Welcome to this edition of The Hindu on Books Newsletter.
India has over 40,000 public libraries and during the ongoing Festival of Libraries in New Delhi, organised by the Ministry of Culture, it is pertinent to ask how do we optimise the library’s functionality, especially for underprivileged sections of society or for those living in remote areas. In his piece, Aditya Mani Jha explains what needs to be done to make the library an inviting space for all.
We also take a peek into some of the country’s impressive and loved private libraries including that of writer Aanchal Malhotra, writers and poets Naveen Kishore (also a publisher) and Ranjit Hoskote, parliamentarian Manoj Kumar Jha, lawyers and writers Sriram Panchu and Gautam Bhatia, writer and journalist Jerry Pinto and others.
We talk to Amitav Ghosh about his new book Smoke and Ashes, Chinmaya R. Gharekhan about his bureaucratic and UN stints, and to writer Brinda Charry about her third novel, The East Indian. We also review Fruits of the Barren Tree by Lekhnath Chhetri about the Gorkhaland agitation which has been translated from the Nepali by Anurag Basnet and more.
Interviews of the week
With an oeuvre of 20 books straddling several genres, Amitav Ghosh has focused on the Indian Ocean region and the Bay of Bengal. “It’s not something I planned,” he tells Ramya Kannan as he discusses his latest book, Smoke and Ashes (HarperCollins), “but I realise now that that’s just how it has turned out.” Asked if China is poised to lead the world, he said that a massive geopolitical shift is underway. For the last 400 to 500 years, Europeans were dominant but now “we see this massive shift, where there is leadership, not just in terms of military power, but also in terms of productivity. Just in terms of the weight in the world, there’s been a huge shift: the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) economies together, have become, for the first time, larger than the economies of the G7. If you take all of the Indian Ocean region together, including, say, the Pacific Rim, by far, the greatest part of the world’s industrial and economic activity happens in this region. But this is how human history used to be, before the 18th century. China was the great manufacturing hub of the world; and India was another great manufacturing hub. This shift that is taking place now, is causing great upheaval and I don’t think the collective West is going to be easily reconciled to these changes.” To a question on whether poppy is still relevant, is it, for instance, “shaping a symmetry” even in Manipur, he said a lot of the Myanmar poppy planting has shifted very close to the Indian border. “If anyone thinks that the importance of poppy is declining, they really need to be disillusioned. If anything, the power of poppy has been growing stronger and stronger.”
Chinmaya R. Gharekhan worked for two Indian Prime Ministers, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, and also did a stint at the UN. Discussing his new book, Centres of Power: My Years in the Prime Minister’s Office and Security Council (Rupa), with Suhasini Haidar, and talking specifically about the war in Ukraine, the diplomat points out that while no one supports an invasion, sometimes it is the wording of resolutions at the UN Security Council that India is unable to accept. “I had to face some embarrassment when the Kuwait Foreign Minister met with our External Affairs Minister, I.K. Gujral. Mr. Gujral said: ‘We are with you 120%.’ The FM replied, ‘100% is enough for us, and you can use the 20% remaining to condemn Saddam Hussein’s actions in the UNSC!’ I had a lot of problem with the MEA on condemning the invasion. So eventually we only said India stands for territorial integrity and sovereignty, like we are doing now for Ukraine. I think we could afford to take a stronger position [on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine] than what we have done.”
Brinda Charry did a lot of research while writing her third novel, The East Indian (Harper), which is a historical fiction. From the early history of the East India Company, particularly in southern India, she read about London and the South Asian presence in London and Virginia, the first permanent British settlement in the New World, to write a story about Tony, the son of a Tamil courtesan, and his journey across the world. “I have studied the 1600s,” she tells Preeti Zachariah in an interview, pointing out that she is particularly interested in questions of the early formation of race and the early construction of cultural encounter and globalisation. “For me, it was not just a story of an individual. It was a story of a world coming into being.”
Journalist Lekhnath Chhetri’s novel Fruits of the Barren Tree (Penguin) is set in a village near Darjeeling where a seemingly peaceful and languid life is in disarray when the demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland turns violent. “Political slogans set people’s lives ablaze,” writes Vineetha Mokkil in her review. The novel sounds the warning loud and clear about violent political movements and their corrosive impact on societies, she says.
Spotlight
From August 4-7, Thimphu hosted the Bhutan Echoes’ Drukyul Literature Festival, in its 12th edition this year, and the first in person after the pandemic. Held at the Royal University of Bhutan with picturesque, cloud-kissed mountains as a backdrop, writers, poets, artists began by paying tribute to the Himalayas. The Queen Mother, Gyalyum Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, who is also the royal patron of the festival, spoke about her 2015 book Dochula, A Spiritual Abode in Bhutan, documenting how the Druk Wangyel Complex came to be built. Pointing out that a society without the arts is ‘soul-less,’ she stressed on the importance of sharing stories, on everything from culture to the environment. Writers Namita Gokhale and Tsering Tashi said the “mountains have to be left alone a little bit.” Which is exactly what Bhutan has done, with 70% of the land covered by forests and a total ban on mountaineering. Both agreed that Bhutan has been able to keep the mountains a mystery. Out of the mysterious mountains have emanated many tales which Kunzang Choden, the first Bhutanese writer to have a novel out in English (The Circle of Karma), has brought to life through the years. In her Bhutanese Tales of the Yeti’ and Folktales of Bhutan, she preserves stories she heard in childhood for future generations. Others like Geetanjali Shree and Shrayana Bhattacharya celebrated the polyphony of the subcontinent that gives a culture its richness. Bhattacharya’s session on her 2021 book, Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India’s Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence, struck a chord. She announced that she is on to her next book, The Tyranny of the Indian Uncle, which will take a few more years to reach bookshelves as she follows the lives of a group of middle-aged men. The festival paid a heartfelt tribute to historian, writer and biographer Patrick French who passed away earlier this year. Several of his books feature mountains (Younghusband, Tibet, Tibet et al) and Bhutan had a special place in his heart.
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- The Quest for Modern Assam: A History (1942-2000) (Allen Lane) by Arupjyoti Saikia is a sweeping narrative, exploring the political, cultural, environmental and economic processes that shaped the development of modern Assam since the 1940s.
- Jan Breman’s new book, Fighting Free to Become Unfree Again (Tulika Books) zooms in on the origin of labour bondage in the peasant economies which have dominated the subcontinent of South Asia from an unrecorded pre-colonial past until the post-colonial present.
- Yashraj Goswami’s Cockatoo (Pan Macmillan) is a combination of 12 interweaving narratives which plumb the depths of the human condition, exploring love, loss and longing.
- When Muthu’s father divides the family land, leaving him almost nothing, Muthu is forced to leave home in search of a new life. Fire Bird (Hamish Hamilton) by Perumal Murugan is the story of displacement; and a man’s quest for stability in an ever-changing world.
