Anjum Hasan is the author of several books including Lunatic in My Head, The Cosmopolitans, Neti, Neti, Street on the Hill and Difficult Pleasures. Her latest book, A Day in the Life, is a collection of fourteen well-crafted stories that give us a sense of the daily life of a wide cast of characters.
Her books have been nominated for various awards including the Man Asian Literary Prize, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, the Hindu Best Fiction Award and the Crossword Fiction Award.
In this special feature written by her, Hasan tells us about her relationship to the form of the short story.
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Anjum Hasan
The first short story that haunted me was Anton Chekhov’s The Bet. Till then, I believed that narrative resolution meant happy endings. Rip van Winkle might find, when he wakes up, that twenty years have passed, or Sinbad will see that his only hope of survival after the shipwreck is to hang on for life to one leg of the giant roc, but these disruptions are only delicious means to redress. Whereas all the dark prefigurings of The Bet end in nothing – the hero simply vanishes on the last page.
The story is the case study of a philosophical question – is life imprisonment better or worse than the death penalty? The young lawyer who stakes fifteen years to prove his point does not emerge triumphant from the cell where he has been living out his self-imposed solitude. He decides – following on a decade and a half of the most voracious bibliomania, hundreds of books consumed and discarded – that human concerns don’t matter one whit, and then he slips out of the garden gate and disappears. To where? And why does he forgo all that money, two million roubles, that he is to get for winning the bet? As a ten or eleven-year-old, immune to irony, this tortured man’s strange renunciation and sudden disappearance, not to speak of that unclaimed cash, bothered me. Chekhov, master of enigmatic endings, provides no answer. I had to learn to live with my discomfort, accept the slippery nature of the modern short story, understand that its author might open a wide window on time and then leave it ajar for all eternity.
But the special pang that accompanies the reading of a good – that is essential yet elusive – story remained through the years of my coming of age as a reader. I experienced it with Tagore’s Kabuliwallah in which the unlikely friendship between a vagrant man and a radiant child can, once time has passed, never be recovered – no matter that the author, unlike Chekhov, does provide recompense in the form of a few banknotes to temper our sadness with. I felt it too with DH Lawrence’s The Rocking-Horse Winner where money itself is the object of lust and there can never be enough of it. Yet indulge too avidly in this passion and it can turn against you.
Over time I also realised that I wanted to do the same – not so much play with mutability as a literary device as snatch half a moment from the flow and give it life in writing. The short story is the ultimate temporal – and secular – form. There are no earlier incarnations and no hereafter. Now is the sum total of the aeons and this is all there is to the expanse. Anything can be a story and everything actually is. I’m always charmed by that anecdote about the demonically prolific Saadat Hasan Manto boasting that he could write a story on any subject. Someone knocked at the door of his office when he worked at AIR, Delhi, and asked “May I come in?” Manto was challenged to write a play by that name which he promptly turned out.
But this carpe diem spirit means that the older traditions of storytelling with their familiar tropes, their indeterminate locations, their shared myths, have to be put aside. For the short story is also the locus of a progressive imagination, one for which the people matter but the person matters more. In most Indian languages the break from the literature of the past resulted in the flowering not just of the short story but literary movements around it – ranging from the Nayi Kahani writers in Hindi and their championing of interior life to the hard-boiled urbanism of the Manikodi group in Tamil Nadu. Exploring the genesis of the form in his essay ‘The Indian Story’, Amitav Ghosh records its journey from the late 19th century to a good hundred years on. He writes that “the story was the chosen instrument of the subcontinent in the spring time of its nationhood.” But it is no more our weapon of choice, suggests his essay, which was published towards the close of the previous century. The short story has, perhaps, had its day.
This might explain our contemporary ambivalence about it. Modernism has passed some of us by and our paradigms for the short story are still Saki and O. Henry, rather than Manto and Carver. Then there is the growing occlusion of telling of a story with storytelling – not all writers of the short story are aiming to be campfire entertainers in this sense but the tag is hard to escape. One is either a great storyteller or a self-indulgent aesthete; nothing, it seems, can bridge literary pleasure with pleasure taken in literature. One is always tempted to quote Nirad C Chaudhuri to those who insist on the distinction between style and substance. “There is no such thing in literary works as good substance spoilt by a bad style, or poor substance undeservedly accompanied by a good style. To believe in such theories is to have the stupidity which is dead to matter and the vulgarity which is dead to form.” But Chaudhuri himself, precisely because of his English hauteur, the proud certainty of that tone, can seem hopelessly old-fashioned.
We are quick to dismiss values that seem out of date, always on guard against nostalgia in our reading of literature but curiously, because of our growing obsession with specifically Indian narratives and a singularly Indian identity, have taken to refurbishing antiquities in our fiction. We want to retell rather than tell, and our retellings are informed less by ideas about the past and more by the desire to just invoke it. The popularity of these invocations makes me ask if we really have lost our appetite for the here and now. Was it misplaced, this desire we once had to cleave to the short-lived, the fragmentary, the unresolved? Are we in search of the one story that will capture it all – the overarching explanation, rather than the numerous small ones? Is that a genuine need and if so can the short story address it?
I happened to find something of an answer in a marvellously metaphysical essay by John Berger on the nature of time and, thereby, the nature of stories. In older, more religiously inclined cultures, the timeless was a constant presence but this conception of a realm beyond human time has been edged out of today’s worldview, he argues in ‘Go Ask the Time’. And yet, despite this dominant, two-century-old, positivist European image of time, we can’t quite suppress our longing for that which goes beyond it. We’re made that way. “A need for what transcends time, or is mysteriously spared by time, is built into the very nature of the human mind and imagination.”
If we turn away from the European lens we will find a conviction underlying many traditions of storytelling – many discourses – that everything to happen has already happened before, says Berger. This is a realisation that the writer like me, trying to compose that one unique if microscopic narrative, that one telling that has not been told before, wants to stave off. But perhaps the most long-sighted of the storytellers have always known it. Talking about the prose of realist fiction and its gradual seeping into Indian writing, Ghosh in the essay I mentioned speaks of it as “a form of address that creates the illusion of objectivity by distancing itself from its subjects; it is a style of narrative in which the machinery of narration is a source of embarrassment that must always be concealed.” This struggle is still evident in Indian fiction, he says. So perhaps it is this – the embarrassment with the modern rather than the insight into the mythological – that makes us want to go back to a time before realism.
AK Ramanujan, that great theorist of Indian narratives, has described in his ‘Is there an Indian Way of Thinking?’ how till the 19th century no Indian text came without a framing narrative; every story was encased in a meta-story. Berger would have loved, for its effortless scrambling of linear time, one of Ramanujan’s examples. When the Pandava brothers are exiled in the forest, and Yudhishthira is despondent because he has lost wife and kingdom, a sage visits him and tells him the story of Nala. Nala too has had to forfeit wife and kingdom but then he fights his brother and gets everything back. “Yudhishthira, following the full curve of Nala’s adventures, sees that he is only halfway through his own, and sees his present in perspective, himself as a story yet to be finished.”
So it could be that Chekhov’s hero, when he runs away from his cell, is fleeing the paltriness of the short story itself, seeking a cosmic vista that no worldly thing, least of all money, can offer. Chekhov cannot follow him because that is not his business. His writ runs only in that arena where each tiny, ordinary, human detail is so mesmerising a story there appears to be no point asking for more. And that’s where I hope to remain too, in the grip of the strangeness and wonder of this present time.
Rain + Books = The Perfect Monsoon
This monsoon we have a great list of new books for you! Whether you enjoy literary classic, thriller, fiction or mythology, we’ve got you covered with books by authors such as Devdutt Pattanaik, Premchand, Alex Salkever and Vikram Sood – to name a few.
So this summer, cuddle up with a cup of tea and a good read!
Take a look at our list of July books!
Acid
Two striking women, Kamala and Shaly, helm an unusual household, fuelled by their intense, tempestuous romance in a rapidly changing Bangalore. Acid unravels the secrets that lurk beneath the surface of our lives, and marks the entry of a searing new voice in the Indian literary landscape.
Bihar Diaries
Bihar Diaries narrates the thrilling account of how Amit Lodha arrested Vijay Samrat, one of Bihar’s most feared ganglords, notorious for extortion, kidnapping and the massacre of scores of people. Bihar Diaries captures vividly the battle of nerves between a dreaded outlaw and a young, urbane IPS officer.
Premchand Short Stories (Volume 1-5)
Munshi Premchand’s prolific writing contributed largely to shaping the genre of the short story as we know it in India. His range and diversity were limitless as he tacked the themes of romance, satire, gender politics and social inequality with unmatched skill and compassion and this miniseries brings together some of his most celebrated short stories.
This miniseries brings together some of his most celebrated short stories on the themes of women, caste, the city, village life and animals.
Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jehan
Acclaimed historian Ruby Lal uncovers the rich life and world of Nur Jahan, rescuing this dazzling figure from patriarchal and orientalist clichés of romance and intrigue, while giving a new insight into the lives of the women and the girls during the Mughal Empire, even where scholars claim there are no sources. In this book, Nur Jahan finally receives her due in a deeply researched and evocative biography that awakens us to a fascinating history.
How India Manages Its National Security
In this authoritative and comprehensive survey of the challenges a changing global security environment poses to India, former deputy national security advisor Arvind Gupta outlines the important aspects of the country’s security apparatus and how they interface to confront internal and external conflicts.
India Moving: A History of Migration
To understand how millions of people have moved-from, to and within India-India Moving: A History of Migration embarks on a journey laced with evidence, argument and wit, providing insights into topics like the slave trade and migration of workers, travelling business communities, refugee crises and the roots of contemporary mass migration from Bihar and Kerala, covering terrain that often includes diverse items such as mangoes, dosas and pressure cookers.
Daughters of Legacy: How a New Generation of Women Is Redefining India Inc.
What are the challenges and perks of handling age-old legacies?
If you come into a position of power through a position of privilege, how do you make sure that you earn respect, more so if you are a woman?
These and many more questions are what Daughters of Legacy seeks to answer through the stories of twelve successful women who grew up with strong business lineages.
Mandodari: Queen of Lanka
Borrowing from Sanghadasa’s Jaina version of the Ramayana, Mandodari-one of the least known characters of the Hindu epic-is finally given a voice.
Considered to be one of the most beautiful apsaras, she was married off to the mighty Ravana, the legendary king of Lanka. In her story, she speaks about her struggles after her marriage, her insecurities and her pious nature that challenged her husband’s growing aspirations. She narrates the rise of Ravana’s power and the blunders he made that ultimately caused the downfall of Lanka.
The Unending Game: A Spy’s Insights into Espionage
As a country’s stature and reach grow, so do its intelligence needs. This is especially true for one like India that has ambitions of being a global player even as it remains embattled in its own neighbourhood. The Unending Game tackles these questions while providing a national and international perspective on gathering external intelligence, its relevance in securing and advancing national interests, and why intelligence is the first playground in the game of nations.
The Dhoni Touch: Unravelling the Enigma that is Mahendra Singh Dhoni
For over a decade, Mahendra Singh Dhoni has captivated the world of cricket and over a billion Indians with his incredible ingenuity as captain, wicketkeeper and batsman. Bharat Sundaresan, author of The Dhoni Touch tracks down the cricketer’s closest friends in Ranchi and artfully presents the different shades of Dhoni-the Ranchi boy, the fauji, the diplomat, Chennai’s beloved Thala, the wicketkeeping Pythagoras-and lays bare the man underneath.
Master Growth Hacking – The best kept secret of new age Indian startups
Full of riveting stories, Master Growth Hacking lets you learn from the pioneers of growth hacking in India. There are interviews with the founders of Zomato, IndiaMART, ShopClues, UrbanClap, Paisabazaar, Furlenco, FusionCharts, WittyFeed, UpGrad and a lot more.
Growth hacking is the new growth mantra that start-ups are using and don’t want you to learn about!
Frontiers
Aurangzeb’s aim is to conquer the kingdoms of the Deccan and expand the great Mughal empire to include hitherto uncharted, rebellious territories. Raja Shivaji, a jagirdar from the hills of western Deccan, dreams of Swaraj and has raised his sword against all those who stand between him and his goal.
Theirs is a battle of wit and might-one in which neither will give up. Frontiers, a historical saga, brings to life the complex and ever-shifting dynamics between these two arch nemeses.
Chanakya and the Art of Getting Rich
Chanakya’s Arthashastra is an unrivalled political treatise that has been used by scholars, academics and leaders across the world. In Chanakya and the Art of Getting Rich, Radhakrishnan Pillai brings out the inherent lessons from Arthashastra to present a strategic and practical way of wealth creation. This is a holistic study, written for anyone and everyone.
Your Happiness was Hacked
We’ve become a tribe of tech addicts, and it’s not entirely our fault.
But we can reclaim our lives without dismissing technology. The authors of Your Happiness was Hacked explain how to avoid getting hooked on tech and how to define and control the roles that it plays and could play in our lives. This profound and timely book turns personal observation into a handy guide to adapting to our new reality of omnipresent technology.
Shyam: An Illustrated Retelling of the Bhagavata
The Bhagavata is the story of Krishna, known as Shyam to those who find beauty, wisdom and love in his dark complexion.
Shyam: An Illustrated Retelling of the Bhagavata seamlessly weaves the story from Krishna’s birth to his death, or rather from his descent to the butter-smeared world of happy women to his ascent from the blood-soaked world of angry men.
Under American Eyes: Mark Twain in Bombay
For 230 years, America’s engagement with India, Afghanistan and Pakistan has been characterized by short-term thinking and unintended consequences. Beginning with American traders in India in the eighteenth century, the region has become a locus for American efforts-secular and religious-to remake the world in its image. Even as South Asia has undergone tumultuous and tremendous changes from colonialism to the world wars, the Cold War and globalization, the United States has been a crucial player in regional affairs.
In the definitive history of the US involvement in South Asia, The Most Dangerous Place by Srinath Raghavan presents a gripping account of America’s political and strategic, economic and cultural presence in the region.
Of the many interesting incidents and lesser known anecdotes in the book, one interesting narrative is Mark Twain’s visit to Bombay. Here is an excerpt from it.
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On a sunny morning in January 1896, the visiting American— decked out in a white suit and straw hat—took a stroll on the outskirts of Bombay. On seeing a row of Indian washermen sweating it out, he asked his guide, ‘Are they breaking those stones with clothes?’ Samuel Langhorne Clemens had kept his sense of humour despite the fact that he had practically been forced to travel to India. A failed venture with a typesetting machine and the bankruptcy of his publishing firm had left Mark Twain ensnared in a web of debt: of over $1,00,000. To shake this off, the fiftyyear- old writer had embarked on a year-long lecture trip covering a hundred cities in Australia and New Zealand, South Africa and the British Isles, Ceylon and India.
In Bombay, Twain’s first appearance was in the Novelty Theatre before an overflowing audience worshipping ‘at the shrine of the world’s great humourist when he made his debut before his first Indian audience’. Twain spoke of, among other things, how there were 352 different kinds of sins, so that ‘the industrious persons could commit them all in one year and be inoculated against all future sins’. He told stories, some apocryphal, about George Washington and other great Americans, and also read a chapter from Tom Sawyer. Twain lunched with the Governor in his official residence and met Jamsetji Tata over dinner.
Like many well-informed Americans of his generation, Mark
Twain had thought of India as a land of fantasy: ‘an imaginary
land—a fairy land, dreamland, a land made of poetry and moonlight
for the Arabian Nights to do their gorgeous miracles in’. Ahead of his trip, he had written jocularly to Kipling, ‘I shall come riding my ayah with his tusks adorned with silver bells and ribbons and escorted by a troop of native howdahs richly clad and mounted upon a herd of wild buffalos; and you must be on hand with a few bottles of ghee, for I shall be thirsty.’3 After spending two months in the country and visiting over sixteen cities and towns, Twain concluded that India was the most interesting country on the planet. But his view of India was a tad more realistic: ‘This is indeed India—the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle . . . the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe combined.’
Twain was a curious and sympathetic traveller. The people, he wrote, were ‘pleasant and accommodating’. ‘They are kindly people . . . The face and bearing that indicate a surly spirit and a bad heart seemed rare among Indians,’ he added. The sight of an Indian servant in his hotel being needlessly struck by a European manager reminded him of his childhood in the American South and the stain of slavery on his own country. The ‘thatched group of native houses’ along the Hooghly River took him back to ‘the negro quarters, familiar to me from nearly forty years ago—and so for six hours this has been the sugar coast of the Mississippi’.5 Even Indian religion and spirituality, of which he had had no high opinion, Twain encountered with an open mind. On the massive Hindu religious festival in Allahabad, he wrote, ‘It is wonderful, the power of a faith like that.’ Meeting an Indian saint in Benares, Twain gave him an autographed copy of Huckleberry Finn and noted his admiration for men who ‘went into the solitudes to live in a hut and study the sacred writings and meditate on virtue and holiness and seek to attain them’. Twain had heard of the storied tradition of ‘thuggee’ or ritual strangling as a boy in America and wrote at inordinate length about it in his account of the passage through India. Nevertheless, he also observed, ‘We white people are merely modified Thugs; Thugs fretting under the restraints of a not very thick skin of civilization.’
All the same, Twain’s views of India were shaped by a sense of civilizational hierarchy. While India was ‘the cradle of human race, birth place of human speech’ and so forth, it was a civilization that had no notion of ‘progress’: ‘repeating and repeating and repeating, century after century, age after age, the barren meaningless process’. India had been the ‘first civilization’ and remained stuck there. If this was redolent of Britain’s ideological justification for the conquest of India, Twain more explicitly endorsed the political rationale of the Raj: ‘Where there are eighty nations and several hundred governments, fighting and quarrelling must be the common business of life; unity of purpose and policy are impossible.’ The beneficence of British rule flowed logically from these premises. ‘When one considers what India was under her Hindoo and Mohammedan rulers, and what she is now; when he remembers the miseries of her millions then and protections and humanities which they enjoy now, he must concede that the most fortunate thing that has ever befallen that empire was the establishment of British supremacy here.’
7 Quotes from Still Me that will Make you Fall in Love All Over Again.
Jojo Moyes- the author of bestsellers- Me Before You and After You brings the third Lou Clark novel- Still Me. The third book sees Lou arrive in New York to start a new life. She is quickly hurled into the world of the super-rich Gopniks: Leonard and his second wife, Agnes. Before she knows what’s happening, Lou is mixing in New York high society, where she meets Joshua Ryan, a man who brings with him a whisper of her past.
Here are 7 quotes from the book, Still Me that will make you fall in love all over again.
30 Books You Must Read if you Love Football
Football is the unifying factor for many people across the world. Fans in those 90 minutes of play experience a wide range of emotions, from sadness to euphoria. There’s no doubt why football is deemed as one of the most spectated sports in the world.
So, if you also live and breathe football, here is a list of books you must read:
Ronaldo 2018
A three-time winner of the FIFA Ballon d’Or, Cristiano Ronaldo’s status as a footballing superstar is unquestionable. In this biography, Madrid-based journalist Luca Caioli tells the inside story of the global superstar, featuring insights from those who know him best and even the man himself. Updated to include all the action from the 2016/17 season, Ronaldo lays bare the career of a modern footballing icon.
Messi 2018
Having risen to the top of the game more than a decade ago, Lionel Messi has matured into the perfect team player. As the star of an exceptional Barcelona team, he has won more silverware than most football clubs. Messi is Luca Caioli’s classic portrait of a footballing icon, now fully updated to include all the action from 2016/17. Featuring exclusive testimony from those who know him best, it offers an unrivalled behind-the-scenes look at the career of a sporting giant.
Neymar 2018
Having long been hailed as a future star of world soccer, Neymar has thrived under the pressure of expectation. Already well on his way to becoming Brazil’s all-time top scorer, his legacy is already taking shape. Updated to include all the action from the 2016/17 season, Neymar paints a compelling picture of the life and career of a global superstar.
Pogba
When Manchester United re-signed their former youth player Paul Pogba for a world record fee in the summer of 2016, they made a powerful statement. In the four years since he had left the Reds, Pogba had blossomed into a midfielder of undoubted world class. With exclusive insights from those closest to the player, Luca Caioli’s Pogba is an in-depth portrait of one of modern football’s greatest talents.
Griezmann
Quick, incisive and versatile, Antoine Griezmann is the ultimate modern forward. Arriving in 2014 to join an Atletico Madrid side persistently challenging for the biggest trophies in Spanish and European football, he quickly established himself as the team’s key player and main goal threat. In this first biography of the Atleti and France star, Madrid-based journalist Luca Caioli examines the story behind Griezmann’s rise to the top.
Messi vs. Ronaldo 2017
In 2009 Real Madrid paid £80m, a then record fee, to sign a ready-made superstar in an effort to keep pace with a Barcelona side that had won it all. In doing so, they sparked a rivalry like no other; Messi vs Ronaldo. Drawing on testimonies from those closest to the two stars, Luca Caioli tells the inside story of this fascinating rivalry.
Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo 2017
Lionel Messi, Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo have risen from humble beginnings in Argentina, Brazil and Portugal to rank among the most exciting talents football has ever seen. Comparing their contrasting styles, stories, records and awards, Caioli presents a unique insight into what makes a modern player not just successful, but truly great.
Suarez 2016: The Remarkable Story Behind
Luis Suarez is one of the most brilliant and controversial players in world football. Signed by Barcelona in 2014 despite a lengthy ban for biting an opponent, he quickly became a central figure in their sensational treble-winning campaign. However, a history of violent on-pitch incidents has left supporters wondering whether the maverick centre forward can ever completely conquer his demons. This updated biography offers a unique behind-the-scenes look at the life and career of one of football’s most enigmatic stars.
Balotelli
Mario Balotelli has a reputation like no other in football. Since exploding on to the scene at Inter Milan in 2007, he has won league titles in both Italy and England, moving between Europe’s elite clubs. With exclusive access to friends, teammates and coaches, acclaimed football biographer Luca Caioli talks to the people best placed to explain the mystery that is Mario Balotelli.
Martial
On 1 September 2015, Anthony Martial completed his transfer from Monaco to Manchester United. At just 19 years of age, the fee of £36m (potentially rising to £58m) made the France international the most expensive teenager of all time. Renowned sports biographers Luca Caioli and Cyril Collot talk to coaches, teammates and even Martial himself, to provide an unrivalled behind-the-scenes look at the life of the teenage superstar.
Match of the Day Annual 2018
Complete with fun football trivia, quizzes, games, puzzles, top 10s, cartoons and more, this is the only annual fans of the beautiful game will need. Featuring Gary and all of the MOTD presenters, Paz, Bez and the planet’s top teams and players, Match of the Day Annual 2017 is the best around – it will be on the top of your Christmas list!
The Football Shirts Book
From the obscure to the ubiquitous, A Lover’s Guide to Football Shirts is packed with over 150 original and super rare shirts from the greatest game on earth. Covering everything from the iconic to the unusual, even the most hard-core fans will find out something new about the kit of their favourite team. Including full-colour photography, this guide offers a full exploration of the brands, design and sponsorship history behind the world’s best-loved football shirts..
Match of the Day: 50 Years of Football
Remember Sergio Aguero’s late goal to win the title for Man City? Or, best of all, Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick winning the World Cup for England in 1966? Over half a century, Match of the Day has witnessed some of the greatest moments in football history, week in, week out. In this milestone 50th year, Match of the Day celebrates the very best of the drama and the heartache. With evocative memorabilia and photography throughout, relive the story of the beautiful game, season-by-season.
The Periodic Table of Football
You can never take what you love too seriously and The Periodic Table of Football celebrates this fact. Instead of hydrogen to helium, here you’ll find Pelé to Sepp Blatter – 108 elements from the football pantheon arranged by their properties and behaviour on and off the pitch. This expert guide and accompanying poster spans over 150 years to offer an original perspective of the beautiful game.
The Football Manager’s Guide to Football Management
The Football Manager Guide to Football Management is for anyone who has ever believed that they could do a better job than their club’s manager. It’s for anyone who has ever tried to prove that point by taking the hot seat in the management simulation Football Manager. So if, at any point in your life, you have imagined yourself in a tracksuit, waving your arms in the air on the touchline, with your perfect XI scribbled on the back of a beer mat and thinking ahead to the press conference, then this book is for you. After all, you’re already a football manager… you just haven’t been appointed yet.
Barefoot to Boots: The Many Lives of Indian Football
A thrilling account of the incredible journey of Indian football. In Barefoot to Boots, renowned journalist Novy Kapadia reveals Indian football’s glorious legacy through riveting descriptions of on-field action, stories of memorable matches, lively anecdotes, and exclusive conversations with legendary players and officials.
The Football Book
The ultimate visual guide to planet football. Revised and updated to include details of all the stats, goal tallies and cup wins so you can now relive the excitement of the Brazil 2014 World Cup. With The Football Book, you’ll discover the finest moments of the players, coaches and teams who have created football history and learn everything from match highlights to the inside stories on the players, managers and fans.
Football – Bloody Hell!
Sir Alex Ferguson is the most controversial and compelling figure in football. For many he ranks as the greatest manager of all time. He is certainly the most successful. Ferguson has been instrumental in making the Premier League the most successful competition in football, and he has endured while the mountains of cash have turned to valleys of debt. Throughout, award-winning journalist Patrick Barclay has been pitch-side and spoken to all those who know Ferguson best – fellow managers, former players, colleagues and commentators. The result is Football – Bloody Hell!: the definitive work on the game’s greatest living legend.
Matt Busby: The Definitive Biography
Sir Matt Busby, who took Manchester United to unprecedented glory before seeing the club through profound tragedy, created the global entity that spreads from Old Trafford today. In this definitive biography, Patrick Barclay looks back at Busby’s phenomenal life and career, including the rise of the Busby Babes in the 1950s, the Munich disaster that claimed 23 lives and the Wembley victory ten years on that made United the first English team to win the European Cup.
The Illustrated History of Football
In The Illustrated History of Football, his first book, David Squires relives some of football’s most glorious moments and meets its greatest figures. In a sport full of handsome paycheques and corporate sponsors, he also casts a critical eye over corrupt backroom workings and helps pierce football’s overblown balloon. Funny, good-looking and preternaturally astute, this book is everything Sepp Blatter wishes he could be.
How to Watch Football
How can one striker be better than three? Why do the best defenders never need to make a tackle? What’s the secret of Tiki-taka? Welcome to Ruud Gullit’s masterclass on how to ‘read’ a match. From his unrivalled perspective as player, manager and pundit, the Dutch football legend shows us everything to look for in a 90-minute match. From formations and tactical decisions to player qualities and pivotal moments, Ruud Gullit unveils the hidden patterns on the pitch – as if he’s sitting right there on the sofa next to you.
The Secret Footballer: What Goes on Tour
Since his first book was published in 2012, The Secret Footballer has been able to take the reader behind the scenes of footballers’ lives like no other player has been able, or will ever be able, to do. From Marbella and Ibiza to Dubai and Las Vegas, The Secret Footballer lays bare the worst, most embarrassing and most hilarious excesses of these fit and mostly fickle young men whose million-pound salaries, to use his own words, ‘open up a host of recreational opportunities’.
Why Soccer Matters
The world’s most popular sport goes by many names – soccer, football, the beautiful game – but fans have always agreed on one thing: The greatest player of all time was Pele. During his twenty-year career, he was heralded as an international treasure and his accomplishments on the field proved to be pure magic. Now, for the first time, the legendary star and humanitarian explores the sport’s recent history and provides new insights into the game.
The Fall of the House of FIFA
In this definitive account of FIFA’s rise and fall, David Conn, the game’s most respected investigative journalist, chronicles its earnest foundation in 1904 and its work developing football around the world, through to the staggering sweep and breadth of scandal now uncovered and the controversial votes that sent the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar.
The Book of Football Quotations
This compilation includes quotes from everyone – Shakespeare to Suarez, Camus to Cantona, Busby to Beckham – who has made an apt, pithy or comical comment about football. And not just footballers and managers either – fans, pundits, groundsmen, directors and wives all get to have their say too. Every subject is covered, from tactical debates to changing lifestyles, to produce a sometimes hilarious and always thought-provoking commentary on the game.
Messi
This definitive biography profiles the Argentinean soccer star of FC Barcelona, Lionel Messi. It also discusses his early childhood success, his training with the Barcelona junior team, and features fun facts like his favorite foods and his pet peeves. Updated throughout with new stats from the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
Messi, Neymar & Suarez
Lionel Messi, an attacking genius and longtime player on FC Barcelona, is widely recognized as one of the greatest soccer players in history. When the emerging Brazilian talent Neymar joined him in 2013, they became known as the Invincible Duo. Then, when the colorful Luis Suarez joined their roster the following year, the most unbeatable attacking unit in history had been created. Together, this trio has scored a record-breaking number of goals, and has proven time and again that their strategic unit outshines each player on his own.
Ronaldo
The story of the “ultimate footballer,” Cristiano Ronaldo. Covers the star’s youth in Madeira, his nicknames, his record with Manchester United, and includes a list of the numerous awards he has received. Updated throughout with stats from the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
Stars of World Soccer
Everyone knows Messi and Ronaldo–the current twin peaks of the most popular sport in the world–but who are their main competitors and their fiercest rivals for the crown of modern soccer? With colorful photography and fun facts, this lively and accessible book provides some answers: Stars of World Soccer tells you who these players are, where they come from, and what they have accomplished.
Stars of the World Cup: World Soccer
Learn all about twenty-eight of the best players competing for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, from unstoppable scorers like Messi and Ronaldo to crafty playmakers like Iniesta and Modric, and ironclad defenders like Philipp Lahm and Thiago Silva. Get the inside scoop on their strengths and weaknesses heading into the showdown in Brazil. See incredible action shots of their on-field wizardry.
Surprise Me by Sophie Kinsella – An Excerpt
After being together for ten years, Sylvie and Dan have a comfortable home, fulfilling jobs, beautiful twin girls, and communicate so seamlessly, they finish each other’s sentences. They have a happy marriage until it’s casually mentioned to them that they could be together for another sixty-eight years… and panic sets in.
They quickly decide to create little surprises for each other, to keep their relationship fresh and fun. Gradually, the surprises turn to shocking discoveries. And when a scandal from the past is uncovered, they begin to wonder if they ever really knew each other after all…
Number one bestselling author, Sophie Kinsella‘s emotionally charged, witty new standalone novel, Surprise Me is about love and long-term relationship survival – and how those we think we know best can sometimes surprise us the most.
Let’s read an excerpt from the book here-
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It’s good news, obviously. It’s great news. We’re super-healthy, we’re going to live long . . . we should be celebrating!
But sixty-eight more years of marriage? Seriously? I mean . . .
Seriously?
On the car journey home, we’re both quiet. I keep sending little glances to Dan when he’s not looking, and I can feel him doing the same to me.
‘So, that was nice to hear, wasn’t it?’ I begin at last. ‘About living till a hundred, and being married for . . .’ I can’t say the number out loud, I just can’t. ‘For a while longer,’ I end tamely.
‘Oh,’ replies Dan, without moving his head. ‘Yes. Excellent.’
‘Is that . . . what you imagined?’ I venture. ‘The marriage bit, I mean? The . . . uh . . . the length?’
There’s a huge pause. Dan is frowning ahead in that silent way he gets when his brain is dealing with some huge, knotty problem.
‘I mean, it’s kind of long,’ he says at last. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘It’s long.’ I nod. ‘It’s pretty long.’
There’s a bit more silence as Dan negotiates a junction and I offer him gum, because I’m always the gum-giver in the car.
‘But good long, right?’ I hear myself saying.
‘Absolutely,’ says Dan, almost too quickly. ‘Of course!’
‘Great!’
‘Great. So.’
‘So.’
We lapse into silence again. Normally I would know exactly what Dan’s thinking, but today I’m not quite sure. I look at him about twenty-five times, sending him tacit, thought-wave messages: Say something to me. And, Start a conversation. And, Would it kill you to look this way, just once? But nothing gets through. He seems totally wrapped up in his own thoughts. So at last I resort to doing the thing I never do, which is to say: ‘What are you thinking about?’
Almost immediately, I regret it. I’ve never been that wife who keeps asking, ‘What are you thinking about?’ Now I
feel needy and cross with myself. Why shouldn’t Dan think in silence for a while? Why am I prodding him? Why can’t I give him space?
On the other hand: what the hell is he thinking about?
‘Oh.’ Dan sounds distracted. ‘Nothing. I was thinking about loan agreements. Mortgages.’
Mortgages!
I almost want to laugh out loud. OK, this just shows the difference between men and women. Which is something I
don’t like saying, because I’m very much not a sexist – but honestly. There I am, thinking about our marriage, and there he is, thinking about mortgages.
‘Is there an issue with the mortgage or something?’
‘No,’ he says absently, glancing at the satnav. ‘Jeez, this route is going nowhere.’
‘So why were you thinking about mortgages?’
‘Oh, er . . .’ Dan frowns, preoccupied by his satnav screen.
‘I was just thinking about how before you sign up for one . . .’
He swings the wheel round, doing a U-turn and ignoring the
angry beeps around him. ‘. . . you know exactly how long the loan period is for. I mean, yes, it’s twenty-five years, but
then it’s done. You’re out. You’re free.’
Something clenches my stomach and before I can think straight, I blurt out, ‘You think I’m a mortgage?’
I’m no longer the love of his life. I’m an onerous financial arrangement.
‘What?’ Dan turns to me in astonishment. ‘Sylvie, we’re not talking about you. This isn’t about you.’
Oh my God. Again, I’m really not being sexist, but . . . men.
‘Is that what you think? Do you not hear yourself?’ I put on my Dan-voice to demonstrate. ‘“We’re going to be married for a massive long time. Shit. Hey, a mortgage is really good because after twenty-five years, you’re out. You’re free.”’ I resume my normal Sylvie-voice. ‘Are you saying that was a random thought process? Are you saying the two are unrelated?’
‘That is not—’ Dan breaks off as realization catches up with him. ‘That is not what I meant,’ he says with renewed vigour. ‘I’d actually forgotten all about that conversation with the doctor,’ he adds for good measure.
I shoot him a sceptical look. ‘You’d forgotten it?’
‘Yes. I’d forgotten it.’
He sounds so unconvincing, I almost pity him.
‘You’d forgotten about the sixty-seven more years we’ve got together?’ I can’t help laying a little trap.
‘Sixty-eight,’ he corrects instantly – then a tell-tale flush comes to his face. ‘Or whatever it is. As I say, I really don’t remember.’
He’s such a liar. It’s etched on his brain. Just like it is on mine.
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Kill time the cool way with these five must-reads
We believe you are always young at heart which means young adult books will always catch your attention no matter how old you are. This summer we have something for every type of reader- you like love stories, a little bit of magic, stories full of coincidences or mysteries about uncovering the truth? Don’t worry we have got you covered.
Here are 5 young adult books we can’t stop recommending enough this summer! Kill time the cool way by reading these must read books now!
The Sun is also a Star by Nicola Yoon
Natasha is a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. She is definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when her family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica.
Daniel has always been the good son, the good student, living up to his parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when he sees her, he forgets about all that. Something about Natasha makes him think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store―for the both of them.
Holding Up The Universe by Jennifer Niven
Everyone thinks they know Libby Strout, the girl once dubbed ‘America’s Fattest Teen’. But no one’s taken the time to look past her weight to get to see who she really is.
Everyone thinks they know Jack Maslin too. Yes, he’s got swagger, but he’s also mastered the art of fitting in. What no one knows is that Jack has a secret: he can’t recognize faces. Even his own brothers are strangers to him.
Until he meets Libby. When the two get tangled up in a cruel high school game which lands them in group counselling, Libby and Jack are both angry and then surprised. Because the more time they spend together, the less alone they feel. Because sometimes when you meet someone, it changes the world – theirs and yours.
Tradition by Brendan Kiely
The students at Fullbrook Academy are the elite of the elite, famous for their glamour and excess. Their traditions are sacred. But they can hide dark and dangerous secrets. Jules is in her senior year with one goal: to get out and start her life at college. Jamie is a sports star on a scholarship; Fullbrook is his chance to escape his past. After a school party ends in disaster, the two of them discover a terrible truth. Can the two of them stand together against Fulbrook’s most toxic traditions?
Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert
Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the strange bad luck biting at their heels.But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate – the Hazel Wood – Alice learns how bad her luck can really get. Her mother is stolen, by a figure who claims to come from the cruel supernatural world from her grandmother’s stories. Alice’s only lead is the message her mother left behind: STAY AWAY FROM THE HAZEL WOOD.
The Truth and Lies of Ella Black by Emily Barr
Ella Black seems to live the life most other seventeen-year-olds would kill for. Until one day, telling her nothing, her parents whisk her off to Rio de Janeiro. Determined to find out why, Ella takes her chance and searches through their things. And realises her life has been a lie. Her mother and father aren’t hers at all. Unable to comprehend the truth, Ella runs away, to the one place they’ll never think to look – the favelas. But there she learns a terrible secret – the truth about her real parents and their past.
The Art of Revival: Get to know how the magic of Translation works
K.R. Meera is an award-winning writer and bestselling author in Malayalam literature, who has published more than a dozen books including short stories, novels, and essays, winning some of the most prestigious literary prizes.
Ministhy S. is an IAS officer who is also a writer and translator. Her translation of K.R. Meera’s The Poison of Love has been widely lauded as a masterpiece.
Here we have the esteemed author K.R Meera in conversation with Ministhy S. talking about what really goes into translating a great story from Malayalam into English without losing out on it’s original essence.
The Unseeing Idol of Light by K.R. Meera, is a haunting tale that explores love and loss, blindness and sight, obsession and suffering-and the poignant interconnections between them.
Meera: Mini, when I first wrote Netronmeelanam (now published in English as The Unseen Idol of Light), I never imagined in my wildest dreams that it would ever be translated into English. I was always aware that this was a difficult novel to translate—with its many idioms and phrases along with certain cultural elements very specific to Malayalam and Kerala. To add to that, there were so many complex sentences with layered meanings too. The words I had used in Malayalam were carefully chosen to denote gloom and darkness, many of which do not have equivalents in English.
Ministhy: ‘Jalapisachu’ is one such term that is not easy to translate. It evokes a fairy-creature associated with water, but this is not a benign angel. It is an evil infestation. Women who are caught in its tentacles succumb to an obsessive compulsive disorder: having to bathe again and again, ceaselessly cleaning themselves of an imagined impurity. Now we have got a June afternoon infected by this malevolent water spirit. How do we capture the essence?
Meera: You are right. And unless one has seen the kind of fierce monsoon that Kerala has in June, one might not be able to fully enjoy the imagery this evokes. Isn’t it the same with the imagery of the night wearing jasmine flowers in its tresses?
Ministhy : Absolutely! The monsoon in Kerala wails wildly as it falls! And jasmines in a girl’s hair and the night with its stars—the imagery of your words and metaphors are so full of the essence of Kerala. And the nuances in the way you express certain things—the way Prakash ‘sees’ although he cannot see. For example, he reads Chekhov totally from his memory! You intended that the reader remembers Borges in this context. I hope they do!
Meera: It’s true that I had Borges in mind when I wrote this. I had read that he used to see things in yellow—and that fascinated me.
Ministhy: Rajani was difficult to capture. Though her way of love is familiar to most of us women. We are possessive, are we not? Deepti often seems too good to be true. The quintessential perfect woman. A metaphor like ‘a finger knocking softly against a bronze pitcher’ is so much part of Kerala milieu, just like snacks such as Mambhazhapulissery and Chakkaerissery. My computer keeps autocorrecting these dishes to ‘emissary’!
Meera: On the contrary, Rajani is the real woman. Deepti is the woman that Prakash and the patriarchal world wants to see. Even Rajani thinks Deepti is the ideal woman and that is why she keeps on searching for her. The real woman always commits suicide to gift the unreal woman to the man she loves.
Ministhy: Shyam’s presence is recognised by his special smell of crushed Mazhithandu. That inconspicuous plant thrives in our homes and as kids we used that stem to rub our slates clean in school! Pepper elder is the technical name of our Mazhitandu. Crushed pepper elder plant emanates a mustard odour. One will have to have experienced that to know.
Meera: The plant is Peperomia Pellucida. It is also called silver bush, pepper weed, and so on, in the West. Shyam can have any other odour, as there is no other plant which can represent one’s childhood in Kerala. I think it is the plant of friendship too—one which helps to rub our slates clean with its own stem.
Ministhy: You have used so many local idioms related to sight, even lines from Jnanapana, to emphasise that main theme. ‘What you see in your mind, I can see on that tree’ is a very colloquial saying used by Shyam when he guesses Prakash’s thoughts. It is pretty well known to a Keralite but unknown elsewhere. But in the original novel, you use that phrase deliberately—because soon after comes the reference to the mango tree which plays a major role in Prakash’s life. So one cannot change the words just to capture the essence of guessing. One needs to be careful and judicious in the act of translation. ‘Prakash turned…wondering if what he saw in his mind could also be seen on the tree.’
Meera: That is true. I understand some of the paragraphs in the original were quite inflexible for translation. For example, chakshusravanagalasthamam darduram... Now chakshusravanan is a Sanskrit word. Its meaning is one who hears with his eyes—that is, a snake. And darduram is frog. The line is very layered, and expresses that human life is nothing but a frog which is crying for its own food while already trapped in the jaws of a snake. This imagery is important when it comes to the discourse in the novel regarding justice and gender. I am so sorry about all the untranslatable phrases and words. But at the same time, thank you for retaining most of the similes I have used connecting nature and sight and justice.
Ministhy: Bengali, Telugu, Sanskrit , Malayalam—so many languages play a part in this novel. All these nuances in the translated novel have to flow seamlessly, just like in the original. But then, the reader should be able to understand without needing to constantly flick over to the glossary page.
Meera: The reviews we get prove that readers are happy with the translation. Hope you have noticed that my obsession—with Kolkata , the media, the death sentence and the noose, although here it is to hang one self—has already commenced, about five years before writing Hangwoman?
Ministhy: That is clear to anyone who has loved your Hangwoman!
One critical sentence, appearing twice in the original, which threw me into a deep translator’s conundrum was this one: ‘ When some women leave, they also take with them the sight of those men who had loved them…’ In Malayalam, ‘ snehicha purushan’ can mean ‘the man who loved the woman’ as well as the ‘the man whom the woman loved’. You left it so mysteriously for the reader to interpret!
In the first instance we refer to Deepti, so the line is clearly hinting at Prakash as the man who loved her. In the second instance, at the end of the novel, it refers to Rajani whom Prakash had never loved till then—but she had loved him. Even the word ‘leaving’ had changed in its nuance by the time the second sentence appears at the very end of the novel. The reader now knows who is alive and who is truly gone! So one could not just repeat the first sentence in English. The second sentence had to be tweaked to match the context. ‘When some women depart, they take along with them the sight of the men whom they loved.’
Meera: I remember the discussion we had on this. And it was fun seeing your remarks in answer to the editor’s queries: ‘The author deliberately uses this, etc.,’ especially where there were repeated sentences.
Ministhy: The bats, the bats! They are everywhere: as symbols, as metaphors, as creatures which hang upside down in cosmic darkness. I hope that these intentional recurring images are understood as part of the writer’s craft and not as an oversight in translation.
Meera: When the novel was published in Malayalam, a reader from the central jail wrote to me: ‘I liked your “novavvaal.” ‘Vavval’ in Malayalam means bat. As you said, it was deliberate—the whole “novel” is about the repeating cycle of life.
Ministhy: Ah, the puns and the wordplay in our mother tongue! The scenes of extra-sensory perception read like poetry. It catches the eerie sense of Rajani’s experience: as she catches sight of not only the past but also the inevitable future. That was very hard to translate—maintaining the rhythm of the prose as well as that intense sense of sadness.
Meera: I wish the poetry in the prose were also translated.
Ministhy: There are ironic usages, and subtle humour in episodes involving Shyam. His adventures with his inner wear and the Bhubaneshwar Express had to be translated very carefully. The background was really dark: corpses and morgues in the former and the loss of his life’s balance in the latter. The dark humour of the original novel deserved a very nuanced treatment. By the time Shyam tied the knot in the Bhubaneshwar temple, and slept without his inner wear for the first time willingly, the reader has to come full circle and smile with understanding.
Meera: Just imagine, Shyam has been travelling all his life in search of another man’s wife!
Ministhy: I translated the novel when I was undergoing Netronmeelanam in my own way. My eyes, too, opened to many truths and falsehoods. If The Poison of Love made me cry as a translator, this novel made me pause often and forced me to reflect about my own blind spots. I enjoyed the different rounds of meticulous editing with Ambar and Shatarupa.
Meera: Ambar and Shatarupa are great to work with. And by the way, I wish we could have also translated the word Netronmeelanam and coined a word to make clear that it is the last of the five rituals by which a statue of a Hindu god becomes fit to worship—by opening its eyes. Netra means eyes and Unmeelanam means opening.
Ministhy: The title underwent many interesting discussions. From the literal translation ‘Opening the Eyes’ which was in the draft, to the evolution of the title ‘The Unseeing Idol of Light’ was a great journey, capturing sight, light, the refusal to see, the insight awaiting.
Meera: Yes, it was one of the greatest challenges regarding this translation.
Ministhy: How does one make Prakash’s ability to read, write and function normally seem plausible, when he is totally blind ? What seemed so easy to accept in the original had to be carefully structured in the translation. Could a blind man gaze? Or does he turn his head? He ‘sees’ . . . but how?
Meera: But then a reader is supposed to understand that sight is just one of the five senses!
Ministhy : ‘ Prakash continued to look at her, impassive. Baffled by his relentless gaze, Rajani felt consumed with envy and frustration. Perhaps he was not seeing her. Perhaps he was seeing someone else in her face. Perhaps he was seeing no one at all….’
Meera: Seeing in Malayalam means understanding too! And this man could see with his mind as sight was half light and half imagination.
Ministhy: I started translating one chapter at a time in December 2015. I used to send it to you and a few friends. By March, I had completed the first round. The real hard work was yet to begin. The draft underwent multiple revisions and many rounds of intense editing. I was so proud to see the gorgeous book which was created by the great team at Penguin and I was thankful on reading the Author’s Note.
Meera: Your speed is amazing, Mini. Be it translation or the original, I wish to work and rework till there is nothing more I can do. I like to invest all my time into the work I am doing. So I am always nervous about a published book.
Ministhy: There were so many incidents of serendipity which inspired me during the translation of this novel too. Many books with reference to ‘ insight’ and ‘blind heroes’ sort of leapt out of bookshelves and into my hands during the three-year period it took for the novel to be published! Prakasham Illanjappol ( When there is no light/Prakash) by Bengali writer Asha Poorna Debi in translation reached my hands in a wondrous way. It was the story of the blind Adinadh, for whom sight meant words! The blurb read that the novel captures the helplessness of people caught in the struggle between light and darkness. I recall WhatsApping you that book cover in awe!
Meera: Yes. While I was writing the original, I got the book Phantoms in the Brain by Dr V.S. Ramachandran. I got the information about ‘blind spot’ from it. I got the book very unexpectedly. One day the late Murali, one of the greatest actors that Malayalam Cinema has ever seen and a friend of my husband, visited us and asked me whether I had read the book. I said no and he said he would send it. He sent it to me and I opened it casually and happened to chance upon the page which was talking about the blind spot.
Ministhy: Quotations which left me stunned, smiled at me from odd places. For example, the mobile cover I got for my phone, had a message inscribed inside: ‘Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Open your mind and design yourself.’ I was gobsmacked! Then I knew that this translation effort was destined.
Meera: Maybe we are seeing what we want to see. After all, everything we have seen and will be seeing is nothing but half light and half imagination.
For Reasons of State – An Excerpt
In 1977, two staff reporters at the Patriot – John Dayal and Ajoy Bose – both in their twenties, occupied highly advantageous positions during the nineteen months of the Emergency to observe the turmoil wrought in the capital city of Delhi. In their book, For Reasons of State, they have supplied first-hand evidence of the ruthlessness with which people’s homes were torn down and the impossible resettlement schemes introduced.
The nation found itself in a whirlwind of fear, confusion, violence and destabilization, stemming from forced sterilizations, heartless evictions in the thousands, and the cruel imprisonment of many.
Here is an excerpt from the introduction of their book.
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The trouble with the post-election situation in India in 1977 is that the tiny bushes in the foreground have hidden the forest behind. Also hidden, from the less probing eyes, are the myriad beasts that had prowled the jungle so menacingly for twenty months and may well be there still, albeit in an enforced hibernation, hoping for more suitable climes before they flex their muscles again. After the Emergency was relaxed just before the elections to the Lok Sabha, information had trickled down about cases of police brutality in Delhi and the states.
After the new Janata Party government was formed at the Centre, a large volume of reports has appeared on corruption, specially favours shown with or without political duress to companies associated with Sanjay Gandhi and his friends. The Maruti scandal has been hogging newspaper headlines and public discussions and, for the time being, till perhaps the various commissions start their proceedings, even the reports of excesses during the Emergency have tended to take a back seat.
Formidable as it is, Maruti is not the final personification, nor even the most characteristic symbol, of despotic rule under the Emergency. At best it betrays only the logical extension of the happenings that had taken place and in which the principals had acted by the rule of the bazaar to make cash capital out of the political and administrative situation they had so successfully managed to create. This has been brought about by the total depoliticization of society and by the perversion of the administrative system which had indeed for quite some time before the Emergency become ripe for being taken over by upstarts.
Officials and politicians of even the petty variety are explaining their activities during the Emergency as being born out of fear. But it is worth remembering that fear was only one, and in fact for the senior officers and politicians, almost the least important, of the factors responsible for the situation. Those who have closely watched the administrative process of the Union Territory of Delhi just before, during, and after the months of Emergency would know that the diabolical plan was not just a case of Sanjay Gandhi or his friends creating people who would do their bidding. It was a case of such people existing within the administration, simultaneously finding an extra-constitutional centre of authority and recognizing in it the powerhead that would help them in their own respective ambitions. The ambitions of the politician, the official and the bosses of the youth wing of the ruling party had become coterminous, so identical as to be indistinguishable from one another.
At a general level, it now is easy to see the strategy that had been adopted to utilize the situation. In the political institution of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC), the Congress-run Delhi Administration controlled eventually by a nominated lieutenant governor, the superseded municipal corporation run by an official of the DDA, the Delhi State Industrial Development Corporation (DSIDC) for industries, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), the subordinate electricity producer and distributor Delhi Electricity Supply Undertaking (DESU), Delhi University (DU) and in Delhi Police which is controlled simultaneously by the lieutenant governor and the central government, there had existed a situation just before the Emergency which had created a coterie of officials bent on consolidating individual power. Internal rivalries and power grouping had reduced most of these institutions which ostensibly had a democratic functioning but in reality were administered on factors more personal to a state where they lacked the internal strength to resist any attempt at their perversion by outside forces.
The ‘extra-constitutional source of power’ recognized this factor and played on it skilfully. These forces in turn had recognized in the concept of Sanjay Gandhi just the additional impetus they needed for themselves. The implementation of the five-point programme became the yardstick of the competition between the various power groups. The number of trees planted, houses demolished and sterilizations done became the measure of closeness of these various groups to Sanjay Gandhi.
Requiem in Raga Janki – An Excerpt
Based on the real-life story of Hindustani singer Janki Bai Ilahabadi (1880-1934), Requiem in Raga Janki by Neelum Saran Gaur is the beautifully rendered tale of one of India’s unknown gems.
Janki Bai Ilahabadi enthralled listeners wherever she performed, and counted as her fans maharajas and maharanis, poets and judges, nawabs and government officials-everyone. She was Janki ‘Chhappan Chhuri’, Janki of the fifty-six knives-attacked in her youth, she surviveed miraculously. Brought up in a nautch house, she rose to become the queen of Allahabad, her voice taking her from penury to palaces and royal durbars.
Here is an excerpt for her incredible story.
Her name lingers in certain locations still—Bai ka Bagh, Liddle Road, Rasoolabad. There is a godown on the Jawaharlal Nehru Road that is used to store Magh Mela tents and other equipment. There is a large field at the Police Lines. And a crumbling monument in the Kaladanda cemetery called Chhappan Chhuri ki Mazaar. I will tell you what I know of her and also what I guess and imagine.
Chhappan Chhuri was Janki’s nickname—she of the fifty-six knife gashes. I don’t think that that figure, fifty-six, is to be taken literally. She herself wrote somewhere that the number of stabs far exceeded the proverbial fifty-six which was a mere metaphor, an attractive alliteration endorsed by confusion and inaccurate reportage. With time it assumed other cloaks of innuendo so that ‘Chhappan Chhuri’ suggests someone armed with many weapons of assault, a woman of lethal witchery, of potentially heart-piercing beauty—such the devilry of words. But really she was none of these. She was just a woman who’d survived a murderous attack and who carried on her body dozens of scars which would become her signature of identity, conjoined to her name, Janki Bai.
There are three different accounts of the stabbings and no one knows which the authentic one was, and Janki’s own account is versions. In one account a crazed fan, spurned, worked his rage on her. But that does seem unlikely. She was barely eight, according to this account, when it is supposed to have happened and her protective mother could not have turned away a besotted lover from her mehfil simply because she hadn’t started entertaining audiences that way. That’s just one of those romantic stories that attach themselves to people as image enhancers for posterity. It seems that Janki herself initiated this account in the introduction to her diwan of verses, little realizing the transparent inconsistency of it. I can understand her reasons, though. She was a marked woman, quite literally, her skin torn in crumpled gullies of stitched together flesh, lines which the decades had failed to erase. That was the very first thing people saw, the disfigurement. It followed her everywhere. I can’t say if she ever really accepted it. It’s possible that it had sunk into the grain but it did not surface in her voice as any obvious ache. Nothing so trite. Rather, there was the powerful swell and soar of overcoming. But for purposes of history some subterfuge was in order, especially in times of circumspect and censored telling. And especially in situations of family shame. What is stated as an authentic truth is not so much a deliberate lie but a carefully composed face-saving fiction to answer the disquieting personal questions that are bound to crop up. Like all the plasters of lentil paste, soaked and buried in earthen pots, the unguents of sandalwood and turmeric and flour, the masks of clayof-Multan and honey and lime, the story doesn’t quite camouflage or convince.
But desperate efforts to conceal what has clearly remained unhealed must be respected. There was a second version in circulation, that she was attacked by a rival singer whom she had outsung at a durbar soirée organized by the maharani of Benaras.
There is even a name to this shadowy assailant—Raghunandan Dubey. She was eight years old, a singing prodigy, and she defeated a much older and far more established singer, and consequently she was the victim of a jealous attack. She did not die but underwent treatment generously paid for by the maharani, who took an interest in her. And when she recovered, her mother, afraid to stay on in Benaras with all its vicious intrigues and rivalries, brought her to Allahabad and they made a life for themselves quite different from the earlier one.
Let me first recount the concocted history, the version invented by Janki as preferable to what did happen. Let us place it all as Janki would want us to, the music chamber, the crowd of connoisseurs, the shy loveliness of the little songstress, who’d trained under Koidal Maharaj of Benaras himself, rendering ‘Jamuna tat Shyam khelein Hori’, and the man who came as just another one in the crowd, accepted the paan, acknowledged the itr and the proffered wine and lolled back on the bolster and listened intently. He wasn’t old and he wasn’t young. They noticed him the very first time when he produced two banknotes from his achkan pocket and beckoned to Janki. She had only just finished a song. Obligingly she slipped up to him, smiled and sank to her knees in a graceful swirl of silk and tinsel and a cascade of tinkling anklet chimes. He circled the notes around her head and tossed them into the ornate silver dish that lay alongside his bolster. They were all taken aback at the amount though they did not show it. Janki raised her jewelled fingertips to her brow in a salaam, a shy flush playing on her young face.
