The Secrets Between Us by Thrity Umrigar

The Secrets Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A gem of a book – a poignant and heart-rending story of two strong-willed and proud women, buffeted by the inequities thrown at them by society and the adversities they face consequently. Despite their grinding poverty, cast aside by family and friends, homeless, friendless, physically weak and tormented by diseases, they are still spiritually undefeated and seek comfort in small delights and in the friendship with one another.
There are some very telling descriptions in the book. Here is a glimpse of life in the slums

everyday sounds of misery that circle the basti like satellites: crazed-with-worry mothers loudly berating their idle, unemployed sons; the screams of women protecting their last rupee from their violent, hashish-addicted husbands; the high-pitched squealing of dogs being kicked and maimed by bored children; the vile, steady stream of curses muttered by mothers-in-law towards women their sons have married; the loud demands of slumlords threatening eviction and moneylenders threatening injury.

On poverty

everyone in this city is chasing his or her fortune and to get at it, they will stand on and crush the heads of their own mothers. There is only one unforgivable sin in this city, and that is the sin of poverty. Everything else is taken in stride – corruption at the highest and lowest levels, disloyalty, betrayal.
There is only one true evil. And that is being poor. With money, a sinner can be worshipped as a saint. A murderer can be elected chief minister. A rapist can become a respectable family man. And the owner of a brothel can be a Principal.

The apt title of the book

It isn’t the words we speak that make us who we are. Or even the deeds we do. It is the secrets buried in our hearts…People think that the ocean is made up of waves and things that float on the top. But they forget – the ocean is also what lies at the bottom, all the broken things stuck in the sand. That, too, is the ocean.

On seeing the minuscule amount of ashes left after a cremation, the protagonist observes

It is hard enough to accept that this is what the physical body amounts to. But what about a person’s anger? What about her voice? Her laughter? Her arrogance? Her irreverence? Her humour, her ego, her honour, her character? Do these fingerprints of an individual life simply evaporate and disappear with the last exhale?...

City dwellers on seeing the open countryside for the first time

It is the green that confuses them, shocks them, that makes bubbles of delighted laughter spurt involuntarily from their mouths. It is its lushness, its promiscuity, like a woman sitting with her lags splayed, that makes their city blink in astonishment, as they contrast the browns and blacks of their lives with this lavish fertile green.

A wonderful book!

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Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India by Akshaya Mukul

Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India by Akshaya Mukul
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After wading through Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover: The Many Lives of Agyeya by the author, I was looking forward to this book and can happily aver that I was not disappointed. It is an extensively researched scholarly work that is unbiased and non-judgemental, by and large. It is essentially centred around the towering and influential personality of one of the co-founders and editor – Hanuman Prasad Poddar (after whom a cancer hospital is named in Gorakhpur). It is an indispensable and monumental reference work (83 pages out of 539 comprise the Bibliography and Notes) for scholars on Hinduism (specifically sanatana dharma), adherents of Hindutva, and the present governing political dispensation in India – although the obscurantist philosophy of Gita Press may not appeal to people against casteism and patriarchy. The author has clarified

…the idea behind the book is not to sing paens of Gita Press but to place it within the larger canvas of Hindu nationalism in colonial and post-colonial India.

It would be interesting to determine any correlation between the slow rise over the eight decades of Gita Press and Kalyan (200,000 subscribers and 100,00 subscribers for the English edition – Kalyan Kalptaru) and the dissemination of its Hindutva teachings with the assertiveness and strident nationalism of Hindus and the consequent rise of the saffron power of the BJP from political wilderness to the ruling corridors of power.
While talking about the content of the Kalyan and other publications of Gita Press there are some outrageous examples. There is a bizarre comparison of communism with the egalitarianism preached in Bhagvadgita.

Gita Press realized the need to provide an alternative to the new ideology, something that would not threaten the tenets of sanatan Hindu dharma yet celebrate the concept of equality. The alternative was discovered in the Bhagvadgita – an Indian version of communism, divinely ordained.

An almost Talibanesque attitude towards women prevailed

In all Gita Press publications on women, the language used is reformative in tone and prescriptive in nature. Poddar and others made it clear that a woman’s non-adherence to the set rules could affect the broader Hindu society. The onus was on the woman to be the flag bearer of morality, purity and chastity. Only then could an ideal family – and by extension an ideal nation – be formed.

And

In 1936 Poddar regretted the new wave of modernity that aimed to put men and women on an equal educational footing, so much so that even were becoming ‘teachers, clerks, lawyers, barristers, writers, politicians, and members of municipalities and councils. Such ideas of progress, Poddar said, were turning women anti-God and anti-religion.

Moreover,

It is a different matter that the burden of these rituals with shastric sanction fell more on women who usually had very little or no say in matters concerning their space. The ideal world of a Hindu nari followed the narrow path of daughter, wife and mother. It was a task Gita Press took extremely seriously, as expressed not only through the pages of Kalyan but also in scores of pamphlets on women.

Goyandka, the other co-founder of Gita Press, was even more regressive

To educate and build the character, strength and mental purity of girls and women, Goyandka laid stress on hard physical labour. Even harsh words and rebukes by elders were to be considered by a woman as a form of education.

Something out of Calvin and Hobbes!
The author observes

Drawing from Hitler’s Germany was not an innocuous act, but Gita Press’s affirmation of its regard for the fascist ruler. In fact, when it comes to the ‘women’s question’, there is a great deal of similarity between Nazi Germany, Gita Press and other Hindu nationalist organizations like the RSS, Hindu Mahasabha and others; in particular, the ‘hysterical protective anxiety about numbers’ vis-à-vis the Muslims shown by Gita Press and the entire Hindu right owes a lot to Hitler.

Besides his hectic schedule at Gita Press, Poddar had the time, energy, determination for other related activities – he was the probable initiator of the Ram Janambhoomi and Krishna Janambhoomi revival; he led a spirited and tireless campaign against cow slaughter (the fruition of those efforts is evident now). His messianic campaign to protect cows was one of the factors leading to the going of separate ways from Gandhi. He was one of the founder members of the radical VHP.
The author concludes ominously

Its numerous moral tracts continue to attract readers in schools and homes, and its journals and books carry its ideology across India and overseas, propagating the dream of a time when Hindu and India will become synonymous

A great book! An unusual look at Indian history through the fortunes of an Indian Publishing House.

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गबन by Premchand

गबन by Munshi Premchand
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A gem of a story – how a woman’s vanity and greed for jewellery leads to her husband’s ruin. It shows how a wimpy man’s milquetoast life is impacted by three strong women in his life – Jalpa, Ratan and Zohra. The narrative never slackens. Despite the title of the book being गबन – embezzlement – the epic also looks at police venality and corruption, bureaucratic red-tape, caste and untouchability in pre-Independent India.
I found Premchand’s use of Persian, Arabic and Turkish words rather tiresome e.g. बिसाती मकदूर मुलम्मे माजून मीज़ान नालिश ग़ाफिल मुदा महसूल तहसील हलफ ज़हीन इजलास अहलमद शोहदा दोज़ख मुचलका महरूम दरोग़-बयानी, but I suppose, that was the lingua franca at that time, before Hindi/Devnagri become the national language.
Some aphorisms that are used, I could not comprehend

मियां की जूती मियां की चांद, तबेले की बला बदंर के सिर गई।
दमड़ी की हंडिया खोकर कुत्तों की जात तो पहचान ली जायगी

I found this term hilarious and apt: चपर-गट्टू
Some of his lyrical descriptions

शिवलिंग के ऊपर रखे हुए घट में क्या वह प्रवाह है, तरंग है, नाद है, जो सरिता में है?
भादों का महीना था। पृथ्वी और जल में रण छिडाहुआ था। जल की सेनाएं वायुयान पर चढ़कर आकाश से जल-शरों की वर्षा कर रही थीं। उसकी थल-सेनाओं ने पृथ्वी पर उत्पात मचा रक्खा था।
मानो प्रभात की सुनहरी ज्योति उसके रोम-रोम में व्याप्त हो रही है।
रमा की दशा इस समय उस शिकारी की-सी थी, जो हिरनी को अपने शावकों के साथ किलोल करते देखकर तनी हुई बंदूक कंधो पर रख लेता है,और वह वात्सल्य और प्रेम की क्रीडा देखने में तल्लीन हो जाता है।
भादों का महीना था। पृथ्वी और जल में रण छिडा हुआ था। जल की सेनाएं वायुयान पर चढ़कर आकाश से जल-शरों की वर्षा कर रही थीं।

What was irritating in the Kindle version were the innumerable typographic errors – To the extent I was not sure whether they were errors or some Persian word; even the context they were found in did not elucidate the meaning.

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The Greatest Odia Stories Ever Told translated by Leelawati Mohapatra, Paul St-Pierre, K.K. Mohapatra

THE GREATEST ODIA STORIES EVER TOLD by Leelawati Mohapatra
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The collection is lovingly translated by three authors. They set the tone with a chatty introduction and then carry on with accurately rendered translations of each story. Stories that are funny, sad, mystical, poignant, inspiring – in short, stories displaying the full gamut of the human condition. Mostly located in the rural setting, some encompass the urban milieu also.
The book is part of a big anthology of regional Indian languages, each book is a gem and worthy of inclusion in every Indian’s bookshelf.

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Full Spectrum: India's Wars, 1972-2020

Full Spectrum: India's Wars, 1972-2020 by Arjun Subramaniam
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Intensely researched scholarly work, brilliantly executed – an apt sequel to India's Wars: A Military History 1947-1971.
There is no jingoism, it is factual, unbiased and balanced, giving the enemy their due when called for. There are gripping descriptions of action on the battlefield and adequate representations to the three arms of the Armed Forces. This is comprehensive coverage of the Naga and Mizo insurgency, UN assignments, Siachen, Kargil, IPKF in Sri Lanka, Operation Bluestar, J&K and LOC, China and LAC, but without too much detail – that is left for the end in the form of a list of recommended reading for a more complete picture.
The armed forces have performed creditably with the limited resources at their disposal; it is the venal, vacillating, pusillanimous politicians down the years that have let them down – time and time again.
A must read for every Indian.

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