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.
Snippets from the New Murder Mystery in Town
In Bulbul Sharma’s new book, Murder at the Happy Home for the Aged, the tranquillity at the Happy Home is shattered when a body is found hanging in the garden. The inhabitants of the home are first perplexed, then decide to come together to solve the murder that has suddenly brought the violence of the world into their Goan arcadia.
Set in the lush landscape of Goa, where tourists flock from all over the world, where the rich set come to play, bringing in their wake fortune-hunters and other predators, the cast of possible murderers is infinite. But patiently, and with flashes of inspiration, the unlikely detectives follow the clues and in doing so emerge from the isolated and separate worlds they had inhabited for so long.
Here are some snippets from the book that you’re bound to enjoy!
Fuzzies vs Techies in the World of Innovation
Scott Hartley first heard the terms ‘fuzzy’ and ‘techie’ while studying political science at Stanford University. If you had majored in the humanities or social sciences, you were a fuzzy. If you had majored in the computer sciences, you were a techie. This informal division quietly found its way into a default assumption that has misled the business world for decades-that it’s the techies who drive innovation.
In his book, The Fuzzy and the Techie, Hartley looks inside some of the world’s most dynamic new companies, reveals breakthrough fuzzy-techie collaborations, and explores how such associations are at the centre of innovation in business, education and government, and why liberal arts are still relevant in our techie world.
Here is an excerpt.
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The terms ‘fuzzy’ and ‘techie’ are used to respectively describe those students of the humanities and social sciences, and those students of the engineering or hard sciences at Stanford University. Stanford is what’s known as a ‘liberal arts’ university not because it focuses on subjects that are necessarily liberal, or artistic, but because each student is required to study a broad set of subjects prior to specialization. The term liberal arts comes from the Latin, artes liberales, and denotes disciplines such as music, geometry, and philosophy that can together stretch the mind in different directions and, in that process, make it free. Each of these subjects is meant to broaden the student, force them to think critically, to debate, and to grapple with ambiguities inherent in subjects like philosophy. They are also meant to help the student cultivate empathy for others in subjects such as literature, which forces one to view the world through the eyes of another human being. In short, they are less focused on specific job preparation than they are about the cultivation of a well-rounded human being. But at Stanford, beneath these light-hearted appellations of ‘fuzzies’ and ‘techies’ also rest some charged opinions on degree equality, vocational application, and the role of education. Not surprisingly, these are opinions that have bubbled well beyond the vast acreage of Stanford’s palm-fringed quads and golden hillsides, into Silicon Valley. In fact, these questions of degree equality, automation and relevant skill sets in tomorrow’s technologyled economy are ones we face in India and across the world.
This decades-old debate to separate liberal arts majors from the students who write code and develop software has come to represent a modern incarnation of physicist and novelist Charles Perry Snow’s Two Cultures a false dichotomy between those who are versed in the classical liberal arts, and those with the requisite vocational skills to succeed in tomorrow’s technology-led economy. In India, from the earliest entrance exam standards that determine whether or not students move toward or away from engineering, we have created policy and education pathways that separate rather than foster an understanding between these ‘two cultures.’ Whether a student sits for the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) for admission to an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), for the Birla Institute of Technology and Science Admission Test (BITSAT), the VIT Engineering Entrance Exam for a coveted engineering seat at Vellore Institute of Technology or for a regional common entrance exam in Maharashtra, Karnataka, or West Bengal, students are quickly funneled down very specific predetermined paths, and are perhaps less able to explore their own passions or values. And this is not specific or unique to India, but endemic across many cultures and societies.
This book not only seeks to reframe this ongoing debate, by taking into account the very real need for science, technology, engineering and math, so-called ‘STEM’ majors, but also acknowledges their faux opposition to the liberal arts. Indeed, as we evolve our technology to make it ever more accessible and democratic, and as it becomes ever more ubiquitous, the timeless questions of the liberal arts have become essential requirements of our new technological instruments. While those fabled graduates of the Indian Institutes of Technology, or of the great engineering academies such as Manipal, develop critical skills and retain steadfast importance in laying the technological infrastructure, most successful start-ups require great industry context, psychology in understanding user needs and wants, intuitive design, and adept communication and collaboration skills. These are the very skill sets our graduates in literature, philosophy, and the social sciences provide. These are not separate or add-on skills, but the imperative components alongside any technological literacy.
As a fuzzy having grown up in a techie world, this false dichotomy has been something I observed in Palo Alto, California, where Steve Jobs donated the Apple computers we used in high school. This was something I observed furthermore as a Stanford student; as an employee of Google, where I spent over a year launching two teams in Hyderabad and Gurugram, India, as an employee of Facebook, and then as a venture capitalist at a $2-billion fund on Sand Hill Road, California. Peering behind the veil of our greatest technology, it is often our greatest humanity that makes it whole. Having met with thousands of companies, the story I want to share with India is that no matter what you’ve studied, there is a very real, and a very relevant, role for you to play in tomorrow’s tech economy. Our technology ought to provide us with great hope rather than fear, and we require policymakers, educators, parents and students to recognize this false divide between becoming technically literate, and building on our most important skills as humans.
Our greatest human problems require that we blend an appreciation for technology with a continued respect for those who study the human conditions, for they are the ones who teach us how to apply our technology, and to what ends it must actually be purposed. We ought to consider the true value of the liberal arts as we continue to embrace and pioneer our new technological tools. As we move forward, we require the timeless and the timely, the great poets and literature of Bengal and the glass-towers of Bengaluru.
Who took to Yoga in the Shakespearean world? Find Out!
If our friends from the Shakespearean world were to celebrate International Yoga Day with us, this is a little of what it would look like. Here are some of the famous characters, who took to yoga. Let’s take a look!
Discover India: Four things your little ones should know about Odisha
Mishki and Pushka have never seen a place as amazing as Earth. They are here from their home planet, Zoomba! Join them as they travel across India with Daadu Dolma, the sweet old man they meet.
Mishi is in a hurry to visit the next state. “Where are we going this time?” she asks Daadu Dolma, jumping up and down. Daadu tells her that the three of them are off to visit a beautiful state that is historical and very interesting and also has yummy food. They’re on their way to Odisha!
Here are four things they learn there.
That must mean there were dinosaurs and other pre-historic beasts roaming this region at one time. But rocks are not all it has. There are ridges and plateaus that have been created by soil from rivers and sand blown in by the wind.
It even supports many fishermen, who make their living through this lake.
A tribe called the Juangs have the most organized system. In the centre of this community’s village is the largest hut. It has walls on three sides and is open in the front. The walls are decorated with patterns.
There are Pattachitra artists and pipli art. Weaving is popular here and they have names like khandua, saktapda, bomkai and tarabali. Kansaris are the artists who create wonderful brass pieces.
This Yoga Day, Change Your Body The Healthy Way!
Here’s a question that has been bugging the best of us for quite some time now: Can you change the shape of your body and can it be done naturally? Well, the answer is yes, you can undertake this transforming journey with the help of Payal Gidwani Tiwari’s book, From XL to XS: A Fitness Guru’s Guide To Changing Your Body.
The book carries simple and easy to follow principles and exercise routines that will teach you how to lose (or gain) weight, stay fit, and transform your body structure.
Here are 5 reasons why you should take up yoga starting this yoga day:
Yoga works on your internal organs:
Yoga exercises massage the internal organs. For instance, when you do Paschimottanasana and bend forward, your hamstring is stretched, your hip area opens up completely, and your internal organs like the spleen, stomach, and intestines are kneaded, due to which there is an extra flow of blood to the nerves and muscles.
Yoga teaches you the right way to breathe and to control your breathing:
Proper breathing allows you to connect with basic and fundamental aspects of daily life. A well rounded yoga breathing practice that includes calming, balancing, and simulating practices, can promote the health of your respiratory system by improving the strength and flexibility or your chest muscles and fascia as well as improving the alignment of your ribs and spine.
Yoga propels you on the path of self-realization:
At its foundation- yoga is the science of knowing yourself. With regular practice, you can understand your emotions, repressed feelings, your likes and dislikes better.
Yoga can help you lose weight:
Yoga is one of the safest ways to lose weight and regular yoga is guaranteed to make you look and feel younger and more beautiful.
Yoga can change the shape of your body:
With regular practice of yoga you can get the body you dream of and look at yourself in the mirror with confidence and pride. By working on your specific problem areas, you can change the structure of your body.
