Books in or for Southasia
The Match
by Romesh Gunesekera
The New Press, 2008 This is the story of Sunny, raised in the Manila of the 1970s to a life in London and a longing for a little-known Sri Lanka. Gunesekera's luminous prose evokes a unique world through the complex relationships that we create in our lives. Desire for mundane betterness is complicated by the bitterness of everyday life. A cricket match leads us off, and a camera eventually brings it all together: Sunny moves from one side of the lens to the other, trying to make a spectacle out of something as ordinary as the life of one person. (Vijay Prashad)
A Blue Hand:
The beats in India
by Deborah Baker
Penguin, 2008 Allen Ginsberg spent over a year in India during the early 1960s. He came in search of a guru, of a pathway to a god that he had glimpsed while reciting William Blake in his New York apartment. What he found was neither guru nor god, but rather the "best oriental wisdom I heard yet," which is that it "was not Krishna he sought, but the love he inspired." This is a little-known story, well told here by Deborah Baker. There's a little Karma Cola here, but also a lot about the real contradictions that weren't in Gita Mehta's classic book. Ginsberg is not aloof from the poverty of India or the poets of Calcutta, both of whom he embraced with a kind of tenderness that is not often associated with him. At the same time, it should be said that if Baker had given us more on the Krittibas poets of Calcutta, we'd have a fuller, richer book. (Vijay Prashad)
Neglected Lives Renuka
by Stephen Alter
Penguin, 2008 (reprint) Dark secrets and intrigues are uncovered in the pretty hill-stations of Neglected Lives, where the remaining Anglo-Indian community lives off of the past glory of the British Raj. Likewise, in Renuka, an expatriate American cookbook editor discovers her sexuality, even as she struggles to come to terms with the exotic surroundings of another fictitious hill-station. The stereotyped Indian characters – passionate, wild and poetic – lurk in dark corners of a thinly disguised Landour (near Mussoorie), Alter's childhood home. But the few patches of elegant prose here are not worth plodding through the shenanigans of these improbable people, all the while hoping that the non-Indian main leads will quickly make sense of India and end the tedious suspense. Re-printed three decades after they were first published in the UK, one wishes that Penguin had instead allowed these works of fiction to fade into obscurity. (Laxmi Murthy)
The Age of Shiva
by Manil Suri
Bloomsbury, 2008 his mammoth-sized volume recounts the experiences of Meera, a naive young woman living in post-Partition India. Sibling rivalry eventually leads Meera to steal and marry her beautiful sister Roopa's handsome boyfriend, Dev. But like many women of that period, Meera's life is also shaped by the whims of the men in her life – Dev, a drunk who fails to become a singing star; her father, a poster-boy of Nehruvian secularism, whose views on women's liberation ironically deprive Meera of her agency; and her gung-ho Hindutvavadi brother-in-law Arya, who is in love with her. The book opens with some seemingly uncomfortable incestuous moments, but the subsequent refugee experiences, wars in post-Independence India, ever-increasing strength of Hindu fundamentalism, and Meera's struggle to cope, make this an arresting read. (Neha Inamdar)
Bollywood Melodies:
A history of the Hindi film song
by Ganesh Anantharaman
Penguin, 2008 Ganesh Anantharaman is obviously a lover of Hindi film songs, and his passion comes through clearly in Bollywood Melodies. In three sections peppered with anecdotes, musings and opinions, he outlines the trajectories and legacies of stalwarts such as S D Burman, Sahir Ludhianvi and, of course, Lata Mangeshkar. Especially interesting are the interviews at the end of each section with various Bollywood legends. The book is impeccably researched, and the 37-page index of songs mentioned in the text, along with the name of the film, composer, lyricist and singer, and year of release is a useful resource for the film-song novice and expert alike. The tune that started it all, evidently, was "De de khuda ke naam pe pyaare", from the first Indian sound movie, Alam Ara, in 1931. (Surabhi Pudasaini)
Democracy, Development and
Discontent in South Asia
edited by Veena Kukreja & Mahendra Prasad Singh
Sage Publications, 2008 The principle of publish-or-perish forces university teachers to rush to the press with rough drafts of their academic papers. This collection is no exception. However, the editors do deserve credit for having written a succinct preface and an elaborate introductory chapter. The Southasian elite has always revelled in the democracy-versus-development debate, but this volume elevates the discussion by adding the element of seething discontent sweeping the region. The bias of Indian editors towards the success of parliamentary democracy and language-based provinces are perhaps justified, but other Southasian readers could do without the celebratory tone. Pakistan has its militants, mullahs and military. Nepal's monarch and Maoists are yet to make peace with democracy. NGO-entrepreneurs have played havoc with the politics of Bangladesh. Sri Lanka has yet to devise a federal system that does justice to Tamil aspirations. Ethnic cleansing of Lhotshampa in Bhutan has failed to gain the attention it deserves. The marketisation of the media, and by extension democratic debate, in India is alarming. Unfortunately, you don't get to read much about many of these issues in this volume. (C K Lal)