Publish with Us

Follow Penguin

Follow Penguinsters

Follow Penguin Swadesh

© 2020 Penguin India

Category: Excerpts

Ayurveda: medicine without side-effects

Posted on by malika

This book is not a defence of Ayurveda. A sound, scientific framework of healthcare that has saved countless lives over 5000 years does not need defenders. It needs champions, and to be given wings. In a world that needs Ayurveda more than ever, Dr G.G. Gangadharan, who has been researching both the theory and the practice for the past thirty-five years, shows in his book the logic behind the science.

Let us take a look into some essential tips from this book, so that you can find the secret to greater happiness through balance and long-lasting health.

~

Ayurveda Front cover
Ayurveda||Dr G.G. Gangadharan

The plant that the West calls Rauwolfia serpentina is known in Ayurveda as ‘sarpagandha’. Ayurveda has been using it for centuries for the treatment of high blood pressure without any side-effects. Modern scientists have researched this plant and identified a master molecule named reserpine. They extracted it

from the plant, synthesized it in a laboratory and used it to make medicines that would reduce blood pressure. The medicine achieved this objective, but also caused side-effects that included depression and suicidal tendencies.* After many fatal incidents, the medicine had to be retracted from the market.

There’s a larger story behind this phenomenon—what I call the ‘Sarpagandha Syndrome’. To understand this story, we need to know how nature works and how Ayurveda has moulded itself to fit into nature’s contours.

Nature, Wholeness and the Dynamic Equilibrium

We know that nature abhors a vacuum. Let’s also acknowledge that nature abhors the lack of wholeness. At every point in time since the formation of our planet, every life form and substance found in nature has remained in a state of dynamic equilibrium— within itself and also with respect to its environment. If there is a momentary imbalance in that—for instance, if an unstable isotope is created—nature quickly restores the substance to its whole and natural state.

Meanwhile, nature uses chemistry to change biology over vast periods of time, so that every life form continuously evolves to a higher level of resilience.

Since nature sets such exacting standards for itself, is there any wonder that Ayurveda trusts it implicitly? By extension, Ayurveda trusts every plant and human body to be whole and complete. In the human body, this dynamic equilibrium is maintained by, among other phenomena, homeostasis; Claude Bernard, the father of experimental physiology, called this self-regulating ability the milieu interior. Since the human body and other natural life forms are designed this way, any imbalance in the human body—that manifests as a disease—can be addressed by using the restorative power of nature.

When we take a step back and look at the entire universe, we realize that nature is awe-inspiring. We realize that every life form is a microcosm of the entire universe. Since humans tend to be self-obsessed, let us rewrite that sentence as follows: The human body is a microcosm of the entire universe. The matter of the universe is in the human body and what is in the human body is in the universe. After all, astronomy tells us that the atoms that make up our body were produced inside a star. We share chemistry with the universe and, therefore, everything we find in it is potentially therapeutic for us.

So for the vaidya—the practitioner of Ayurveda—our planet is a boundless pharmacy. This makes the vaidya a bridge connecting the whole nature with the whole human being.

We will now look at how Ayurveda embraces the wholeness of the plant while also treating the human being in its entirety. In simpler terms, Ayurveda does not reduce a plant to its constituent bio-molecules. Nor does it reduce the human being to a set of ailing organs. Life is undoubtedly enabled by molecules and organs, but life is experienced in its entirety. Therefore, the processes that nurture and preserve life must be wholesome.

The first sign that Ayurveda is wholesome is the fact that its medicines do not cause side-effects if used appropriately.

No Side-Effects

Yes, Ayurvedic medicines cause no side-effects. The brazenness of this claim is made apparent by the fact that many allopathic medicines have a list of side-effects that’s longer than the list of chemicals used to make them. Despite painstaking research that can last years—including clinical trials on various life forms and multiple iterations of development—allopathic medicines have been unable to shrug off the bane of unwanted externalities. Take antibiotics, for example—every generation of antibiotics is made stronger so as to vanquish newer generations of more resilient superbugs. This also means that every new generation of antibiotics takes a stronger toll on the human body, with the side effects becoming starker. In such a dynamic domain, Ayurveda continues to use medicines free of side-effects, conceptualized and created many centuries ago. How has Ayurveda achieved this?

Well, Ayurveda studies plants in their entirety. Roots, stems, bark, flowers, fruits and leaves are understood—as constituent yet interconnected parts of the plant—and the therapeutic value of each part is understood. That done, Ayurveda identifies the best way to extract the plant’s essence for human use.

Any part of any plant has hundreds of types of bio-molecules, such as alkaloids and saponins. In many cases, only one bio-molecule among these is capable of acting as the master molecule that combats the ailment. While allopathy will isolate, extract and synthesize this bio-molecule, Ayurveda will extract the

entire part because it believes that the other bio-molecules in the plant negate the side-effects caused by just one of them.

This throws new light on the Sarpagandha Syndrome mentioned earlier. The plant sarpagandha behaves like a team, whereas reserpine behaves like the star player of that team, who is completely lost without his teammates.

The long and short of it is that Ayurveda trusts nature’s design to be more holistic than its counterpart, the human design, and by embracing nature’s holism, it manages to do away with potential side-effects.

Having said that, let’s make another statement that, which at first glance, may appear contradictory: We don’t take all parts of the plant or even everything within a single part of the plant.

All we are saying is that molecular-level selection of matter leads to problems. So, in Ayurveda, the vaidya removes those parts of the plant that are neither necessary for treatment, nor easily ingested by the human body. Through well-considered extraction methodologies, the physician makes the therapeutic qualities of the plant accessible to humans.

 

Guru Nanak: Passing of the torch

Posted on by kavyawahi

Sarbpreet Singh left the shores of his homeland, Sikkim, and went to America in his early twenties. When he learned about the lives of the Gurus, the trials and tribulations they faced, and the glorious story of the Sikh Empire, he felt his spirit soar like it never had before. Following his interest, in The Story of the Sikhs, he penned down the rich historical context that defined the foundational principles which guided Sikhs during the era of each Guru.

Here’s an excerpt from his book about Guru Nanak, who spent his entire life fighting injustice, superstition and ritualism, passing of the torch to Guru Angad.

*

The Story of the Sikhs || Sarbpreet Singh

One winter’s night, during heavy rainfall, a part of the wall of the Guru’s house collapsed. The commotion woke up the household, including both of his sons. Several of the Guru’s most devout Sikhs also gathered, many sleepily rubbing their eyes, shivering under the coarse shawls they had tossed around their shoulders to ward off the rain and the cold. The Guru decreed that the wall be fixed immediately!

There was much hemming and hawing and shuffling of feet. Some wondered privately if the Guru was going senile. Finally his sons mustered the courage to speak. ‘It is past midnight father and bitterly cold. Please go back to bed. In the morning we will engage a mason and labourers and take care of this.’ The Guru merely looked at the group and said, ‘Why do I need masons and labourers when I have all of you?’ Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when Lehna stepped up, inwardly laughing at his foolishness. After all, what was the need to repair the wall at once?

Lehna got to work under the watchful eye of his master as the rest of the Sikhs, including Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das, returned to their warm beds. Lehna diligently rebuilt a large section of the wall and found the Guru looking over his shoulder as he worked. ‘It is crooked Lehna,’ said the Guru. Without a moment’s hesitation Lehna tore down the wall and started again. This time the Guru let him build it and examined it critically when it was finished. ‘You built it in the wrong spot Lehna! You are going to have to move the wall.’ Uncomplaining, Lehna threw down the wall and started to build it for the third time.

It was dawn by then and the Sikhs began to wake up. Some gathered around Guru Nanak’s house watching Lehna work. Finally, when the wall was completed, the Guru once again expressed dissatisfaction and commanded Lehna to tear it down yet again. Some of the Sikhs began to titter. The Guru’s sons mocked Lehna, calling him a fool for obeying such unreasonable orders. Lehna went back to his work unperturbed.

Lehna continued to serve his master for three more years in this manner. Guru Nanak grew increasingly fond of Lehna and spent a lot of time instructing him. The Guru’s sons had grown jealous of Lehna’s deepening relationship with their father and began to openly express their dislike for him. The Guru, sensing the depth of the animosity, decided to send Lehna away to Khadur. Of course, his disciple left with no hesitation and started to live a disciplined life of prayer and meditation in his hometown, garnering great respect from the locals. Although he was distraught at being separated from his master, he never complained, certain that Guru Nanak must have had a reason for sending him away…

Finally came the fateful day when the Guru assembled everyone on the banks of the Ravi and formally anointed Angad as his successor.

14 June 1539 was a warm summer’s day in Punjab. A strange scene unfolded on the banks of the river Ravi, which flows by the town of Kartarpur. Guru Nanak was surrounded by his family and his beloved Sikhs, but he was doing something most unusual, even disconcerting. Surely unbefitting an elderly patriarch whose followers loved him and respected him like none other, Guru Nanak rose from his seat—the Guru’s seat—and to it he led Angad, who looked embarrassed and nonplussed. Guru Nanak, with a reassuring smile, gestured towards the Guru’s seat and bid Angad to sit. Angad looked reluctant, but being the most obedient of his master’s followers, he gingerly lowered himself into the seat. To the assembly’s astonishment, Guru Nanak reverently placed an offering of five paise or pennies and a coconut before his disciple and prostrated himself before him. The assembly gasped audibly. The Guru rose and turned to Bhai Buddha, another of his beloved disciples, a solemn man, who had been known as ‘Buddha’ or the wise old man, since he was a precocious lad! Bhai Buddha, on the Guru’s command, anointed Bhai Lehna’s forehead with a Tilak or saffron mark, signifying royalty. The torch had been passed. Visibly and dramatically. The humblest of Guru Nanak’s disciples, Bhai Lehna, now known as Guru Angad, was now his successor.

**

Now that you have had a glimpse of the life of Guru Nanak, who had paved the path of spirituality for many, read in detail more about other Sikh Gurus in Sarbpreet Singh’s The Story of the Sikhs.

Cognitive journey of a brand

Posted on by kavyawahi

Brands, in what they show, tell, feel, smell and taste like, say a lot. Our five senses play a significant role in the recognition of a brand and how it is received by the audience. Sandeep Dayal tells how brain sciences can help brand ambassadors and brand theatres of operations engage the human senses. It would be right to say that all the cognitive brand marketers must note the finer nuances for branding that this book offers.

Let us read this extract from his book to understand that when designing and executing brand experiences, it is important to think of a plan for each sense, or at least consider its impact on them.

*

Right Between The Ears
Right Between the Ears || Sandeep Dayal

Most real-world brands have a ‘theatre of operations’ and ‘ambassadors’. They go to market through retail stores and/or a salesforce.

Sergio Zyman was the chief marketing officer of the Coca-Cola Company when they sponsored the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996. Years later, I was Sergio’s chief marketing officer in his consulting company. Sergio told me that at the time when he ran the sponsorship for the Olympics, he had his teams build a thick binder called the ‘Red Book’, which was a detailed playbook for everything that Coke would do at the games. How and where Coke would be seen, who would do and say what and when, what it all meant and how it fit together in a single brand mosaic.

The Olympics would be Coke’s theatre of operation. Anyone with the red Coke shirt would be a brand ambassador, and every moment would be choreographed according to the Red Book.

When consumers step into a brand’s theatre of operations or interact with its brand ambassadors, there is an opportunity to build immersive experiences for them by engaging their five senses. The strongest brand experiences, as we learnt before, are those that are associated with other prior experiences. They are recalled more easily and better than others, last longer and feel more important to the brain. When marketers weave their brands with the human senses, they create even more associations with the experience, making it easier to recall. That’s why immersive sensory brand experiences make deep impressions on our brains.

If you walk down the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, even if you have never done that before, you can recognize the Burberry store with its trademark black-and-brown tartan cross hatches from blocks away with no help at all. The store design itself makes a statement about the brand. As you step inside, you can smell it.

During spring and summer, Zaluti scent machines diffuse the spring crocus scent and during autumn and winter, a special autumn scent. You look around and see that the wall colors are neutral with darker accents and furniture. That is deliberately orchestrated to bring to mind Burberry’s classic trench coat or tartan.

The personal shopper who greets you leaves an impression with how they look and sound, and how they gently direct you to where you want to go in the store. Every one of those sensations embody the Burberry brand.

The brand theatre of operations does not end with the store. Burberry also live-streams its runway shows, to share the excitement of decloaking new fashions as they happen with its fans worldwide, and lets them buy select new products online with its ‘see now, buy now strategy’.

Even brands like Away, Glossier, Farmer’s Dog, Made In Cookware, Lively Intimates and Everlane, which started out as pure online brands, have opened exciting stores on Lafayette Street in New York. They realized that bringing people to a brick-and-mortar store was the best way to create immersive experiences for customers—and that is what many consumers want. Virtual companies like Facebook and Google have opportunities to expand their brand theatre of operations into the real world with events and sponsorships.

**

Read Sandeep Dayal’s Right Between the Ears to get insights into the fascinating world of branding and hold on to the anchors in the age of hyper-competition by understanding why people make the choices they do and how to keep a brand relevant.

Dhoni and Raina’s special bond

Posted on by malika

In his book Believe, Suresh Raina takes us through the challenges he faced as a young cricketer. He was bullied in school and at cricket camps, but he always punched above his weight, overcoming every adversity life threw at him and never giving up. This is the story of the lessons he learnt and the friendships he built.

Peppered with invaluable insights – about the game and about life – that Raina acquired from senior colleagues like M.S. Dhoni, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, among others, this book will make you believe in the power of hard work, love, luck, hope and camaraderie. It is a journey through the highs and lows in the cricketing career of a man who saw his world fall apart and yet became one of the most influential white-ball cricketers India has ever seen.

Enjoy this little excerpt that explores his relationship with the legend M.S. Dhoni.

~

Believe
Believe||Suresh Raina, Bharat Sundaresan

Mahi Bhai always makes fun of me for being clumsy. I’ve seen him talk about how if I am around in his room, I would end up dropping something or walking into something. ‘Tu rahega toh kuch na kuch hoga,’ he likes to say. Maybe there’s some truth there. I am just a very energetic person, and I am always up and about as you might have seen me on the field.

There’s another thing that he is amused by. He’ll talk about how I would saunter into his room, order a lot of food over room service and not even wait for it to arrive. I’ll tell you why I am always keen on ordering my own food. What happens with a lot of them is that they would order nothing but chicken and roti. I, on the other hand, am a vegetarian. Moreover, I never have maida, because back home, I was used to having rotis made of ragi atta. My eating habits are pretty desi, so I need a good number of vegetable dishes and can’t do without a dal.

So, Mahi would ask me to order my own food. But often, after ordering, I would remember that I had a gym session and end up not eating that food. But I made it a point to not waste it and would go back later for it, even if by then the food had gone cold.

Talking of room service always reminds me of the times Robin Uthappa and I would order food on Mahi Bhai’s tab. And of that time in Pakistan when Rahul Bhai was captain and said, ‘Boys, order whatever you want. It’s on me.’ We made him pay for that reckless statement.

It involved, me, Irfan, Robin and Mahi Bhai. It was Dhoni’s idea. He just called up room service and asked for a double of everything we had ordered. Two milkshakes, an extra biryani, two extra rotis, two more dals, two more sabzis. Rahul Bhai couldn’t stop laughing at us. He eventually admitted that he’d learnt his lesson and that he would never give us a free hand again with room service. We did end up finishing everything we’d ordered, though.

That’s the kind of fun Mahi Bhai and I would have at other people’s expense all the time. We are like partners in crime when it comes to pulling someone else’s leg. I’ve been at the receiving end too at times, when he decides to turn on me. We’ve had an interesting relationship over the years.

I have also gone through so much because of our friendship. Like the whole bias angle. People would say, ‘Oh, Raina gets picked because he is Dhoni’s friend.’ But people forget the contributions I have made for teams captained by him—India as well as CSK. That’s how you build trust in a player as captain.

For us, it was like how when you have a neighbour over at your place all the time. You can take liberties with that person, saying yeh toh ghar ki baat hai. I played so much of my career down the order, and he would say let some of the others play at the top. At times I would say, ‘Humein bhi upar khelna hai.’ But he would respond, ‘Nahi, tu at will chhakke marta hai . . .’ and say that the others, be it Rohit or Virat or Ajju (Ajinkya Rahane), were better off at the top of the order. I was more reliable in those situations. He knew my mindset. He knew what brought the best out of me. And I trusted him. It would hurt when people kept linking our friendship to my being part of the team. I don’t think the numbers lie. I’ve always earned my spot in the team, just like I earned Mahi Bhai’s trust and respect. I was there for him. He always made me feel special. Nobody can take away from that. And it doesn’t matter what people say . . .

We grew closer and closer, and even got to know a lot about each other’s personal lives and families. I went to his house and met his family. After meeting them, I realized why he is so sorted. Sakshi and he came to meet my parents soon after their wedding. A UP–Bihar cultural connection there as well.

There’s always a lot of talk about Mahi Bhai being Captain Cool. But I can tell you that is not his greatest strength as captain. He will never compromise on the game. That’s what I like about him the most. That’s what I think makes him such a legendary captain and a fantastic leader.

 

 

 

S.P. Balasubrahmanyam’s music: What makes a great voice?

Posted on by swara

The Spirit of Enquiry by Carnatic vocalist and writer T.M. Krishna has a spectacular piece on the legendary singer S.P. Balasubrahmanyam that highlights the range and depth in SP’s music and how his brilliance came from being musically selfless. Read on for a glimpse!

*

SPB happens!

SPB was in love, surprised, joyous, excited, fearful, sad, contemptuous and disgusted. He was the father, son, lover, brother, friend, villain and hero. He was the voice of the privileged and the questioning voice of the oppressed and marginalized. He was an urbanite, a villager and could belong to any era. In his voice we found every social, cultural and aesthetic possibility. This allowed every individual, irrespective of their sociopolitical location, to find himself/herself within his voice at one time or another. This self identification gave SPB a universalism that has eluded every other Indian playback singer. And I would like to stress with extra emphasis that no other ‘voice’ in Indian film history has belonged to such a diverse cross-section of Indian society.

SPB came from a certain social construction and to be able to debaggage that in his work would have been impossible, unless he was able to leave S.P. Balasubrahmanyam the person behind the moment

he stood in front of the mike. SPB had an instinctive way of tapping into various cultures and demographics. This is emotional insight of the highest order and difficult to explain. For all other singers, there was and is a social-range limit to their voice.

There is one possible answer to this mystery. Great musicians are those who listen carefully, attentively and receive with respect. Listening is not limited to music; it is as much about accent, dialect and pronunciation. It is beyond listening in the sonic sense; it includes learning varied body languages, internalizing social contexts and realities. SPB seems to have been able to absorb this from all that he witnessed in life. In other words, he let life imbue his musicality. Therefore, when he sang a song, it had a larger story to tell; not just the one being communicated by the director, music director, cinematographer or actor. SPB’s voice became the voice of the idea. He abstracted the song from the specificity of the film and made it a human calling.

If there is one indicator of the nuance in his listening, it is in the way he enunciated the words in a song. Most people do not realize that pronouncing a word is entirely different from singing it. As a part of music, the word becomes a musical body and its highs, lows, elongation and emphasis undergo a subtle but crucial transformation. Only if these happen will the music flow. Added to this complication is the fact that these alterations are language-, dialect- and culture specific. In other words, depending on the character SPB was singing for, the musical word had a specific etched acoustic form. And SPB gave every musical word, phrase and line the social, political and aesthetic identity it demanded.

Front cover of The Spirit of Enquiry
The Spirit of Enquiry || T.M. Krishna

Such a person had to be selfless, musically. This comes from a realization of one’s role that as a musician, one is a catalyst and not an originator. When you are a bridge between people, ideas and feelings, ‘I’—the individual identity—has to become invisible. This sounds very close to an actor’s reality, but is actually much harder to accomplish. The actor enters the secondary reality of the film using the character he is playing, separating himself from the role. The two realities are clearly demarcated.

On the other hand, the playback singer comes in momentarily to lend his voice. In the studio, away from any semblance of the cinematic reality, he needs to give life to an idea, keeping in mind the described context, the actor’s image and the music director’s composition. And while adhering to all these requirements, he needs to somehow find his own bearings.

SPB lived selflessly, transcending the imagination of all these people but yet put aside the craving for the ‘spotlight’. He realized that the ‘self’ is established when it forgets its own presence.

**

For the first time, T.M. Krishna’s key writings have been put together in this extraordinary collection. The Spirit of Enquiry: Dissent as an Art Form draws from his rich body of work, thematically divided into five key sections: art and artistes; the nation state; the theatre of secularism; savage inequalities; and in memoriam.

 

Read product labels like a pro

Posted on by kavyawahi

At present, there are hundreds of skin-care products promising effective results and miraculous changes. With a wide range of ingredients packed and presented on a platter, to judge and choose the ones that are truly beneficial for your skin is a task. How do you figure out which product is ideal for your skin type and which one is an absolute no-no?

Dr Anupriya Goel, an aesthetic dermatologist and a leading expert in non-surgical aesthetic medicine, shares some ways to help you understand the different elements of a product label. So, before you stock your shelves with random skin-care products, consider the given markers and know what all they offer.

Here’s an excerpt from her book on how one can read a product label like a pro.

*

How to Get Glass Skin || Dr Anupriya Goel

A Louis Vuitton and a Hidesign bag are both made of leather. Yet the price difference is a world apart. It’s up to you, the consumer, to choose the price point. A Hidesign bag is a really good-value leather bag. It’s the same for skincare. Expensive does not necessarily mean good. Not all that glitters is gold. Especially when it comes to skincare products. In fact, especially with skincare products, what’s inside a bottle or jar counts more than the packaging. But there’s a catch. How do you really know if the product you want to buy will deliver all that it claims to? After all, you do want value for every buck you spend.

The best way to know if a product is worth your money is to be able to understand the ingredients it contains. You already know what active ingredients you need to look out for that work best for your skin type and skin condition. Now let’s learn how to read a product label, so you are guaranteed those ingredients for what you are paying.

The elements of a product label

Even though the outer packaging of every product seems different, the story behind every label is rather similar. Every product that is legitimate needs to follow the FDA guidelines and state the following:
1. Brand name and product name
2. Description of the product/product type
3. List of ingredients
4. Net quantity of the product
5. Contact details of manufacturer

For example, in the picture, the brand name of the product is ‘Berkowits’ and the product name is ‘Nourish’. The product type is a conditioning shampoo. The net quantity of the product is 1 litre. The details of the
manufacturer are mentioned on the right hand side of the label (behind the bottle). It is extremely important to know the quantity of the product before you pay the bill, so check whether it’s giving you value for money.

Now, other than the information above, it is vital to understand the list of ingredients and the meaning of the symbols on every product.

What is an INCI List?

An INCI (International Nomenclature for Cosmetic Ingredients) list is simply the ingredients mentioned on the back of the product in their chemical and Latin forms.
For example, the chemical name for water is aqua.

Below are some INCI list names of common ingredients:

1. Aqua: water

2. Caprylic/capric triglyceride: liquid fraction of coconut oil

3. Glycerine: humectant

4. Cetearyl alcohol: emulsifier

5. Sodium stearoyl lactylate: solubilizer, emulsifier

6. Sucrose stearate: emulsifier

7. Aloe barbadensis leaf juice powder: aloe vera

8. Tocopherol: vitamin E

9. Xanthan gum: naturally derived thickener

10. Parfum: fragrance

11. Linalool: fragrance component/allergen

12. Hexyl cinnamal: fragrance component/allergen

Some preservatives commonly used for natural cosmetics and skincare products: Benzyl alcohol, dehydroacetic acid, potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate.

You can find the complete list of preservatives and perfume agents on the INCI decoder website (www.incidecoder.com).

**

To know more about the ingredients in products, what the symbols on the packaging of products mean, and how does one read an INCI List, dive into the informative pages of Dr Anupriya Goel’s book How to Get Glass Skin.

Of cockfights, royalty, power, and politics

Posted on by kavyawahi

This is a narrative about the clash within the royal family which traces the arc of gory violence and brutal bloodshed. In all of Raja Ratan Shah’s life, nobody had made him feel more insecure than his own bastard son, Teja. With no heir in sight, Teja felt entitled to usurp the power. This marked the beginning of a series of cockfights and conflicts.

Here’s an excerpt from the book which gives a glimpse of one of the many cockfights.

*

Fighter Cock || Sidharth Singh

One of Teja’s men brought a fierce-looking Aseel into the pit. The raja picked one of his Karianaths, a young battle stag that was taken inside the pit by its handler. The cocks were pitted by a touch of beaks, and the fight began. The Karianath was aggressive from the get-go, circling the Aseel in top spinner style, using quick footwork. The Aseel, a battle cock of some repute, stood its ground, weaving and bobbing, looking for an opening. As the Karianath tried to take the Aseel head-on, the Aseel jumped up in the air and came crashing down on its head, slashing its neck with a short-blade fitted on its left foot, killing it instantly. Half the crowd ‘ooh’ed in pity while the other half ‘aah’ed in joy. A lot of money exchanged hands. This was Teja’s sixth straight win of the night, and he was jubilant.

An old Bollywood hit played shrilly on loudspeakers installed around the arena. Teja and his henchmen danced wildly to the song, rousing the crowd to join in, and turned the arena into a rave. The raja plied Sheru with more mahua as he moved on to another ganja chillum, blowing smoke like a steam engine and descending further into the grip of lunacy. By now, Sheru was also drunk and had no choice but to drop his guard and enjoy this insane spectacle. The raja signalled for the music to stop and for the next fight to begin. Teja decided to field the winning cock once again while the raja entered his top fighter, the champion battle cock ‘Toofani’, in this bout.

As earlier, the cocks were pitted beak to beak and the fight began. Teja’s Aseel, overconfident from the previous bout, went for the kill immediately, attacking the Karianath from all angles, in a departure from its earlier bob-and-weave style. Toofani circled around in a slinky top-spinning style, its quick hopping reminiscent of B-grade kung fu films. The Aseel took a few quick jabs at the Karianath, who warded them off with ease. Then the Aseel charged down the pit and took a giant leap. The Karianath countered with a massive on-the-spot jump, and, in a gory mid-air collision, kicked the Aseel in the eyes with both its long-bladed feet and blinded it completely.

Blood gushed out of the Aseel’s eyes and the crowd went berserk, shouting with bloodlust. The raja jumped up from his seat and screamed, ‘Kill the bastard! Kill the motherfucker!’ The Aseel hopped around the pit in panic. Toofani strutted to the far end for a long run-up and, then, charging down the pit, leapt into the air and pounced on the helpless Aseel, pinning it to the ground. It then proceeded to kill its foe with repeated machine-gun pecks to its head and neck in a crazed quick-beak style. By the end of the fight, Toofani was drenched in the blood of its victim. It walked up, as if drunk on its gory victory, towards the cheering spectators and fanned its wings violently, splashing blood on the crowd, and making them ecstatic.

**

To know more about the conflicts and cockfights in the royal household of Shikargarh dive into the pages of Sidharth Singh’s rough and ready noir titled Fighter Cock.

A lyrical tale of resurrection, return and redemption

Posted on by swara

Banaras, Varanasi, Kashi. India’s holy city on the banks of the Ganges has many names but holds one ultimate promise for Hindus. It is the place where pilgrims come for a good death, to be released from the cycle of reincarnation by purifying fire.

As the dutiful manager of a death hostel in Kashi, Pramesh welcomes the dying and assists the families bound for the funeral pyres that burn constantly on the ghats. He lives contentedly with his wife, Shobha, their young daughter, Rani, the hostel priests, his hapless but winning assistant, and the constant flow of families with their dying.

But one day the past arrives in the lifeless form of a man pulled from the river-a man with an uncanny resemblance to Pramesh. Called ‘twins’ in their childhood village, he and his cousin Sagar were inseparable until Pramesh left to see the world and Sagar stayed back to look after the land. For Shobha, Sagar’s reemergence casts a shadow over the life she’s built for her family. Soon, an unwelcome guest takes up residence in the death hostel, the dying mysteriously continue to live and Pramesh is forced to confront his own ideas about death, rebirth and redemption.

***

Front Cover The City Of Good Death
The City Of Good Death||Priyanka Champaneri

As the sun broke free from the horizon like a balloon slipping from a child’s grasp, the light lift ed the veil of fog from Kashi and beyond. The white sands of Magadha winked with the allure of crushed pearls. Birds skated along the air above, traveling in perfect circles over the land, dipping toward a pair of dogs that snarled and fought, spiraling above a tented barge that trundled along the river on an aimless journey. The Ganges, calm and composed in the absence of the monsoon, gathered the early morning pink over its expanse like a sari laid out to dry in the sun, the edges curling against the many carved stone steps leading up to the city . The buildings towering above the ghats gleamed iridescent in the halo of light washing over the water. The bells rang in the temples; the monkeys watched with indifferent faces from their perches atop the roofs. Men bobbed in the water, dunking themselves once, twice, holding their noses closed with one hand while the other directed the holy river over heads, arms, bellies. Women wrung out their wet saris and crowded near each other as they changed into fresh clothing. The ghaatiye—priests who sat on snug platforms with large umbrellas fanning behind them like cobra hoods—collected coins from the bathers, passed a cracked mirror to one man, said a blessing for another, listened to the dilemma of a third. A perpetual stream of people flowed down to the river and back up the steps, hurried feet sidestepping the drunk stretched out with an earthenware pot clutched in his arms. Funeral pyres crowded a stone platform at the bottom of the steps, Flames crackling, the surrounding men looking like cotton spindles from a distance with their shaved heads and sheer white dhotis. Chants laced the air, each word crisp and new as if emerging for the first time from the lips of red-eyed priests. Black smoke spangled with the occasional swirling orange spark rose up and over the stairs, where the walls bordering the alleyways and lanes drew closer, cinching all who passed through in a concrete embrace that blocked out all light and sense of direction. Four men shouldering a bier navigated tight corners

and crowded alleys. Wrapped in coarse white fabric that rose in crisp lines over the nose, the shoulders, the knobby toes, the body had become nameless, an insect tucked and tightly wound with spider’s silk. Their voices, frozen in a monotone chant, echoed in the lanes. Rama Nam Satya Hai. Rama Nam Satya Hai. Rama is truth. God is truth. The chant chased after the feet of a delivery boy, an old woman walking with quick steps, a white dog trotting out of the open mouth of an alley. The dog sniffed at a discarded tobacco wrapper and paused to scratch behind its ear. It looked back and then raised its nose into the air and disappeared into the alley, its tail held upward like a sail, intent on an errand whispered by the breeze. The news traveled quickly, and speculation trailed after to fill the holes that remained. The note found in the dead man’s pocket could have pointed to suicide . . . but the rope tied around the wrist suggested an accidental drowning. And what of the two boatmen who dragged the body back, who certainly could have been murderers? All the other boatmen at Lalita ghat stuck up for the pair except for Raman. Annoyed that his craft required exorcizing and purification by priests, who insisted that it would take an entire day and a hefty sum of rupees, Raman sat on the topmost steps of the ghat cursing his luck and smoking beedi after mango-flavored beedi. The others sat around gossiping or shouted theories as they passed each other on trips up and down the river. All focused on one detail. “They found a note, didn’t they? Has anyone read it?” “A love letter, most probably,” a priest called out from the middle of the ghat as he scratched his chest. “Always a woman to blame,” he added to no one in particular as he labored up the stairs. “Debts, more likely.”

“Perhaps he had a curse on his head.”

“Or he was looking for Yamraj—see how close he was to Magadha?” “Nonsense. He was drunk and fell over.” “That Raman should have secured things better. What kind of duffer leaves his boat free for anyone to take?” “Well, he died in Kashi, so at least he will find peace.”

“What fool would call that a good death, Kashi or no?”

*

Priyanka Champaneri’s novel is an exquisitely lyrical ode to Banaras where where death is so blatantly placed alongside everyday life.

Childhood, the country to which we once belonged

Posted on by malika

A storyteller of the highest order, illuminating truths about our society and culture through his gorgeous, often searing prose. In his latest collection of nonfiction, Salman Rushdie brings together insightful and inspiring essays, criticism, and speeches, written between 2003 and 2020, that focus on his relationship with the written word and solidify his place as one of the most original thinkers of our time.

Languages of Truth chronicles Rushdie’s intellectual engagement with a period of momentous cultural shifts. Immersing the reader in a wide variety of subjects, he delves into the nature of storytelling as a human need. He explores what the work of authors from Shakespeare and Cervantes to Samuel Beckett, Eudora Welty, and Toni Morrison mean to him.

Here us a taste of Rushdie’s signature wit and dazzling voice in Languages of Truth:

~

Languages of Truth FC
Languages of Truth||Salman Rushdie

Before there were books, there were stories. At first the stories weren’t written down. Sometimes they were even sung. Children were born, and before they could speak, their parents sang them songs, a song about an egg that fell off a wall, perhaps, or about a boy and a girl who went up a hill and fell down it. As the children grew older, they asked for stories almost as often as they asked for food. Now there was a goose that laid golden eggs, or a boy who sold the family cow for a handful of magic beans, or a naughty rabbit trespassing on a dangerous farmer’s land. The children fell in love with these stories and wanted to hear them over and over again. Then they grew older and found those stories in books. And other stories that they had never heard before, about a girl who fell down a rabbit hole, or a silly old bear and an easily scared piglet and a gloomy donkey, or a phantom tollbooth, or a place where wild things were. They heard and read stories and they fell in love with them, Mickey in the night kitchen with magic bakers who all looked like Oliver Hardy, and Peter Pan, who thought death would be an awfully big adventure, and Bilbo Baggins under a mountain winning a riddle contest against a strange creature who had lost his precious, and the act of falling in love with stories awakened something in the children that would nourish them all their lives: their imagination.

The children fell in love with stories easily and lived in stories too; they made up play stories every day, they stormed castles and conquered nations and sailed the ocean blue, and at night their dreams were full of dragons. They were all storytellers now, makers of stories as well as receivers of stories. But they went on growing up and slowly the stories fell away from them, the stories were packed away in boxes in the attic, and it became harder for the former children to tell and receive stories, harder for them, sadly, to fall in love. For some of them, stories began to seem irrelevant, unnecessary: kids’ stuff. These were sad people, and we must pity them and try not to think of them as stupid boring philistine losers.

I believe that the books and stories we fall in love with make us who we are, or, not to claim too much, that the act of falling in love with a book or story changes us in some way, and the beloved tale becomes a part of our picture of the world, a part of the way in which we understand things and make judgements and choices in our daily lives. As adults, falling in love less easily, we may end up with only a handful of books that we can truly say we love. Maybe this is why we make so many bad judgements.

Nor is this love unconditional or eternal. A book may cease to speak to us as we grow older, and our feeling for it will fade. Or we may suddenly, as our lives shape and hopefully increase our understanding, be able to appreciate a book we dismissed earlier; we may suddenly be able to hear its music, to be enraptured by its song. When, as a college student, I first read Günter Grass’s great novel The Tin Drum, I was unable to finish it. It languished on a shelf for fully ten years before I gave it a second chance, whereupon it became one of my favourite novels of all time: one of the books I would say that I love. It is an interesting question to ask oneself: Which are the books that you truly love? Try it. The answer will tell you a lot about who you presently are.

I grew up in Bombay, India, a city that is no longer, today, at all like the city it once was and has even changed its name to the much less euphonious Mumbai, in a time so unlike the present that it feels impossibly remote, even fantastic: a real- life version of the mythic golden age. Childhood, as A. E. Housman reminds us in ‘The Land of Lost Content’, often also called ‘Blue Remembered Hills’, is the country to which we all once belonged and will all eventually lose: Into my heart an air that kills

From yon far country blows:

What are those blue remembered hills,

What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,

I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went

And cannot come again.

Meditation is a necessity: Excerpt from Looking Inward by Swami Purnachaitanya

Posted on by swara

There are many misconceptions and wrong notions when it comes to meditation nowadays, as in the last few decades it has found itself transitioning from what was by many perceived as maybe a strange occult practice, that was associated with scarcely clad yogis in the Himalayas, to the latest trend of mental fitness for the hip and successful, with an increasing number of mobile apps that promise you peace of mind in as little as three minute ‘instant’ meditations. On top of that many embraced the term ‘mindfulness’ as the new and much more secular word for meditation, making it much easier to market to both the masses and corporate honchos, not realizing that meditation and mindfulness are really not the same, and in some ways are even exactly opposite to each other.

I felt it was high time, therefore, to write a book that clears many of these misconceptions and wrong notions, and that allows anyone with an interest to start exploring meditation to do so in the proper manner, and without getting caught up in either too much incense, or too little substance.  

Meditation is an ancient, time-tested and very effective art of managing our mind and transcending it. It has countless benefits, ranging from how it impacts your social and professional life, to your personal health, happiness and sense of freedom and fulfilment. Trying to strip it from its context and tradition will not only be an injustice to the very masters that have preserved this knowledge till today, but it would also deprive the practice of some of its most effective and essential aspects.  

At the same time, our modern world and lifestyle requires us to make this ancient wisdom and techniques available in a way that they can be easily understood, related to, and practiced by anyone who wishes to explore the manifold benefits it offers. This book will help you do so, as your personal guide to understanding this profound practice for a healthier, happier and well-adjusted life.  

The way this book is structured is that each chapter will teach you some of the tools, and help you progress on the journey, giving you the knowledge and know-how of principles that will finally come together in your personal meditation practice. Many of the principles that you will learn in these pages will also make you more effective, efficient, and empathic even in your day-to-day activities and will help you to deal more skilfully with this abstract thing called the mind and all its tantrums. It will make your life easier, more enjoyable, and more fulfilling, but it will require you to read, understand, and practice what has been shared.  

You will learn that meditation does not require a lot of focus or concentration, rather the opposite, and that it can actually be a joyful journey full of eye-openers. It is a journey from effort to effortlessness, from activity to stillness, and from stress, anxiety and frustration to a state of peace and tranquillity. One thing that I would like to emphasize though, is that meditation is so much more than just a solution to some of these problems that many of us face. And practicing it simply to overcome these problems would mean you may drop the practice when your mind or life has settled down again. I would rather encourage you to aim higher and think bigger. Meditation will give you all those benefits, but these are more like the side effects. The real treasure you can find inside lies beyond, and it is only revealed to those who are really ready to look inward. 

Come then, whether you are totally new to meditation, or have been practicing regularly or irregularly for many years. I invite you to embark on this fascinating journey with an open mind. When you are able to do this, I guarantee that you will learn and realize many things that can help you understand and deepen your meditation practice and enrich your life. After all, in today’s modern world, meditation is not a luxury, it is a necessity, and the sooner we realize this, the better.  

error: Content is protected !!