more springs as she moves on in life. 

Book Review: Eden Abandoned – The Story of Lilith, by Shinie Antony

 Did God intend women to be subservient to men? Did God want Man to be on top or did the missionaries place him there? Didn’t God create Eve from out of Adam’s ribs, with the intention that she would always follow her man, obey him and bear his children? Then why did God create Lilith first? Did God make a mistake with Lilith, which he rectified by creating Eve?

Shinie Antony’s Lilith, doesn’t give a damn about the expectations of others. She seeks, or rather demands, parity with Adam. She asks nicely at first and when Adam doesn’t concede, she uses her fists and claws, before walking away from Adam. Adam didn’t give her any children of his own accord, but Lilith does bear a brood of children. Please read this book to find out how Lilith manages that feat.  

Lilith is the archetypal bad woman that our ancients warned us about. Adam is goody two-shoes who obeys God to the letter and is even scared of him. After having walked away from Adam, Lilith goes about cavorting with Shamael, fulfilling her wants in the ways she finds best. Shamael really indulges Lilith, especially her evil thoughts and desires. When they see Lilith enjoy life, they urge her to return to Adam and fulfil her duties. Lilith refuses. She becomes a serpent that tempts Eve. I’m not going to disclose more and give away the story.

Is there a bit of Lilith in all women? Is there a bit of Lilith in all men too? If so, Antony unleashes the Lilith in her readers even as launches a furious assault on patriarchy. If you haven’t heard of Lilith, here’s Wikipedia to the rescue.

As usual, Antony’s writing is subtle, explosive, sensual and once in a while, bland. Much of the beauty in Antony’s writing is on account of her placement of words and sentences. She leaves a lot to one’s imagination and then, after one’s imagination has run wild, takes one on a wild ride in a different direction altogether. I read this book once around two weeks ago, got busy with work and then re-read it again a second time just now and found myself sinking into an abyss of thoughts and confusion, though it is a slim volume of just 135 pages, one which fits into my trousers’ pocket.

I can’t recommend Eden Abandoned – The Story of Lilith, by Shinie Antony highly enough. It’s possibly Antony’s best book to date.