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Welcome to this edition of The Hindu on Books Newsletter. The noted historian Charles Allen, who has written several books on India and also profiled the Coromandel coast, passed away in 2020 while he was working on, as it turns out, his last book. David Loyn edited the manuscript and wrote the introduction to Aryans (Hachette), in which he notes Allen’s “sorrow at the way professional historical research has been hijacked in modern India by some in the politico-religious Hindutva movement.” The story of the Aryans, the people of the steppe who began to drift, first west into Europe, then south to India and Iran, becomes in Allen’s hands a cautionary tale which warns against the use of history for divisive political ends.
In other reviews, we read Chandan Gowda’s book on a diverse India, another on energy and environment in India, the latest instalment of J.K. Rowling’s Robert Galbraith series and more. We also talk to Wimpy Kid creator Jeff Kinney.
Books of the week
Chandan Gowda’s Another India: Events, Memories, People (Simon & Schuster) has been in the making over the years, and as he writes in the Preface, took many forms – interpretative essays, narrations of little remembered historical episodes, retelling of myths and folk tales, sketches of personalities and so forth. They sought to “celebrate the living moral and aesthetic imaginations occluded in modern society.” There’s a diverse fare on offer, naturally, and we read about the actor Rajkumar, millets, folk tales, Kuvempu, Gandhi, Ambedkar, and cultural historians. “A rich range of aesthetic, spiritual and narrative streams flow together to form our cultural ethos, our democratic sensibilities,” he writes. In her review, Neera Chandhoke says remembering the past through culture and metaphors is essential because we must know where we come from.
Just like the Harry Potter series which got sequentially longer, J.K. Rowling (or Robert Galbraith as she calls herself in the Strike novels) is keeping her series featuring detective Cormoran Strike lengthy. The latest, The Running Grave(Hachette), is around 950 pages, almost as long as the previous one The Ink Black Heart. In his review, Mukund Padmanabhan writes that it is hard to compare books in the series but The Running Grave earns the right to be regarded as one of the best Strikes yet. “One reason for this is that the plot is compellingly credible....It never flags, the side-plots, the false leads, the minor characters, the complex twists and the tangled turns contributing to a big meaty novel that is hard to put down.” For much of the book, Strike and his business partner Robin Ellacott are investigating the case, about the strange and murderous ways of a modern religious cult called the Universal Humanitarian Church, the former from his London office and the latter, who successfully infiltrates the UHC’s centre in a farm in Norfolk, working from the inside.
India is over-reliant on coal and yet wants to attain net zero emission by 2070. Will that be possible? Johannes Urpelainen goes into the potential and pitfalls of India’s environmental policies in Energy and Environment in India (Columbia University Press).In his review, Sudhirendar Sharma points out that the book convincingly argues that to produce fair, equitable, and sustainable outcomes for almost two billion Indians, the country must strive for a sustainable future through democratic norms.
Spotlight
Wimpy Kid creator Jeff Kinney is a passionate advocate of reading and children’s literature. He runs a bookstore in his hometown in Massachusetts and regularly donates to local and public libraries across the U.S. In India, to promote No Brainer, the latest book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, he spoke to Swati Daftuar on why books remain important in the digital age. “I think we have seen literacy rates drop around the world. Children are becoming more attuned to their screens and have moved away from books.” But he says if a child gets really interested in an anime series on the screen, for instance, that might send them back to the books where the source material is from. “So I think it all starts with good storytelling.”
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- We, the People, and Our Constitution (Speaking Tiger) by Neera Chandhoke is the first book in the Ideas of the Indian Constitution series of 10 short books, written by well-known scholars in India and the West. In her essay, Chandhoke, who taught Political Science at Delhi University, argues why the Constitution is as much a political and moral document as it is a legal one, and as Indian as the republic it created.
- Michelle Mendonça Bambawale moved to Goa after COVID-19, and settled down in a 160-year-old home she inherited in Siolim, a village in north Goa. Having never lived in the State before, she couldn’t help but wonder if her Goan ancestry made her an insider or if she would remain an outsider. In her memoir, Becoming Goan (Penguin), she confronts her complex relationship with her Goan Catholic heritage and explores themes of identity, culture, migration, stereotypes and labels.
- In That Mill, I Too Was Forged: Poems (Speaking Tiger) by Narayan Surve, and translated by Jerry Pinto, is a collection of poetry about workers’ lives in Bombay. Surve who is one of the greats of Marathi poetry is often referred to as the “people’s poet”.
- The Viceroy’s Artist (Hachette) by Anindyo Roy is a fictionalised retelling of the Indian travels of the famous nonsense poet Edward Lear. Drawing inspiration from Lear’s journals, Roy combines the dual journey – of travel through the subcontinent and the depths of Lear’s psyche. Each chapter in the book features illustrations by Saurav Roy that capture the journey’s essence and pay tribute to the beloved artist.
