(This article forms a part of The Hindu on Books newsletter which brings you book reviews, reading recommendations, interviews with authors and more. Subscribe here.)
Welcome to this edition of The Hindu on Books Newsletter. The curtains came down on the Jaipur Literature Festival (February 1-5) on Monday with a debate on ‘Free Speech will Survive Surveillance Technology and Privacy Invasions’. As three speakers on each side (writer and academic Amia Srinivasan, chairperson and founder of Teamwork Arts Mohit Satyanand, senior advocate and writer Pinky Anand speaking for the motion and former diplomat, politician and writer Pavan K. Varma, Oxford academic and writer Marcus du Sautoy and journalist and writer Varghese K. George speaking against) argued their case, moderated by journalist and writer Vir Sanghvi, the packed audience voted at the end that free speech is indeed under threat from the digital onslaught which is being used to “intimidate people into being quiet, creating an environment of fear which destroys freedom of speech.” But the people who flocked the session also left with Amia Srinivisan’s words in their minds, that it’s up to citizens to “decide whether we will allow these technologies to further erode our civil liberties.” Over five days, writers, artists, journalists provided insights into their work on history, geography, economy, environment, gender, travel, art, poetry, life, religion, politics, food, creativity and also the challenges to publishing in particular and reading in general. To see young readers attend a session, of say Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch or International Booker Prize winner Georgi Gospodinov or veteran writers Mridula Garg or Vivek Shanbag and head straight to the book store and queue up to get their fresh copies signed – even in the rain; “yes, climate change is for real,” a visitor quipped -- was a treat to watch. A writer who has been to many festivals and has written both biographies and fiction said he was overwhelmed that so many people had attended his session and bought a copy of his book – “it costs a bit, and I am so grateful it has found new readers.”
To give just an example, on a day, you could listen to Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry, one of the most successful fiction titles of the past year), Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch, economist and former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, historian Yascha Mounk, writers Kai Bird (biographer who co-authored Oppenheimer, adapted to screen by Christopher Nolan) and B. Jeyamohan (Stories of the True), Colin Thubron, the great travel writer who went to the Amur River, which divides Russia and China, when he was 79 years old and wrote about it, poet and critic Ranjit Hoskote.
There are other aspects to the Jaipur Literature Festival which festivals around the country and the subcontinent are picking up too. Local colours and flavour for example, and music, dance and art. At the entrance to Hotel Clarks Amer, where the festival takes place, artist Abhishek Singh held a little girl’s hands as she drew on his canvas on the wall; people were drawn to a wishing tree, which was soon full of colourful tags and heartfelt wishes; local artisans displayed their craft, and the bookshop was never empty. As writers connected to new readers and vice-versa, it became clear that literature is a festival at Jaipur. The 2025 edition will be held between January 30 and February 3.
In books this week, we learn more about Mukund Padmanabhan’s debut non-fiction work, The Great Flap of 1942, Vauhini Vara’s new collection of short stories, and talk to Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi about her new novel.
Books of the week
Mukund Padmanabhan’s The Great Flap of 1942 (Vintage) tells of a series of events triggered by a non-event. During World War II, as the British panicked over the possibility of a Japanese invasion of India, lives were disrupted, cities abandoned, and chaos followed. In an email interview with historian Manu S. Pillai, Padmanabhan talks about this hitherto unmapped incident in Indian, and military, history. Unlike Partition, he says, “this exodus has been largely unmapped. Also, the book reveals that the Raj coldly encouraged people it deemed ‘non-essential’ or ‘useless mouths’ to flee because it felt that cities with a reduced population would be easier to manage in the circumstances. They treated the exodus like a managerial problem – one of getting ‘inessentials’ to leave while retaining those engaged in vital services, including the production of war material.” In Madras, for example, conservatively, 75 per cent of the population left, but there are reasons to believe the number could have been almost 90 per cent, he points out. “But it wasn’t just Madras or Visakhapatnam (which was bombed and emptied out). People fled Calcutta and Bombay, and there was fear and migration even from unlikely interior places such as Delhi, Ahmedabad, Jamshedpur and Kodaikanal.” Padmanabhan also analyses how World War II shaped Britain’s attitudes to India as well as the impact it had on the nationalist movement. “After all, the major political events of 1942 – the Cripps Mission and the developments that led to the call to Quit India – took place against the shadow of the Japanese threat,” he adds.
Journalist and writer Vauhini Vara has followed up her debut novel, The Immortal King Rao with a collection of short stories, This Is Salvaged(HarperCollins). In her review, Sheila Kumar says the central idea that runs through the stories seems to be that life is ephemeral and only the meaningful relationships you make matter. “If one is unable to do that, then there is the risk of being cast adrift. There is a faint air of melancholy and sadness that hangs over the pieces and the cleverly infused quiet humour in some accounts lends a touch of the bittersweet. There is loneliness and loss, and different ways of coping with it. Death, alcoholism and failed dreams appear; efforts are made by the characters to stay afloat in the face of this, to salvage situations as best as possible. But as the reader is not privy to how the future will pan out for these people, there wafts an air of poignancy over their narratives.”
Spotlight
Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi’s novel, The Centre (Pan Macmillan), raises questions around the immigrant experience, appropriation, identity and language privilege. The idea for the novel began with the plot, the London-based writer, editor and playwright tells Preeti Zachariah. “A woman discovers a mysterious language school that promises complete fluency in any language in just 10 days, only to later discover the inner workings of such a transaction.” The author pins the novel’s central concern to do with desire, “be it for professional success or relational intimacy.” Asked about her nuanced approach to race and South Asian identity, she says, “In the novel, the protagonist, Anisa, and the Centre’s manager, Shiba, are from privileged class backgrounds, which affects every aspect of how they negotiate the world around them. It felt important to me to interrogate their privilege as best as I could....It felt interesting to shine a light on the protagonist’s prejudices, entitlements, and general messiness. That’s the other thing: it’s not just white characters that can be depicted as messy and contradictory, as complex, even unlikeable. We know desi girls can be messy, too. My god, so messy. Why not show that in our books?”
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- Fraternity: Constitutional Norm and Human Need (Speaking Tiger) by Rajmohan Gandhi is another title in the ‘Ideas of the Indian Constitution’ series. This volume focuses on the idea of fraternity, moving from ancient India to modern Europe to an intimate portrait of the face-off between Gandhi and Ambedkar which led to the Poona Pact of 1932.
- Harbans Singh’s final volume of a trilogy on the contemporary history of Jammu & Kashmir, A Modern History of Jammu and Kashmir, Volume Three: The Times of Turbulence (1975-2021), published by Speaking Tiger, brings readers up to date with the current status of the region after the abrogation of Article 370.
- In Rohit Trilokekar’s Wadia (1889 Books), a drifting Rustom Wadia, who has lost his pets Fluffy and Polly, joins forces with two friends to embark on a journey to the holy Parsi city of Udvada and makes a shocking discovery.
- Kanhoji Angre is one of history’s most feared naval commanders, part of the Maratha army at a time when the Mughals were attacking them on land and the Portuguese at sea. Sohail Rekhy pieces together this historical fiction, Angria (Penguin), around one man’s fight for swaraj in the seas.
