Briefly “Footsteps of a fly across the cheek” and “burning darkness” is all they felt in the room behind the cupboard in a countryside house in a village called Koluvere in Estonia. ‘They’ — nationalist Hans Pekk in the 1940s and then his granddaughter Zara in 1992 — met the same fate, but had different battles to fight and fought them originally (or did they?). A story of three generations (Aliide Truu, her sister Ingel and brother-in-law Hans, Ingel’s daughter Linda and granddaughter Zara), Finnish writer Sofi Oksanen’s PURGE (Atlantic Books; Rs 299; 356 pages) doesn’t reveal itself until the end. It’s about love, war, and the attached unreasonableness; how both bring hope and hopelessness. Stares, sniggers and stones, Aliide has fought them all but can’t forget the militia’s chrome-tanned boots on her neck. And will not have any of it any longer, certainly not in her old age. So when the goons come looking for a girl on the run, she looks after her, just the way she looked after her only love, Zara’s grandfather Hans, 50 years ago. Blood, silence and death — Purge is as vivid as it gets. Whatever life there is, it’s in Ingel’s and Aliide’s recipes; the only thread that connects them forever. An act of repentance doesn’t merely purge us but sometimes wrings out a thing of delicate beauty. Anchee Min’s PEARL OF CHINA (Bloomsbury; Rs 650; 278 pages) is wrought from both pain and atonement. Min, who blindly denounced Nobel Prize winning author Pearl S Buck on the orders of Madame Mao during the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s, realised the magnitude of her folly when she read Buck’s The Good Earth 20 years later. Pearl of China is the author’s plea for forgiveness and reconciliation. It focuses on the enduring friendship between Buck and a poor Chinese girl Willow. A skilled thief, Willow who lives with her rudderless father and ailing grandmother near the Yangtze River in Southern China, forges an unshakeable bond with Buck, the offspring of Presbyterian missionaries. Their friendship endures trials of childhood, separation, unhappy marriages and, finally, love for the same man. The book is not without its share of irreverence and funny moments though, all mostly centred on religion. Buddhism and Christianity struggle for one-upmanship in the dialogues between Buck’s father Absalom and Willow’s father as they go around converting poor Chinese farmers into devout Christians. Using a fairly engaging blend of humour, tenderness and emotion amid political ferment Min tries to show us the softer side of the fuming dragon. When Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw didn’t make it to medical school, her father advised her, “Failure is temporary; it’s giving up that’s permanent.” She listened — and went on to start India’s largest biotech firm, Biocon. Indeed, the right counsel can change your life, says the team from Business Today as they serve up a compendium of golden advice received by India’s finest: THE BEST ADVICE I EVER GOT (Collins Business; Rs 150; 142 pages). The 55 personalities from the worlds of business, science, politics, medicine, literature and entertainment include former president of India Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, whose mentor Acharya Mahapragya urged him to work to evolve a system of peace where “nuclear weapons will be ineffective, insignificant and politically inconsequential,” a year-and-a-half after the Pokharan nuclear tests in May 1998. And cardiac surgeon and philanthropist Dr Devi Shetty who was advised by Mother Teresa to help others and make the world a better place. If you’re looking for insight in dealing with personal and professional challenges, this tiny volume of inspiration may just be the ticket. Yishey Doma’s soulful literary effort LEGENDS OF THE LEPCHAS: FOLK TALES FROM SIKKIM (Tranquebar; Rs 200; 137 pages) encapsulates 22 mythological tales of this mountainous region. The stories start from the time when “there was nothing but vast emptiness on earth and in the sky” and Itbu-moo, the Mother Creator, shaped mountains, rivers and lakes before creating the first man and woman. Centred on gods and goddesses, demons and fairies, humans and the animal world, this slim volume gives readers an insight into many of the traditional customs and beliefs followed by the Lepchas even today. In “Death of Lasso Mung Puno”, the 12 years it took the Lepcha warriors to kill the demon king Lasso Mung Puno taught them the concept of time, dates, months and years. The 10 titles given to them by the ‘bongthing’ — a powerful shaman created to destroy demons — was the origin of their patrilineal clans. The ancient lore weaves a sense of timelessness, imbuing familiar places in Sikkim — Daramdin, Rangpo, Chumbi — with a touch of ethereal magic. An enchanted world brought to life by Pankaj Thapa’s black-and-white illustrations that accompany each story. Fascinating. In his last book, The Spire, Richard North Patterson took a break from being America’s conscience by writing a simple campus murder-mystery. But with IN THE NAME OF HONOUR (Macmillan; Rs 499; 401 pages), he’s back doing what he does best. After dealing compassionately — and skillfully — with incendiary issues like abortion, race and gun control, he turns his pen to war, specifically posttraumatic stress disorder that wrought havoc among Vietnam vets a generation ago, and is now taking its deadly toll on young Americans who have returned from Iraq. The military runs in the DNA of the McCarrans and the Gallaghers, two families inextricably bound together. But this bond is caught in the crosshairs when Lt Brian McCarran comes back from Iraq and shoots and kills his commanding officer Capt Joe D’Abruzzo —who just happens to be the husband of Kate Gallagher, Brian’s childhood friend. When ace lawyer Capt Paul Terry sets out to defend Brian in a court-martial, aided by Brian’s sister Meg, he stumbles into secrets stacked like musty old newspapers in the darkest family closets. Even as he tells a gripping story, Patterson exposes the apathy of the military establishment and puts the focus firmly back on the devastatingly high cost of conflict. A book for our times. It’s refreshing to see Sam Bourne ditch the done-to-death Templar/religious sect/medieval secret genre of fiction he has specialised in thus far and write a simple tale of power and politics centred on the office of the president of the United States in THE CHOSEN ONE (HarperCollins; Rs 250; 438 pages). It’s also extremely appropriate considering Bourne is a pseudonym for award-winning journalist and broadcaster Jonathan Freedland, who has covered five US presidential elections (including Obama’s). All that experience has been put to good use in this thriller: presidential foreign policy advisor Maggie Costello goes to bat for her embattled boss when he is accused of a series of scandals by a man, who is subsequently murdered. The question before her: is the president sinner or saint? As she searches for the answer, a presidency and the balance of power in the US lie at stake. So does her life as she begins to uncover a nefarious scheme with its roots deep into the past. Bourne’s characters may not be memorable but they do their part to keep the plot chugging along and the pages turning on auto-pilot. The real sting lies in the tail — an ending with the perfect twist to get conspiracy theorists foaming at the mouth. Featured in Harmony Magazine August 2010 Was the Raj the best thing that happened to a fractured Indian subcontinent? Did the benevolent British hand aid the development of the modern Indian polity, as it has been long held? Roderick Matthews isn’t too sure. In THE FLAWS IN THE JEWEL (HarperCollins; Rs 350; 312 pages), the freelance writer re-examines British rule in India and the “myth factory” it had become. Through his meticulous research, he seeks to explain just how a group of traders from a faraway country wrested control of India and managed to hold on to it; and what exactly India got out of the entire deal. Matthews’s account is scholarly, devoid of any romance, yet astonishingly readable; his approach even-handed and just, making his arguments even more persuasive. As he writes, “The telling of Indian history doesn’t need to praise or to parade villains for our contempt. Good history must not be afraid to examine failures, and British rule in India provides ample examples.” There’s a personal subtext to this book: in 1914, in London, Matthews’s great grandfather advised a young barrister called Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to return to India. The rest, of course, is history. “An anonymous body, deflating slowly, leaking out its juices” is found in an apocryphal apartment in Mumbai called 4 Kalina Sputnik, inhabited by S Shah and V Dasgupta. Shah (the S stands for Sitara) is alive but drugged. An intriguing start to Kalpana Swaminathan’s THE MONOCHROME MADONNA (Penguin; Rs 250; 246 pages), her third mystery starring the Indian Miss Marple, 60-something Lalli, a former police inspector and the last resort of the homicide department. As the plot thickens, a bizarre set of mementos tumbles out — nail clippings, broken bangles, a stick-on bindi, a shred of a dupatta and a bottle of cheap scent. The scene is set and the language racy, but somewhere down the line the narrative falters, the story loses steam and the reader tires of the idea of a murder without motive. Still, the publishers are determined to push the Lalli experience to the max — they’ve launched an online detection game where you help the detective solve a mystery. If you’re in the mood, check it out at www.penguinbooksindia.com/games/detectivelalli/detective-lalli.aspx Thriller writer David Baldacci likes his characters — he etches them with care and compassion, gives them some rum plot twists to negotiate, and tends to bring them back to star in yet another caper. In DEL IVER US FROM EVIL (Macmillan; Rs 405; 406 pages), it’s the turn of Shaw (from The Whole Truth) to reprise his role as shadowy operative who works for an equally shadowy handler to bring down the bad guys. This time, their target is Evan Waller, an evil human trafficker who’s now about to supply nuclear material to Islamic fundamentalists. But there’s someone else gunning for Waller: gorgeous Reggie Campion, who works for a maverick group that’s targeting him for past atrocities about which Shaw and company haven’t a clue. Against the bucolic backdrop of Provence, where Waller is on holiday, the action is furious; the casualties mount alarmingly and the suspense and intrigue intensify. Baldacci addicts will leave this book satisfied — and assured in the knowledge that Shaw (and Campion) will be back. In chapters named after days of the week, readers follow protagonist Anuradha as she goes through daily life in Sharmila Kantha’s second novel A BREAK IN THE CIRCLE (HarperCollins; Rs 250; 195 pages). There is little excitement in her routine — managing her home with a pregnant maid; cooking for her demanding family; making dutiful calls to her overbearing mother; dealing with gossipy relatives. The unheralded arrival of Kallu chacha from Ranchi with his wife and daughter Pinky to check out a marriage proposal adds another dimension to her work — and results in “Pinky’s Beautification”, one of the theme-based sections in the book. “Interlude”, interposed between chapters, revolves around yet another character Srijana who, empowered by a self-help group, gets a loan to buy a goat. Set in Patna, small-town attitudes saturate the narration. Though just 40 years old with a postgraduate degree in psychology, Anuradha admits, “I don’t know how to email”. An induction by her nine year-old son and online communication with Girish, a US-based professor, change her view of life and her identity. As Kantha juggles with the numerous characters, readers run the risk of getting lost in the crowd. Disappointing. Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Lynne Truss’s laugh-a-minute ‘zero-tolerance’ guide to punctuation that sold millions world over, is a hard act to follow. You realise this almost immediately after you begin TALK TO THE HAND (Fourth Estate; Rs 199; 214 pages), her latest, which runs with the baseline, ‘The Utter Bloody Rudeness of Everyday Life’. After urging us all to be more grammatical, Truss now wants us to be more polite. And rather than telling us how to behave, she defines and analyses six areas where “our dealings with strangers seem to be getting more unpleasant and inhuman, day by day”, in the belief that understanding this may — in the long run — make us less rude. To list these six would be telling; suffice to say Truss adeptly defines the “incivilities of modern life”. Unfortunately, as good as all this is, this book doesn’t grab you, shake you and make you guffaw like Eats…; not even close. At best, you remain engaged, turning over pages rapidly searching for the same spark. Saying any more would be, well, rude. To all of us ensconced in our city cocoon, this book is nothing less than a rude jolt. SARPANCH SAHIB (HarperCollins; Rs 175; 152 pages) takes us to villages in rural India where a quiet revolution is being led by women armed with nothing but dreams, perseverance and ambition. The tiny book packs a startlingly powerful punch with essays profiling seven women panchayat heads, written by seven women writers. It reviews the effects of the 73rd constitutional amendment that took place in 1993, according to which elections were mandated for membership to the Panchayati Raj and one-third of the seats were reserved for women. In Tarikarle in rural Karnataka, Kenchamma, a Dalit woman president, is striving hard to pave roads, organise cleanliness drives and build awareness on hygiene; in Kalahandi in Orissa, Deepanjali, a young adivasi graduate sarpanch is empowering villagers by promoting pisciculture and employment schemes in the midst of stiff inter-caste rivalry and male oppression; in Tamil Nadu, non-literate Chinapppa is working to make education more accessible for outcast children; in Madhya Pradesh, Sunita refuses to bow down to a corrupt male-dominated system; in Assam, Maloti has built hundreds of houses for families below the poverty line and is now struggling to raise salaries of tea estate workers; and in Uttarakhand former sarpanch Maya has lost the last election but remains triumphant in spirit by attending all panchayat meetings and resolving the issues of villagers. All the stories are stark and unadorned, very much like the women themselves. Sarpanch sahib, salaam! Featured in Harmony Magazine July 2010 “Death, repentance, desire, guilt, renunciation and filial love”…. Set in a slum-sewer city, Upamanyu Chatterjee’s WAY TO GO (Penguin; Rs 499; 359 pages) is not deviant for being defined by these life conditions. Its aberrance lies in the normalcy within it. Shyamanand is 85 and on his deathbed when he disappears. Preceded by a neighbour’s suicide and followed by a neighbour’s murder and another disappearance — of Shyamanand’s son Jamun, owing to being engulfed by angst and remorse — the incident overwhelms Jamun’s elder brother Burfi with thoughts of “fathers biological and absent; Jamun, Shyamanand and Burfi (‘had he been a good father?’), each absent differently”. Jamun’s ex-wife Kasturi, daughter Mithi and Burfi’s scattered family wallow in their incompleteness to complete the picture. Chatterjee — who revealed to us our own Indian landscape with English, August — makes his latest an unending abyss of loss, a reminder that “no one escapes from life”. “Life was everywhere, invincible, surer than fate, than time, more certain than hiccup of death”. Sita and Surpanakha bond with each other over their gender. A modern Nair girl from a matrilineal family is at tenterhooks after being asked to change her first name after marriage. Kalidasa rewrites Shakuntala with actor Bipasha Basu in mind. And a modern Savitri refuses to pray for her dying husband, fearing another lifetime of servitude. These are just some of the stories in feminist writer C V Bhuvaneswari’s anthology of short stories, A GRANDMOTHER’S TALE (Olive Publications; Rs 200; 184 pages). Through each of these 18 tales, she explores themes like women’s subjugation, stereotyping, cultural alienation, and the travails of motherhood and old age. Bhuvaneswari’s protagonists are an intriguing mixed bag: urban and rural, educated and illiterate, repressed and rebellious. While some of the stories are predictable, the overall impact of the book, which casts aspersions on patriarchy and middle-class hypocrisy, is hard-hitting. “Behind every woman’s silence is a story of her oppression and silencing,” writes Bhuvaneswari. A book like this serves to break the silence. Here’s how India’s favourite wheels made it to the road in 1982 — and kept rolling on cruise control. Maruti-Suzuki chairman R C Bhargava tells THE MARUTI STORY (Harper-Collins; Rs 499; 383 pages) with help from journalist Seetha. From the controversy-prone Sanjay Gandhi’s vision to launch a ‘people’s car’ to the establishment of a public-sector undertaking in the automobile sector, the adoption of Japanese management principles and the behind-the-scenes manoeuvring to ensure the birth of the classic Maruti 800, the book reveals every chapter of the project, which set the benchmark for all future public-sector endeavours and put an entire country on wheels. Fact: till 2009, every second car to leave an automobile showroom was the Maruti 800. Even though Bhargava and Seetha tend to meander and ramble through the telling of it all, the story itself is epic enough to keep you tuned in. As Bhargava writes, “Today, the company — now free of government controls but facing competition from the world's major manufacturers who have entered the Indian market — still leads the way…. Not only that, cars made by Maruti can be seen in all continents.” Sadly, this March, Maruti-Suzuki announced that it was phasing out the Maruti 800. An early introduction to music, access to India’s greatest musical icons and an appreciation for the nuances of raag and taal are some of the advantages of being the children of a maestro. Sarod legend Ustad Amjad Ali Khan’s sons Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan parlay these into a book: 50 MAESTROS’ RECORDINGS: THE BEST OF INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC (HarperCollins; Rs 350; 192 pages). Themselves musicians who have married the sound of the sarod with harmonies from the occident, they share their encounters (and rare photographs) with treasures from across India — from M S Subbulakshmi, Girija Devi, Kishori Amonkar and Bhimsen Joshi to Begum Akhtar, Enayat Khan, Ustad Bismillah Khan and Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia. As formats go, this one is rather rigid: a short bio of each artist and personal reminiscences followed by select recordings. But if you get past the textbook nature of the presentation, this is a valuable guide for people wishing to dip their feet in the enchanting waters of Indian classical music. Even sweeter: the CD that accompanies the book with 27 of the chosen recordings. Internationally celebrated authors like Paulo Coelho, Richard Bach and Isabel Allende have brought the inspirational literary tradition of modern fable mingled with metaphor and magic realism into our lives. Turkish novelist Serdar Ozkan follows in their footsteps with THE MISSING ROSE (Wisdom Tree; Rs 245; 192 pages), the tale of a woman’s journey of self-discovery. Diana has lived much of her life influenced by peer pressure; even studying law rather than following her passion for words, her worldview a pastiche of the reflections of others. But her life is transformed when her mother, upon her deathbed, reveals that she has a twin, Maria. This epiphany impels her to travel to Istanbul, a voyage that has deep spiritual ramifications: a search for the ‘missing rose’, which on one level is Maria, and on the other her own soul, that has so long been lost to her. Though predictable, the book deftly bridges Eastern and Western philosophy; explores human nature with great understanding; and is immensely readable — the fact that it has been translated into 35 languages should count for something! Featured in Harmony Magazine June 2010 It is a brave thing to follow up vanilla (Darlingji: The True Love Story of Nargis and Sunil Dutt; 2007) with grit. But seasoned journalist Kishwar Desai doesn’t seem to be afraid with her second book, WITNESS THE NIGHT (HarperCollins; Rs 225; 210 pages). Gender discrimination — and the brutal depths to which it can descend — forms the centrepiece of this thriller that intrigues and shocks equally. When urbane, hard-drinking social worker Simran Singh takes on her latest ‘case’, 14 year-old Durga, she is actually confronting centuries of deep-seated prejudice and oppression. Brutalised, broken and traumatised, Durga is found in her Jalandhar home while 13 of her family members lie around her murdered. When the police decide to lay the blame for the massacre at Durga’s feet, Simran sets out to discover the truth, in the process exposing the corruption and venality of the police and politicians and the rank lawlessness of small-town India. Desai writes matter-of-factly; all literary artifices dispensed with in the face of gruesome statistics and heartbreaking realities. Why dress up ugliness in any other garb? The sceptics will find enough fodder to scoff at this one. ROAD TO SHIRDI (Wisdom Tree; Rs 245; 170 pages) by Kaushalya Kuwadekar introduces us to a path to spirituality that’s often littered with superstition and irrational occult musings. The book begins in Zambia where the author was born and brought up by parents who are often undemonstrative, unreasonable and hostile. The utter absence of spirituality in her life all through her childhood in her parent’s house almost stands out as a deliberately orchestrated contrast to the plethora of deities and god men that Kuwadekar reveres in her youth. The author grows up with two siblings, seeking solace in mysterious angels and aliens that prowl the tree outside her house. Eloping into the arms of the man she loves, she finally attains domestic bliss after marriage; a phase in her life that runs parallel with the beginnings of her quest for spiritual succour. From novenas, Soka Gakkai, and the Japanese religious movement of Sukyo Mahikari to Kriya Yoga, encounters at the Oneness University and finally the mendicant saint Sai Baba in Shirdi, Kuwadekar moves in full earnest and fickle abandon from one spiritual philosophy to another. She believes there is no one road to spiritual enlightenment. Maybe there isn’t. Or maybe the one true road is right there inside us. “Olly, Olly, Olly, with a big nose on a trolley, and his wig all painted green....” New characters, a brand new story and the unaffected Ruskin Bond style! The much-adored Mussoorie-based author is back (MR OLIVER’S DIARY; Puffin Books; Rs 150; 121 pages) with hilarious Mr Olly (oops, Oliver) guiding his preparatory school boys at a Shimla boarding with a feather-light stick. Bald and bony, he knows he will never be any match for his young boys winding up the whole school and the neighbouring girls’ school as well; though, he does match punches with visiting middleweight boxing champion Buster Bragge. Adding munch to an otherwise serene setting, the boys sleepwalk on roofs, let loose a thousand frogs, run away on rickety buses, bring down the school bell on April Fools Day, disfigure the founder’s portrait, and fling around Mr Oliver’s wig. Between all this, the headmaster and his wife get trapped in their cottage during a storm, and, on another occasion, the headmaster goes missing looking for a tiger to shoot. Miss Babcock does her best to rein in the elements and Miss Anjali Ramola brings romance to Mr Oliver’s life; until then Tota (the parrot) gives him company with his two famous words: ‘Bottoms Up!’ Read and laugh out loud. Featured in Harmony Magazine April 2010 Delhi. A city of extreme seasons and landscapes; a city of wide roads and narrow minds; a city you either hate or love so much that you could go for the critic’s throat. Modern, historic, high-tech and archaic, all at once, Delhi lends itself to a multitude of emotions — a perfect notion for an anthology. Little wonder then that Hirsh Sawhney’s DELHI NOIR (HarperCollins; Rs 399; 289 pages) raises hopes and expectations. The regret, therefore, is greater. The collection fails to be the lighthouse it should have been for a city that ought not to be rendered soulless and forceless, especially by an assortment of authors of repute: Irwin Allan Sealy, Meera Nair, Tabish Khair and Ruchir Joshi. Without being tied down by a theme, some of the stories are readable, with unexpected surprises lurking around every ending. In Omair Ahmad’s “Yesterday Man”, a ‘victim’ of Sikh riots has his revenge turned on its head; Meera Nair’s Ramu in “Small Fry” turns to fake Nikes for a facelift; and time stands still around Jantar Mantar in Tabish Khair’s “The Scam”. Sadly, signboards like R K Puram, Lodi Road, Inter State Bus Terminus and Rohini remain just that, without evoking the charm of a sometimes pulsating and sometimes sleepy city. Preserving the essence of the original stories, Sipra Bhattacharya transports readers to the timeless world of one of India’s greatest writers in THE RETURN OF KHOKABABU – THE BEST OF TAGORE (Harper-Perennial; Rs 350; 384 pages). The translations faithfully recapture the pervading aura of male domination and conservatism in Rabindranath Tagore’s 19th century Bengal, an era of social transition when women struggled to escape the confines of tradition and find their own voice. Emerging from the shadows of the past, the characters from different strata of urban and rural society never fail to strike an empathic chord with the reader: a young widow who obeys a monk’s command to forget him by walking into the waters of the river in “The Bathing Ghat’s Tale”; a young man who supports widow remarriage yet is unable to marry the widow he secretly worships in “The Girl Next Door”; a neglected wife who rebels against her husband’s love for the theatre and discovers her own talent as actor in “Giribala and Gopinath”; a woman who finds the courage to question her role as daughter-in-law and finds her own identity and freedom in “A Wife’s Letter”. Universal themes that remain relevant decades after these stories were first written. “But he was a brave man and obviously poor, and so the survival instinct in him was strong.” These words form the core of Radhika Jha’s second work of fiction (after the much acclaimed Smell) LANTERNS ON THEIR HORNS (HarperCollins; Rs 399; 471 pages). And the fact that the setting for these words is a poor man’s duel with a wrathful hybrid bull for his semen signifies a clever and jocular take on the changing rural landscape in India — one driven by BT brinjals and artificial insemination of cattle. Convinced that our “villages, like temples, are part of the eternal order of things”, Jha sets out on a promising journey to the dusty, sun-baked interiors. Manoj is an idealist aspiring to change the face of Indian villages. Trained at Kamdhenu Institute for Rural Development and besotted with the institute’s artificial impregnator Govinda, Manoj itches to inseminate at least one cow as part of his education. His Enfield takes him to Nandgaon to Ramu’s house and his breed-less cow. Lurking on the fringes of the story are Ramu’s wife Laxmi (educated daughter of a ‘suicide farmer’) and the village’s benevolent headman Gopal Mundkar. Unfortunately, on the road to Nandgaon, the village without a road, Jha loses her way. Then on, it’s a struggle — in vain — to bring the reader back to the fascinating idea of an Incredible Revolution. “It was like being taken from bright Technicolor into a silent black-and-white film,” says Maya when she first comes to England from India. 100 SHADES OF WHITE (HarperCollins; Rs 299; 294 pages) is her story, and that of her mother Nalini and brother Satchin. Preethi Nair takes on the Diaspora genre much trodden by the likes of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Jhumpa Lahiri and still emerges a winner with this sensitive tale of a family riven by a lie but reunited by love. When her husband moves the family to England from Kerala via Maharashtra and then abandons them for another, Nalini resorts to deception to preserve family pride. She rebuilds her life by turning her talent in the kitchen to a flourishing business bottling spices. But when the truth resurfaces, her life — and the children’s — changes irrevocably. There’s nothing very new about any of this (The Mistress of Spices does come to mind more than once). What makes this book remarkable, though, is the evocative nature of Nair’s storytelling; the emotion she imbues in her words. And the fact that the telling of the Diaspora experience never defines, undermines or overwhelms her characters and the dilemmas they grapple with. Paulo Coelho is one of the world’s most popular authors — and one of the most intriguing. In A WARRIOR’S LIFE: A BIOGRAPHY OF PAULO COELHO (HarperCollins; 470 pages; Rs 599), award-winning Brazilian writer and journalist Fernando Morais traces the varied — and often fascinating — strands of Coelho’s life, like the rebellious adolescent; the 13 year-old who, despite a total lack of interest in education, “showed the first signs of an undying idée fixe… to be a writer”; and the traumatised 18 year-old who was committed to an asylum by his parents and subjected to electroconvulsive therapy. Delving into diaries spanning 40 years, Morais gives a candid depiction of Coelho’s experiment with drugs; his obsession with “the hermetic and dangerous universe of Satanism”; his incarceration for alleged subversion against the Brazilian dictatorship; and his ultimate rediscovery of the faith imparted during his school years by Jesuit fathers. Read it for a better understanding of a man whose books have sold over 100 million copies worldwide — you won’t be disappointed. The draft of PIRATE LATITUDES (HarperCollins; Rs 250; 312 pages) was discovered on hugely popular author Michael Crichton’s computer after his death in late 2008 by his assistant; predictably a bonanza for his publishers. Was it a boon for readers too? Well, an old-fashioned buccaneer swashbuckler is certainly a departure for the techno-friendly, thriller ace Crichton. Set in the 17th century in the Crown colony of Port Royal in Jamaica, the hero is privateer (not pirate) Charles Hunter who sets out with a ragtag band to capture a treasure ship from the Spanish port of Matanceros, putting him on a collision course with Spaniard Cazalla. Hunter is an honourable sort of rake; a man loved by men and lusted after by women while his Spanish foe is evil, sadistic and completely loathsome. And here’s where the trouble starts. This is all very black and white, a value-ed class converted to a book, where you cheer for the good guys and boo the baddies. With no trace of nuance, you get a lively romp through sand, surf and sailing ships that leaves you a wee bit exhausted — and more than a little let down. Still, Steven Spielberg liked it enough to buy the movie rights so Hunter will soon sail into a cinema near you. Our money is on Johnny Depp. Featured in Harmony magazine March 2010 In what is the literary equivalent of a family reunion, writer, performer, poet and gay rights activist Minal Hajratwala traces the story of her Gujarati kin in the Diaspora in LEAVING INDIA: MY FAMILY’S JOURNEY FROM FIVE VILLAGES TO FIVE CONTINENTS (Tranquebar; Rs 595; 430 pages). Seven years of research that begins with her great-grandparents and ends with her generation take her across the globe; from Fiji, Aden, East Africa and South Africa to Britain, the US, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and New Zealand. In telling her family’s story, she is able to address larger issues — the lures that have led so many people away from India (from personal motives to socioeconomic realities) and the pulls that keep them rooted to the motherland wherever they may live. In the process, we get a glimpse of “the meeting place where character intersects with history” through interviews with over 75 relatives. The most touching part of the book, however, is the sound of Hajratwala’s own voice when she writes about her “border crossings”; moving out from her parents’ shadow and being accepted for her literary talents — and her sexuality. A valuable insight into alienation and assimilation. The English is far from flawless. The grammar is clumsy in places. The conversations are stilted at times. But many of the protagonists who roam the pages of SHORT STORIES FROM ANDHRA PRADESH (Jaico; Rs 295; 456 pages) are unforgettable for the rustic simplicity and old-world values they believe in. Their naiveté bursts forth unrestrained in their dialogue, making them rather endearing and often amusing. Malathi Nidadavolu, who translated the anthology from Telugu to English, has compiled 18 stories of writers who are distinguished names in Andhra literature. The stories are devoid of any layers or subtle nuances, and the characters are black or white — never grey. At the core of each tale is a sparkling truth on neighbourliness, community values, gender dynamics, administrative corruption and loneliness, among many other issues that confront us every other day. Look out for the gems of plain old common sense scattered carelessly. In one instance, an old village couple is perturbed by their daughter’s urban abode. “Those croton plants, without flower or fruit, are something! Indira said they exhale oxygen. Isn’t it strange closing the windows and breathing the oxygen the croton plants exhale?” Winner of three Walkley Awards for excellence in journalism, investigative journalist Sally Neighbour deserves another accolade simply for steering clear of bias and maudlin prose while telling the story of an elite jihadi. A thoroughly engaging work of non-fiction, THE MOTHER OF MOHAMMED (Jaico; Rs 295; 315 pages) walks us through the life of Robyn Merry Hutchinson, a marijuanasnorting backpacking beach bunny from Mudgee, Australia, and her metamorphosis into the burkha-clad Rabiah Maryam Hutchinson, the wife of a top Al Qaeda ideologue living in jihad-soaked Kandahar. Known in CIA circles as the ‘Elizabeth Taylor of the jihad’ and as ‘the mother of Mohammed’ among her peers, Rabiah — when she is still Robyn — abandons Christianity when she sees more rootedness in the immutable laws of Islam. From Australia and Indonesia to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Neighbour sticks close to Rabiah through every triumph and loss, never straying far from the angry turgid vein of Al Qaeda. The book is an outcome of Neighbour’s twice-weekly meetings with Rabiah for over a year. When we close it, it’s not the sensationalism that stays with us as much as the author’s sensitivity. Neighbour stays faithful to her foreword: “Rabiah’s story might provide some answers… help us understand the magnetism of the Islamist cause, which has made it among the most momentous religious and political movements of our time.” Featured in Harmony magazine February 2010 It’s a sister act for the prolific David Baldacci in TRUE BLUE (Macmillan; Rs 450; 456 pages), his latest nail-biting thriller. He introduces two new characters, Beth Perry, chief of DC’s Metropolitan Police, and her younger sister, Mace, a former police officer in disgrace after serving a two-year sentence for collusion with armed robbers. (Needless to say, she was framed.) When a powerful lawyer and a prominent US attorney are murdered, it’s a job for big sister. But little sister wants in too in a bid to rehabilitate herself and wear blue again. As always, Baldacci fans will revel in the plot — unpredictable, dramatic and delightfully complex with high-stakes conspiracy thrown in for good measure — and begin to learn and love the protagonists, sensible Beth and sparky Mace, both driven for reasons all their own. While Mace gets support (of all kind) from young Washington lawyer Roy Kingman, ultimately this book is all about female bonding — the literary equivalent of an on-court chest-thump. Rah. The setting is Kolkata. Travel writer Jerry Delfont’s words have dried up and he finds himself heading towards a perpetually desiccated old age. In Paul Theroux’s A DEAD HAND - A CRIME IN CALCUTTA (Hamish Hamilton; Rs 399; 264 pages), he finds himself in the middle of a murder mystery when one Mrs Merrill Unger writes him a missive for help. No sooner than he meets the American woman, popularly known as Ma, he begins to see her as the sole vitalising force in his life. Awe turns into obsession and Jerry Delfont is “sentimental and dog-like”, looking forward to visiting her for a massage in her spa; he now feels he has something to write about. This one-sided courtship witnesses a much-awaited turn when he comes across the dead hand of a murdered child. During the course of the so-called thriller, Theroux makes frequent digs at British pageantry, Indian cities, with one whole chapter on Mother Teresa, reciting one denunciation after the other. Neither is he convincing in the protagonist’s submission to Ma, nor in his self-indulgence (he dedicates another whole chapter to Delfont in conversation with Paul Theroux). What seems to be a modern lesson in anthropology at one point deteriorates into a substandard thriller and a decadent account of a city steeped in the past. A seeker on the path of integral yoga initiated and defined by Sri Aurobindo in the early 1900s, Dr Alok Pandey examines complex questions on death in DEATH, DYING AND BEYOND–THE SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY OF DEATH (Wisdom Tree & Sri Aurobindo Society; Rs 345; 355 pages). Death is both the most predictable and unpredictable thing in life, yet man goes through life as if immortal. To understand this paradoxical relationship — the visible manifestation of death and the innate sense of immortality — the author follows the deeper vision of Sri Aurobindo. Substantiated by anecdotes and brush-with-death experiences, he searches for answers to some of the most perplexing ethical and existential issues regarding life and death, karma and rebirth, suffering and pain. Liberally quoting The Mother as well as from various works of Sri Aurobindo, including Savitri, The Life Divine and Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, he writes, “As of now, Death is a temporary release from earthly joys and suffering; the joy that ends too soon into its opposite, the suffering that necessarily follows when the immortal soul assumes the mask of imperfection, ignorance and limitation....” An intensely thought-provoking read. Featured in Harmony Magazine January 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004