The Dismantling of India by TJS George

The Dismantling of India: In 35 Portraits by T.J.S. George
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One may disagree with the author, but TJS George does offer some probing questions to the present ruling dispensation, although, conversely, he appears to have a single point agendum – criticise Modi. Whether he is talking about JRD Tata, Rahul Gandhi etc, the arguments veer back to Modi – Modi is an autocrat, tyrant, megalomanic, intolerant, etc etc.
However, there are some really thought provoking articles.
At times the title seems to be at odds with the contents – how have JRD Tata, AB Vajpayee, APK Abdul Kalam P Lal contributed to the ‘dismantling’ of India? Why include Ustad Vilayat Khan and why has he subsumed Pandit Ravi Shankar. The antics of the anti-Hindu MF Hussain are justified in the name of art. The dismantler-in-chief Lalu Yadav (the shameless guzzler of cattle-fodder of millions of ruminants) is conspicuous by his absence, as is Mamta Banerjee.
If Amitabh Bachchan is included why are Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, JP, Sachin Tendulkar excluded?
To redeem the narrative and justify the title of the book, the real dismantlers of India the cadre of the secessionist ‘tukde-tukde gang’ are included – Rana Ayyub, Umar Khalid, Varavara Rao. Also, other dismantlers like Veerappan, Harshad Mehta, Dawood Ibrahim, Raja Bhaiya are rightly included.
I loved this quote from JRD Tata

‘While I usually come back from meeting Gandhiji elated and inspired but always a bit sceptical, and from talks with Jawarharlal, fired with emotional zeal but often confused and unconvinced, meetings with Vallabhbai were a joy from which I returned with renewed confidence in the future of our country. I have often thought that if fate had decreed that he, instead of Jawaharlal, would be younger of the two, India would have followed a very different path and would be in better economic shape than it is today.’

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Land Guns Caste Women by Gita Ramaswamy

Land, Guns, Caste, Woman: The Memoir of a Lapsed Revolutionary by Gita Ramaswamy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An engaging book – a peep into the world of Indian communists and their indigenous avataars – Naxalites (and their urban versions) and the militant PWG, from a woman’s perspective – a ‘high caste’ one at that.

When I was in the party, communism seemed to have the answer to society’s political problems and feminism had the answers to social and personal issues.

I laud her efforts at Dalit and rural upliftment, at the cost of her health and safety. However, I do not support her methods. Her communist credentials and hypocrisy stand exposed. She claims to work within the framework of the democratic setup of India, yet

For those with other entitlements, especially the urban rich, casting their vote may mean nothing. (I for one have never voted despite trying to do all my work within the frame of law and democracy.) But to the village poor, it is a sign of one’s worth. ‘Am I a corpse that I cannot vote,’ was the unfailingly constant answer when I asked people why they voted when all it brought them was a few rupees and a bottle of liquor.

How does she expect to be “within the frame of law and democracy” without exercising her franchise? This is her approach to achieve her ends

Coming as I did from the ML movement, I saw agitational and ‘developmental’ (or constructive) activities as two separate entities. The terminology is certainly disturbing – as if there is a dichotomy between agitational and constructive work, as if agitation is destructive. As I perceived it, agitational activity was taken up by those who wanted to bring about a total change, and constructive activities by those who wished to reform and tinker with bits and pieces of the system, but did not see the immediate and vital need for a systemic overhaul.

Destruction of public property going on strikes, blocking roads, ‘gheraoing’ public servants and disturbing peace and other forms of agitation, etc is not destructive? It certainly is not constructive, in my opinion! All this despite communism being discredited all around the world.
She calls the reformist Arya Samaj “known to be a Hindu communal organization.” How much Hindu bashing goes on in India in the name of freedom of expression! That she renounced the communist and Naxalite philosophy and adopted her own brand of “agitational development,” thus winning her plaudits, redeems her.

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The Medusa Frequency by RUssel Hoban

The Medusa Frequency by Russell Hoban
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Clearly the inspiration for China Miéville’s cephalopodic leviathan, the goulash being garnished with the Greek myth of Orpheus and Euridyce.

After his death, the Muses collected the fragments of Orpheus’s body, and buried them at Leibethra at the foot of Olympus, where the nightingale sang sweetly over his grave. The subsequent transference of his bones to Dium is evidently a local legend. His head was thrown upon the Hebrus, down which it rolled to the sea, and was borne across to Lesbos, where the grave in which it was interred was shown at Antissa.

Added to this hallucinogenic novel are names like - Nnvsnu the Tsrungh, the great Snyukh, the Blug of Nexo Vollma, Nabilca (the thing of darkness).

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The Competent Authority by Shovon Chowdhury

The Competent Authority by Shovon Chowdhury
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A hilarious and whimsically satirical book on present day India. Set in a moribund future dystopian India, nuked by the Chinese, it pokes fun at all the holy cows – bureaucrats, religious gurus, the police, politicians, doctors, historical figures, the army, caste arrogance and parochialism etc. The convoluted plot takes recourse to the handy tool of time-travel and is too long, hence the four stars. There are some genuinely comical bits

The bananas were bright purple, and perfectly straight. Robbed of their curvature, glistening purply, they looked like tanned and fit brinjals. Each had a little sticker on it. Banani picked one up and examined the fine print. ‘Hanuman Brand Super Banana,’ it read.
If he actually met one too many people who were affected by his decisions, it would affect his decisions.

Fish has to be mentioned if the author is a Bengali

Rich, pungent and briny – with a hint of decay. This was not the mild, innocent fish that was tandooried every evening by his neighbourhood kebab vendor. This was formidable fish, fish that boldly declared its presence, fish that once consumed, would stamp itself on you at a cellular level and define your character in strange, unpredictable ways. This was fish whose odour could transform, cleanse and purify you.

Slums and another Bengali meme - poets

…odd gentleman of leisure with no particular goal in life. Most of them were poets. They were painfully thin, with concave chests, thin, scrawny necks, and disproportionally large heads. It was like living in the middle of a lollipop convention. Ennui was rampant. Eyesight was poor. Tuberculosis was widespread.

The Shakahari Sena (SS) – a playful but morbid reference to the Nazi SS or the indigenous Shiv Sena)

The organization was able to do all this because it was a religio-poliitcal organization, and hence the normal principles of law and order did not apply.

At the risk of nit-picking, there are two inaccuracies that I would like to point out: It is potassium iodide (for the iodine moiety) that is administered as a prophylactic for thyroid cancer in case of a nuclear fallout and not potassium; it is imperforate anus and not unperforated anus.
Entertaining and hysterical, just wish it was shorter.

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Replubic of Hindutva by Badri Narayan

Republic of Hindutva: How the Sangh Is Reshaping Indian Democracy by Badri Narayan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Badri Narayan generally writes well-researched and insightful articles. This book, disappointingly, though promising a lot, delivers nothing.
The author bases his knowledge of the ‘machinations’ of the RSS on his tenuous connection to the organization in his childhood. His ‘field-work’ reveals nothing new. The modern tech-savvy, brown-pant clad avatar of the RSS is known to all, through posts on the ‘little blue bird.’ Most of the book is about the BJP and the Modi/Shah election winning duo – this is common knowledge.
The inner workings of the RSS still remain wrapped in an enigma despite this over-priced book.
Unrelated to the substance of the book, the epilogue offers a glimpse of the breaking down of cast-barriers during the COVID-19 pandemic - hence one more star added to the rating.

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Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An incredulous and interminable LSD fuelled Tolkienesque sanguineous quest of the olfactory-blessed, seemingly invincible protagonist. He battles monsters like the Zogbanu (trolls), blood-thirsty ogres, zombies, cannibals, witches and antiwitches, the Ipundulu, the Aesi, the Adze, Bad Ibeyi, the ravenous arboreal brothers Bonsam and Sasabonsam, a mind-reading teratoma, the rapacious roof-dwelling Omoluzu, and other voracious nightmarish entities.
The mystical and macabre landscape is ‘peopled’ with alchemists and necromancers as if China Miéville has shifted base from the cold and clammy London to the torrid African savannah.
There are dimension-twisting portals suited for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass on a bad drug-trip.
Te protagonist's allies are an Ogo, an albino swordsman, a shapeshifting leopard with its protector/sex-partner Fumeli. His one weakness is the mingi – a bunch of deformed, yet psychically gifted children protected by yumboes.
Other characters include the shape-shifting mermaid Bunshi/Popele, the mercenary Nsaka Ne Vampi, the lightening-powered Nooya, Ghommids, the riverine Chipfalambula, the vicious cousins Ewele/Egbere, Anjonu, the gremlin Tokoloshe,Eloko and on and on ad nauseum.
The absence of a glossary leaves the meaning of these obscure terms an enigma

tokoloshe, nkisi nkond, obayifo, phuungu, kaphoonda, moondu, matuumba, tarabu; musical instruments called kora, djembe; sukusuku, masubu, abuka

Then there is the Umomowomowomowo River.
Awarding it three stars for its inordinate length and never-ending fighting and a surplus of blood and gore. Not looking forward to the sequels.

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Meditiations by Marcus Aurelius

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A book shorn of religious overtones but imparting simple wisdom for living a happy and fruitful life

Body, soul, mind. To the body belong sense perceptions, to the soul impulses, to the mind judgements.
So one should pass through this tiny fragment of time in tune with nature, and leave it gladly, as an olive might fall when ripe, blessing the earth which bore it and grateful to the tree which gave it growth.
Take the baking of bread. The loaf splits here and there, and those very cracks, in one way a failure of the baker’s profession, somehow catch the eye and give particular stimulus to our appetite. Figs likewise burst open at full maturity: and in olives ripened on the tree the very proximity of decay lends a special beauty to the fruit. Similarly, the ears of corn nodding down to the ground, the lion’s puckered brow, the foam gushing from the bear’s mouth, and much besides – looked at in isolation these things are far from lovely, but their consequence on the processes of Nature enhances them and gives them attraction.
Love the art which you have learnt, and take comfort in it. Go through the remainder of your life in the sincere commitment of all your beings to the gods, and ever making yourself tyrant or salve to any man.
Gladly surrender yourself to Clotho: let her spin your thread into whatever web she wills.
All is ephemeral, both memory and the object of the memory.
You are a soul carrying a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

Just what the Bhagvadgita says

If you are doing you proper duty let it not matter to you whether you are cold or warm. Whether you are sleepy or well-slept, whether men speak badly or well of you, even whether you are on the point of death or doing something else: because even this, the act in which we die, is one of the acts of life, and so here too it suffices to ‘make the best move you can’.
Revere the ultimate power in the universe: this is what makes use of all things and directs all things. But similarly revere the ultimate power in yourself: this is akin to that other power. In you too this is what makes use of all else, and your life is governed by it.
Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence….When you have done good and another has benefited, why do you still look, as fools , for a third thing besides – credit for good works, or a return?

A book to be kept by the bedside and dipped into everyday on getting up in the morning, or when one is inordinately euphoric or down in the dumps.

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Valli by Sheela Tomy

Valli: A Novel [SHORTLISTED FOR THE JCB PRIZE 2022] by Sheela Tomy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book suffers from poor translation – the amount of suffixes pertaining to relatives – achchis, attans – is a big irritant for non-Malayalam readers. The temporal jumps in the narrative add to the disorientation.
This is an account of the exploitation of the aadivasi (aboriginal) tribes living harmoniously with their surroundings since antiquity in the hills of Kerala. Their forests were cut down by greedy rapacious timber merchants – thus ruining a finely balanced ecological niche, leading to either catastrophic flooding or droughts. Large scale building of tourist resorts, blasting of mountains for roads and bridges, introducing alien cash crops like coffee and rubber further contributed to the degradation in the lives of the tribals. Their culture, folk-lore, language, traditional food crops were destroyed. Migrants from other parts of the country added insult to injury. Communists exploited the natives for their political gains.
All this is mentioned in the book, but what is glaring in its omission is mention of the reprehensible role of Christian missionaries in destroying the benevolent and affable animistic/natural religious beliefs of the natives and imposing an alien creed, out of sync with the hills, rives, trees, animals, plants etc.

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