Kalki

Generations of Tamils have grown up seeing magazines like Kalki (and Ananda Vikatan) strewn about the house, the weekly or biweekly literary fare of many an urban family... I remember the magazines- without being able to read all but the most elementary cartoons- for the stories that my aunts would read out to me, and for the amazing illustrations by Maniam that accompanied the historical stories that filled the pages, especially of Kalki.

Kalki Krishnamurthy- who founded the magazine- wrote much of his historical fiction starting in the 1940's. The trilogy for which he was so famous were the novels Parthiban Kanavu, Sivakamiyin Sabatham and Ponniyin Selvan, the first of which has appeared in translation from Tulika Books, Chennai as Parthiban's Dream. This translation is by Nirupama Raghavan, a teenager, who is home-schooled, and who has also shortened the book somewhat. The review that appeared in the Hindu a few years ago says " Translating historical fiction is a monumental task. That a teenager should have undertaken the venture — translating a writer who is a giant in the Tamil fiction scene — is a marvel. To give Nirupama her due, the language is lucid and the narrative moves steadily without jerks despite the abridgement. When you've read the original and been fascinated with it there is invariably a big drop in the interest quotient when going through the translation. But in this case, Nirupama has succeeded in sustaining the attention of the reader".

I read of this following a visit to Mamallapuram. Kalki, born in 1899, was a freedom fighter who used his pen to instill national pride through his writing.... He was a great advocate of the Tamil language and literature, and the novel, which is set in Pallava times, moves in this locale. Seeing the grand vistas against which the stone carvings at Mamallapuram are located, the grandeur comes back to life, even if only as a dream...

In the Translation and For Children sections. Rs 165, 218 pages, ISBN: 81-8146-054-5

Made in India

Almost all the books we list on our website are made in India one way or the other, of course, but this one is something special, in quite another way....

Mapin, the eclectic publishers based in Ahmedabad, who bring out books on all topics that lie at the intersection of Indian culture and art have a new, sumptuous title out- Handmade in India. Edited by Aditi Ranjan and M P Ranjan, the book is "a compendium of Indian crafts. It probes into all aspects of handicrafts—historical, social and cultural influences on crafts, design and craft processes, traditional and new markets, products and tools—unravelling a wealth of knowledge. Handmade in India is based on extensive field work and research, and maps out the regional craft clusters identified across the country on the basis of prevailing craft-work patterns. Some of these are renowned, like the pinjrakari and khatumband wood work of Kashmir, blue pottery of Jaipur, chikankari embroidery of Lucknow, the kannadi or metal mirrors from Aranmula, chappals or footwear from Kolhapur, and the bamboo craft of Assam. Other, lesser known, crafts like the paabu or stitched boots from Ladakh, jadupatua paintings from Jharkhand, the making of Kathakali and Theyyam headgear, khadi or tinsel printing in Ahmedabad have also been described in striking detail. The first-of-its-kind ever attempted, this publication with stunning photographs will be a tremendous resource for product and textile designers, artists, architects, interior designers, collectors, development professionals and connoisseurs alike. The aim of this series is to bring to fore the creative potential of India’s craftspersons and the entire range of Indian handicrafts."

This one is a bit expensive at Rs 3950. But its worth it at over 500 pages. ISBN:978-81-88204-57-1. In our Culture section. And also in Art. After all, what else are our handicrafts but everyday Indian art?

The right place at the right time

One has to have a knack for it. Being there, that is.

Nirupama Subramaniam, journalist and correspondent for The Hindu in Pakistan, who gives a gripping firsthand account in today's papers of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto does have the knack. Her previous assignments include a seven year stint in Sri Lanka, and her "good fortune to view the fast-changing events in the island at close quarters" resulted in a book, Sri Lanka: Voices from a War Zone that was published by Penguin in 2005.

The quote is from a review of the book, also in The Hindu, but we think that the good fortune is more ours, that we have so eloquent, courageous, and sensitive an observer of current events through whose eyes and pen we can learn of the events that compose these interesting times. The book is a composition of ‘little histories’ —of children forcibly recruited into LTTE training camps; of parents waiting for mass graves to reveal their bleak secrets; of people fleeing their homes in war zones only to become prisoners in refugee camps; of the families of the missing who still wait and hope; of women in the maid-trade bonded in virtual slavery in foreign lands. Woven into these narratives are the larger stories—of a President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, elected with a massive mandate for peace but trapped in a war so intense that she was unable to make good her promise; and of Tiger supremo Vellupillai Prabhakaran, trapped too, but in a cage fashioned out of his own egoism and ruthlessness—one he never dare leave.

In the Essays and Nonfiction section.

Dragonfly in the Sun

This is a sad day for us all in the subcontinent, and the thin lines that separate Indians from Pakistanis or Bangladeshis or whatever seem so evanescent... Beyond our common historical bonds, we seem to share the gruesomeness of our present, in strange and horrible ways.

Our shared pasts are reflected in our common literature, and one anthology that seems to be aptly titled for today is Muneeza Shamsie's And the World Changed. Published by Women Unlimited, New Delhi.

And Dragonfly? Thats the title of an anthology of Pakistani creative writing, also edited by Muneeza Shamsie, that took its name from a Zulfikar Ghose poem. It seems an appropriate metaphor.

A Plentiful Beauty

It is a commonplace that the Indian subcontinent has remarkable biodiversity- and also that this natural heritage is under severe threat. The indigenous flora of our country has been greatly enriched by species that have been imported over the centuries- indeed many of the flowering trees that seem to be so "typically Indian" are recent migrants, brought here by European colonists over the past five hundred or so years...

Books on the trees of India are scarce. Pradeep Krishen's Trees of Delhi is one, of course (and it has a lot of information on trees that are found all over the country). Trees of India, by Subhadra Menon and Pallava Bagla (students of H Y Mohan Ram, the well respected botanist who has taught many generations at Delhi University) is another.

And recently, M S Swaminathan and S L Kochhar's Groves of Beauty and Plenty: An Atlas of Major Flowering Trees in India has seen a second edition. In a review in Current Science, R R Rao writes "The book is a must for botanists, foresters, landscape architects, planners, environmentalists, conservationists and those seeking information on the tree wealth of India."

We agree. The book is a valuable addition to a shelf that needs filling.

Find these in our Natural History section.

Daanish Anyone?

Daanish Books, New Delhi, are a committed lot. Alternate, and determinedly so, they are not afraid to speak their minds, and to be held for it if need be. Which is more than can be said of most...

Their list is not long, but it is eclectic, and it is decidedly progressive. Their aims are to take forward the initiative of a group of activists in independent and alternative publishing, to represent the most incisive writing on the increasingly complex and challenging contemporary situations, and along with academic books, to also develop series of books and pamphlets in local languages, to act as a bridge between the worlds of theory and practice and between academics and activism and to initiate and strengthen the process of dialogue both across cultural and social divides and between diverse political/ideological streams—socialist, liberal, Gandhian, nationalist, and the radical left.

Well, one has to start somewhere. And we start by listing some of their titles, and their paperbacks, as well as the Journal of Health and Development.

Write in for any books you might like to have from Daanish. Their forthcoming book on Nandigram, for instance. Or the Alternate Economic Survey's annual report for 2006-7. Infelicitously titled, but gripping reading, from quite a different point of view. India Shining?? Click here.

Judge this book by its cover

Its a first for us, so please do judge this book by its cover... as well as its contents.

Lived Heritage, Shared Space on the courtyard house of Goa, published by Yoda Press, New Delhi, is by Angelo Silveira.

First the contents: This is a scholarly book on the traditional architecture of Goa- written by a conservation architect of Goan origin who now lives in Lisbon. Translated from the original Portuguese by Maria Ribeiro, this unique book is also a wonderful guide to the architecture of Goa today, complementing the numerous books on the colonial and religious architecture in that part of India- see our listings of titles from Architects Autonomous,, for instance.

And the rest: The entire design- cover, pages, and layout - is a first for Design SwB! We are excited about this part of our activities, and very pleased that our first completed product has hit the market. The book is a delight to read, and to have and to hold.

Enjoy! Rs 495, ISBN:978-81-903634-7-1. In our Art and Architecture section.

Losing one's temper

Scientific temper- Jawaharlal Nehru's coinage- "involves the application of logic and reasoning, and the avoidance of bias and preconceived notions in arriving at decisions, and becomes particularly valuable while deciding what is best for the community or the nation."

Amartya Sen, in his The Argumentative Indian, characterises a group that practices scientific temper as possessing "internal pluralism and external receptivity". By that token we, as a nation, fare poorly.

The need for scientific temper, and its paucity in our public life- and all too often, in the public life of our scientists- has been discussed time and again, and frequently by the defaulters. A belief in the predictive powers of astrology, the curative powers of homoeopathy, the endorsement of proven charlatans (purveyors of herbal petrol and transcendental meditation, for instance) is common in our country. It is not enough to put private and public lives into different compartments since the boundaries are not always as watertight as one would like them to be... so it does matter when science bureaucrats- that most visible face of science- show their feet of clay quite so easily!

Pushpa Bhargava has been a loud voice in the science establishment who has often drawn attention to such issues. By organizing meetings and discussions on scientific temper, by bringing the discussion into the national press, and now, by collecting a number of his articles in a book to be released tomorrow by the National Book Trust entitled Angels, Devil and Science. Coauthored with Chandana Chakrabarti, this book documents the efforts of Bhargava and a number of others in the 1970's and thereafter to bring about a national sense of scientific temper.

"Believe nothing merely because you have been told it" the Buddha is reputed to have said... the tradition of agnosticism is an hoary one, but also one that does not grip public imagination as much as the willingness to hold on to poorly substantiated beliefs. Somehow the discussions on rationality seem to miss something crucial in the argument as to why so many people are willing to believe things that are patently unprovable (and often patently false) so much of the time. D D Kosambi in one of the essays collected in Science, Society, and Peace suggested that the state use science as propaganda- accurate weather prediction in stead of astrological forecasts, for instance. Given the error margins in such predictions (and Kosambi died in 1966, just as Chaos theory was being born) that may not be such a wise move! Still, the ease with which we as a nation are willing to live a dichotomous existence- with sharply differing public and private belief systems- is a bit worrisome.

We hope to bring you the Kosambi essays as downloadable pdf files shortly. In the meantime, all the NBT titles can be ordered through Scholars, of course. And Amartya Sen as well... and the few Kosambi titles still in print...

Music to our ears

And to yours too, we hope. Namita Devidayal's new book The Music Room, has music accompanying (on the Random House website... in an unusual promo). Lakshmi Subramaniam, who reviewed it in today's Hindu is generally appreciative: "The book captures so effectively in terms of style, tone and detail the magic of the world of music that it is an absolute delight to read and savour. As a meditative reflection upon what is and remains an ineffable medium, it carries that lightness of touch which is appropriate as it is soothing." Attractive? We think so- order it on our site.

Our Ethnomusicology section is small, but it has some books you could not find anywhere else. Take Jon Higgins... please! His book on Bharata Natyam is wonderful- a scholarly take on the music that accompanies the dance, written from the inside. And Jon was on the inside, befriended by Balasaraswati and her family. One cannot think of a more remarkable use of the Fulbright fellowship than this which resulted in the creation of "Higgins Bhagavathar", an accomplished Carnatic musician from Conneticut. The book, which comes with two audio cassettes, was published about 15 years ago by the Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicology (ARCE) of the American Institute of Indian Studies, Gurgaon. More on them in a later blog.

There are many other titles- and probably more that we should have there. Write in and let us know!

École Française d'Extrême-Orient

The French contribution to Indian scholarship is considerable- and one of the most visible faces in this effort is the École Française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO). Along with the French Institute of Pondicherry or the IFP, they have a vibrant publishing program- indeed the two organizations share an Indology Department, co-editing and publishing most of their publications in this area. All in all, there are something like 250 publications in different formats, encompassing a very diverse range of subjects.

La victoire de Manasa, for instance, a translation of Manasavijaya by Vipradasa (1495) which "portrays the cruel manner in which the Goddess of Serpents established a tradition of her worship in the world. This Bengali poem, intended for singing and recitation, belongs to the literary genre of the mangalkavya. Alongside Vedic, epic and Puranic myths, it borrows themes from the literature of Nath yogins, painting a large and vivid tableau of medieval Bengali society." The 2007 translation is by France Bhattacharya.

Senji (Gingee): A fortified city in the Tamil country, recently translated by Jean Deloche is "an essay at the junction of several disciplines (archaeology, history and human geography), trying to show the evolution of the defence systems of the stronghold, the development of the urban centre, as well as the different aspects of water and grain storage which are at the root of its surprising growth."

"Senji, immortalized by Desing’s ballad, still popular in South India, is a significant place in the Tamil country. Successively occupied by the Hindus of Vijayanagar, the Nayakas, the Muslims of Bijapur, the Marathas, the Mughals and finally by the French in 1750, it was, at the end of the 16th century, one of the biggest cities of the peninsula."

The entire collection of EFEO can be ordered from Scholars: whatever titles are not on the site can be obtained by writing in. And the titles from IFP as well...

For instance: Forest landscapes of the Southern Western Ghats, India: biodiversity, human ecology and management strategies by B Ramesh and Rajan Gurukkal. "The Western Ghats forests are endowed with large species and habitat diversity, which is nowadays under threat by increasing demographic pressure and changing land use. To address these challenges, a novel and comprehensive approach is sought from the principles of landscape ecology. Morphopedological features are used to delineate landscape units all over the Western Ghats of Kerala, among which the Western Anamalai region is chosen to elucidate the relative influence of physical factors, bioclimate and anthropogenic pressures on the characteristics of natural vegetation and on the status of the vertebrate fauna. Highlighting patterns of resource utilization by proximal and distant stakeholders, the book goes about identifying value-based management zones, while proposing management strategies for conservation and sustainable development."

Pondicherry is also home to two remarkable collections of palm-leaf manuscripts. The IFP and the Pondicherry centre of the EFEO hold a manuscript collection (comprising of palm-leaf bundles, old paper codices, paper transcripts, totalling to 11353 pieces in all) of inestimable value. The Shaiva manuscripts in the IFP and the Vaisnava manuscripts in the EFEO were in 2005 deemed a UNESCO “Memory of the World” collection, in response to an application jointly submitted by the IFP, the EFEO and the National Manuscripts Mission (NMM) which is an initiative of the Government of India. More on these and the NMM in a later blog.

Meanwhile, see the listings on our Site.

And the future is now.

David Devdas, journalist, filmmaker, scholar, has a new book, In Search of a Future: The story of Kashmir. Published by Penguin, this book is written from the inside- David spends a large part of his time in the valley, and is helping set up the Islamic University of Science and Technology in Awantipora. Which is what is probably needed for Kashmir's future- a solid base on which to forge economic development. At the book release in Delhi a few days ago, the panel discussion focussed on the questions of Kashmir militancy, displacement, geopolitics... all the complexities that make the Kashmir question so difficult to approach.

The book is not designed to please the several groups concerned- the governments of India and Pakistan, the militants or the Army. Hopefully, though, it will also not please many more groups, but in the process will begin to give all of them some insight into why after sixty years of independence, the future still seems so uncertain.

In our Strategic Affairs section. Rs 495. ISBN: 0670081507

Indian Birds, the ultimate guide

Our Natural History section lists a large number of books on birds of the subcontinent, including Salim Ali's definitive The Book of Indian Birds from Oxford University Press. There are also a number of other titles by him, for example the Pictorial Guide to the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent, written with S Dillon Ripley, who also coauthored the magnificent 10 volume HANDBOOK OF THE BIRDS OF INDIA AND PAKISTAN. Not all of these titles are still available, though but those that are are worth getting. And keeping.

Some of these titles have been co-published with The Bombay Natural History Society, Ali's "spritual home" for much of his birding career. Recently, Tara Gandhi, a former student of Salim Ali's has edited a comprehensive two-volume set of his essays, newspaper articles, speeches, etc., for Permanent Black entitled A Bird's eye view. "Whether it is the colours of a bird's feathers or the ecology of the Himalaya mountains or an insightful conservation message, Salim Ali’s evocative writing style makes reading this volume enormously pleasurable."


In our Essays and Nonfiction section.