Catagory: Biographies, Diaries & True Accounts

Lal Singh Dil is a legend in Punjab, famed as much for his rousing poetry as for the brew of his tea stall. Born into the ‘untouchable’ Dalit community in the years before Partition, he bravely challenged deep-rooted social prejudices through his crisp and stirring verses. His struggle led him to join the Naxalite movement-an experience that culminated in three horrifying years of torture at the hands of the police. In his later years, much to the dismay of his comrades, he converted to Islam because he believed that its tenets could be reconciled with the egalitarian and inclusive principles of communism. A powerful indictment of caste violence and discrimination, Poet of the Revolution describes Dil’s most turbulent years in his clear, fiery voice. Translated into English for the first time, this book also includes a selection of his most memorable poems.

Former foreign secretary, Maharajakrishna Rasgotra joined India’s external affairs ministry when Jawaharlal Nehru, Girija Shankar Bajpai, Sardar Patel were-with a mix of pragmatism and hope-creating the foreign policy of the newly independent nation. This was taking place as the Cold War slid into the subcontinent and complex relationships with India’s neighbours-China, Pakistan and Nepal-were taking shape. Looking back on those crucial years with a discerning eye for the interplay of personalities-Nehru, Krishna Menon, or S. Radhakrishnan, for instance-Rasgotra assesses their influence on events and their impact on the evolution of Indian diplomacy.
For over three decades Rasgotra’s assignments took him to Nepal, Britain and France, among other countries, as well as twice to the United States. His account of Nixon and Kissinger, and the mix of truculence and persuasion in their dealings with Mrs Gandhi in the run up to the 1971 Bangladesh war, sheds new light on the events of that time. His tenure as foreign secretary covered a period of great change and A Life in Diplomacy provides a ringside view of the beginnings of ethnic violence in Sri Lanka, the last years of the Cold War, the negotiations on the formation of SAARC, Mrs Gandhi’s assassination and the Bhopal gas disaster.
This is a compelling, authoritative account of a personal and professional journey; a reflective look at the leaders, events and forces that formed relations between India and the world over fifty years.

‘It was easy becoming a voyeur.’ Saleem Peeradina, poet, artist, teacher-and compulsive people-watcher-gets extraordinary views of neighbourhood life from the twelve windows of his Versova Road house. From the age of four he has been drawn into the thrills of a voyeuristic life, a passion that was nurtured in his young adulthood by his interest in poetry and painting. In The Ocean in My Yard he gives us rare and exclusive pictures of the dramas he witnessed almost unobserved, sketching the interior landscape of hearts and heads. In lyrical prose interspersed with his own poems, Peeradina brings to life the vitality, as well as the predictability, of suburban Bombay of the 1950s and 1960s, where cycling down narrow lanes with school buddies, or peering into a film studio to catch a glimpse of a movie star, or having a ball of shaved ice was heaven itself. All of this is offset, of course, by run-over animals rotting at the neighbouring garbage dump. With passion, tenderness and sometimes detachment, he lucidly captures the experience of growing up Muslim in a large joint family: the adoring grandparents who light up his life all too briefly, the trio of eccentric uncles who confer on him the most favoured status, a difficult doctor-father against whose strong will he pitches his own, and a self-effacing mother whom he begins to appreciate only late in life. He also exposes religious and class issues and reveals how, even as a boy, he stood up against the ingrained sexism of Indian society. As Saleem candidly serves up anecdotes of his sexual awakening-massaging his aunt’s body to ease the tension after a long day in the kitchen-and trips to Anchor Cabins where his uncle conducted photography sessions that were to inspire his own nude paintings, we realize all too well how easy it is to become a voyeur, and how easy to fall under Peeradina’s spell.

The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi is an explosive and original analysis of the assassination of the ‘Father of the Nation’. Who is responsible for the Mahatma’s death? Just one determined zealot, the larger ideology that supported him, the Congress-led Government that failed to protect him, or a vast majority of Indians and their descendants who considered Gandhi irrelevant, and endorsed violence instead?

Paranjape’s meticulous study culminates in his reading of Gandhi’s last six months in Delhi where, from the very edge of the grave, he wrought what was perhaps his greatest miracle – the saving of Delhi and thus of India itself from the internecine bloodshed of Partition. Paranjape, taking a cue from the Mahatma himself, also shows us a way to expiate our guilt and to heal the wounds of an ancient civilization torn into two. This is a brilliant, far-reaching and profound exploration of the meaning of the Mahatma’s death.