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Academic, writer and former director of NCERT Krishna Kumar’s new book, a “blend of fiction and non-fiction”, Thank You, Gandhi (Viking), is a story of two friends, K. and Munna. One is an IAS officer and was posted in Bhopal during the gas tragedy, the other is an academic. After retirement, Munna moves to Delhi and the two old friends meet up often to discuss the India they knew and often lament the country it was becoming. But Munna passes away during the first wave of COVID, leaving behind a manuscript for his friend. The 10 files, all labelled ‘G’, has K. in a quandary – was Munna trying to convey his experiences in the government? As he reads on, he realises that the ‘G’ denoted Gandhi, and the pieces were about how India was no longer the country “we had inherited from Gandhi.” Munna’s manuscript was about a “supremely unpleasant subject: the loss of Gandhi’s many gifts to us as a nation, [the quest for truth, for one]” notes Kumar in the Epilogue. “Is Gandhi relevant at all?” Kumar tries to answer this “nagging” question on the eve of another October 2, the Mahatma’s birthday, through the lens of a friendship that leads to a conversation about two nations, past and present, about syncretism and muscular Hindutva, old ideals and new ways.
In reviews this week, we read Sally Rooney’s new novel, the Booker-shortlisted Held, a biography of Hyderabad and more.
Books of the week
If celebrity Irish writer Sally Rooney’s earlier works like Normal People captured the complexities and angst that define modern-day romance, her latest novel, Intermezzo (Faber & Faber), explores the tricky terrain of familial ties. It’s a story about two brothers, Peter Koubek, a lawyer, and Ivan, his “completely oddball” brother and competitive chess player. The Koubek brothers are 10 years apart, and their father’s death, though they had been prepared for it, devastates them. In her review, Radhika Santhanam says that if you’re a Rooney fan, her trademark themes find their way here too: the power dynamics in relationships, Marxist ideas, millennial anxieties, a forensic examination of emotions, and the journey of sexual awakening. This novel, she writes, is by far “her best effort in etching out characters and making us feel like we really know them.”
The title of Dinesh C. Sharma’s new book, Beyond Biryani (Westland Books), is a play on India’s favourite food item and a dissertation of looking beyond the food item. The result is a delightful romp through India’s post-Independence evolution as self-reliant industrial powerhouse and the role of Hyderabad in this story. Written in a matter-of-fact tone without indulgent flourish, Sharma chronicles the rise of Hyderabad as a hub of technology and globalisation with a parallel narrative of Indian scientists making-do and reaching out beyond the limited means of a poor country, writes Serish Nanisetti in his review.
There are several ghosts in Anne Michaels’s novel Held (Bloomsbury), shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize. The book’s back flap provides a clue about how “the past erupts insistently into the present”, as a photographer John develops his clients’ photos and unexpected strangers emerge from the emulsion. In his review, Anil Menon writes that in a regular ghost story, John would have to get to the bottom of the mystery. “This being a literary endeavour, however, the author feels no obligation to entertain the peasants. John is able to photograph ghosts, and that’s that.” The key axiom underlying her story, says Menon, is that the world is akin to photographic paper, which when washed in the developer fluid, reveals objects coalescing into negative being, silver particle by silver particle.
Spotlight
For Kalki Ramaswamy Krishnamurthy, better known by his pen name, Kalki’s 125th birth anniversary, Gowri Ramnarayan, his granddaughter, has been working on a six-part translation of his iconic historical fiction, Ponniyin Selvan. The first two books in the series -- First Flood and The Cyclone (Ebury Press) — are out. A pioneering voice in Tamil literature, Kalki has been held in high regard for over a century. “In him, the activist inflames the writer, the poet coexists with the propagandist, and the creative mind informs the crusading spirit,” writes Ramnarayan. In an interview with Nandini Bhatia, Ramnarayan says growing up in the shadow of a literary marvel, “It was all light. No shadows. Though Kalki died when I was only four, I grew up devouring his writings, more non-fiction than fiction. I was inspired by his dauntless integrity, liberal and inclusive outlook, promotion of gender equality, commitment to Gandhian values, ardour for the arts, and most of all, his conviction that freedom was everyone’s birthright.” But it was Ponniyin Selvan that made her understand “how books by different writers in every age can make you claim thoughts and feelings from across the world, far beyond your own time, place, experience, and ken. I’d say that the best gift Kalki gave me was the passion for reading. He taught me how imagination is almighty, how powerful language can be.”
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- Rohin Bhatt’s book on queer rights, The Urban Elite v. Union of India (Ebury Press), presents the history of the fight for decriminalisation of Section 377, and the arguments of petitioners pushing for the right to marry and to have families of their own. As a queer person litigating queer rights, it’s also a story from the frontline of the courtroom.
- In Video Culture in India: The Analog Era (OUP), Ishita Tiwary documents the history of video technology in post-1980s India. Drawing on oral histories, tapes and archives, the monograph looks at the widespread popularity of the marriage video, the history of the video film, and the “explosive imagination” attached to the religious video.
- Island by Sujit Saraf is set in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The protagonist, Nirmal Chandra Mattoo, has lived in Port Blair, the capital, for 30 years. When a missionary appears in his souvenir shop, which sells fake artefacts, passing them off as those made by the Jarawas and the Sentinelese, asking him to help visit the remote North Sentinel Island, things take a turn. Island examines questions of nationhood, citizenship and the plight of marginalised communities.
- Kiyoshi Shigematsu’s The Blanket Cats (Hachette), translated by Jesse Kirkwood, revolves around the troubled and anxiety-ridden people of Tokyo who believe that a feline companion from a unique pet shop can help them find a solution. But there are rules: the cat companions must be returned after three days, and they must always sleep in their own familiar blankets.
Published - October 01, 2024 01:18 pm IST
