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The Pokhran tests: An under-recognised success story under Vajpayee’s leadership

Posted on by vanyajaiswal

Former Prime Minister of India and member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Atal Bihari Vajpayee was an understated politician of the kind not often seen in contemporary times. His patriotism was uncompromising, forged out of the paradoxes in his life: a sensitive poet who summoned nerves of steel to conduct the Pokhran-II nuclear tests. In Vajpayee, an intimate memoir of the consummate leader, we get a detailed look into the behind-the-scenes of the Pokhran tests, a glorious albeit controversial turning point in the history of India.

**

Vajpayee’s rationale for conducting nuclear tests in 1998:

‘Hiroshima and Nagasaki had deeply affected him. He wrote a poem, ‘Hiroshima Ki Peeda’, where he talked of waking up in the middle of the night and wondering how the scientists who had made those powerful atomic weapons slept after hearing about the destruction caused by their creations. Did they not for a moment regret what they had done? If they had a sense of remorse, then time would not judge them. But if they did not, then history would never forgive them. Vajpayee’s poem and his decision to go ahead with the test are not contradictory. He came to the conclusion that if India had to live in peace in its neighbourhood, credible nuclear deterrence was essential. Nuclear weapons prevent wars, was his constant refrain.’

 

‘The second, seemingly contradictory, line of thinking behind the tests was his deeply held view that India was destined to be a great power. Possession of nuclear weapons, in the world we inhabited, was the minimum entry criterion for that club. Japan and Germany, whose recent economic successes did not guarantee them the status of a great power, underscored this idea. Vajpayee’s belief in India was immeasurable, and while he did not say it, his body language that day seemed to indicate that he was happy to be an important instrument in that quest. An insecure nation could not be a great power—this was the powerful motivation that drove this decision to test.’

 

The volatile international reaction that followed:

‘The initial American reactions seemed too understated, but not for long. Clinton reacted angrily in public. He said that India’s action ‘not only threatens the stability of the region, it directly challenges the firm international consensus to stop proliferation of weapons of mass destruction’.’

 

‘The Japanese reaction was expected, as it was the only country to have been at the receiving end of nuclear weapons. It froze all aid, which, unlike in the case of the US, was a substantial amount, in excess of US$1 billion.’

 

‘The Germans also announced a moratorium on aid, which, at US$300 million, was far above American levels. China’s initial reaction was subdued, probably because they were aware of Indian ire at the Sino–Pak cooperation. In fact, to our surprise, Russia’s language was stronger; Boris Yeltsin said that he was disappointed and felt let down.’

 

Vajpayee addresses the Parliament about the controversial decision and its significance for India:

front cover of Vajpayee
Vajpayee || Shakti Sinha

‘India had demonstrated its nuclear capability in 1974, and Vajpayee reminded the members of Parliament that Indira Gandhi, speaking on the nuclear issue, had told Parliament in 1968 that ‘we shall be guided entirely by self-enlightenment and considerations of our national security’. He complimented all governments since 1974 for safeguarding India’s nuclear option by not signing the CTBT, despite the mounting international pressure.’

 

‘He situated his decision to test in the context of the India’s deteriorating security environment due to missile and nuclear proliferation in its neighbourhood. The increase in the number of nuclear weapons and the deployment of sophisticated delivery systems could not be ignored. Worse, India faced terrorism, militancy and clandestine war. In the absence of any movement towards disarmament, and keeping in mind the needs of national security, the difficult decision to test had to be taken.’

 

‘Taking his argument further, Vajpayee made it clear that India did not seek the status of a Nuclear Weapons State from anybody because it was already one. This was a reality, and with this added strength came added responsibilities. India’s nuclear weapons were not to be used for aggression or for mounting threats to other countries. Rather, Vajpayee explained, they were weapons of self-defence, which would prevent India from being subject to nuclear threats or coercion in the future. India did not intend to engage in an arms race.’

 

** 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five crucial and unforgettable lessons from Sri M

Posted on by ashmita

In an interview with The Daily Guardian, Sri M said ‘Fiction is not meant to preach lessons but since there is no fiction without a factual core, readers are sure to be influenced.’

He wasn’t wrong. The stories from his book The Homecoming gave us several valuable lessons to take away, even if that might not have been the intention.

 

  1. Death of a builder

While the story resounds with deep irony, it is also a call to awareness of how intricately human lives and nature are entangled. Now more than ever we have started to live our lives as though nothing outside of our immediate need and greed exists, but in 2020 should have taught us anything, it is that we cannot continue to live in isolation if we want the planet to survive. The story is a beautiful take on a silkworm on its way to metamorphose into a moth before its untimely destruction by harvesters to make silk for the clothes of deities and people who have no time for the actual producer of this silk, or any care for its life.

 

  1. The Porter
Front cover The Homecoming
The Homecoming||Sri M

Krishna is a porter who doesn’t covet other people’s wealth, but circumstances drive him to make an exception. But the story is brutal. He asks for God’s forgiveness in case he doesn’t something wrong, but that forgiveness is not granted, and any wealth Krishna was hoping to gain comes at an enormous price. Perhaps the lesson is that there should be no exceptions to one’s integrity. After all, we can never know the true nature of the exception we are making.

 

  1. The Thief

Sambu, the thief, has the strangest encounter with an old woman, and his life is changed forever. Driven to thieving by dire circumstances and the urgent compulsion to feed his family, Sambu is given a new chance at life. We have the transformative capacity of changing other people’s lives for the better; those who need help can in fact be given a new chance at life if we’re willing to share our privileges with them.

 

  1. The Dimwitted Genius

While Kitcchu does not do well in school, and does not seem to have the aptitude the rest of his classmates do, there is something special about him. He soars in Mathematics and music, and none of his teachers can explain why. In a narrative about a higher secret mission, Sri M once again raises a more direct and urgent flag about the environmental impact humans have on the planet. In some ways, his story has a bleaker underline – the human footprint on the planet is so irreparably destructive, that perhaps only a long-winded miracle can save us now.

 

  1. The Homecoming

When Shivanna mysteriously disappears, his parents’ lives are thrown in a tailspin. But it is soon discovered that Shivanna has left of his own accord, searching for the spiritual Truth that he has read about in the scriptures. He travels from Madikeri to Haridwar, but ends up finding his truth much closer to home than expected. Introspection helps us stay rooted in our pursuits. While journeys across lands may seem necessary, we most often end up chasing after empty illusions. More often than not, what we seek lies closer to home, waiting to be found.

Lord Krishna’s fatal encounter with the hunter Jara

Posted on by vanyajaiswal

As the Mahabharata war wages on, it shows no mercy and takes no prisoners. Death and destruction abound.

In the midst of a world rendered unrecognizable by the lust for power, malice and the machinations of war stand Bhishma, contemplating the immeasurable death he sees around himself as a man who cannot die, Draupadi, above and beyond the chaos and yet at the very centre of it, trying to protect her husbands at any cost, wondering whom to trust, and Arjuna, beloved, conflicted and melancholic in equal measure, uncertain of the ultimate cost of the war he is intent on winning. The Dharma Forest is a magnificent first novel in a trilogy filled with complex characters, conflicted loyalties and erotic jealousies from India’s most beloved epic.

Here’s an intriguing excerpt from the book.

**

By the time the arrowhead left the bow’s frontal arch, Jara was already filled with regret. He could have been more patient; he could have not abandoned his aspiration for non-violence; he could have not surrendered to who he truly was—one who loved to hunt and kill. All the while as the arrow travelled, Jara noticed that the trees had stopped swaying and the winds ceased their frenzied moves. Every falling twig was now audible, each drop of dew hit the grounds with a crackle. Up from the trees, the leaves began to abandon their tenuous bonds with the branches, frogs scampered around their puddles nervously and birds in the skies circled anxiously, like expectant fathers at the hour of birth. The forest stilled itself in anticipation. And the evening sky had acquired a darkness that Jara had rarely seen. The world was now brimming over with portents that not even the darkest oracles could fathom. And then, all too suddenly, he heard the arrow land with a thud and tear into some flesh which, ironically, brought about a semblance of normalcy to that moment thanks to the iron laws of cause and effect which had now seemingly prevailed. His arrow, as always, had found its mark, and Jara sighed in relief—finally!—as if some long nursed revenge had eventually found its release. From afar, he could see a pool of blood begin to flow and wet the grounds, and a voice in his head told him that an hour of sacrament was near.

Jara ran towards his mark, past the small ponds and the trees, to inspect the animal that lay there. Even as he hurried, he prayed that he may find an injured deer and not a dead one. To assuage his guilt, he told himself that he would bandage the animal and let it go. The flute’s melancholic song, meanwhile, had come to a stop. From the skies a roar broke out and boomed through the trees and branches, which had already shed their leaves, as if an untimely winter had arrived. Jara found himself running through a corridor of yellow and green when he heard the forests echo three times.

Jayaa, Jayaa, Jayaa…

 

front cover of The Dharma Forest
The Dharma Forest || Keerthik Sasidharan

 

Before he could make sense of it all, he had arrived at a spot where blood seeped freely into the earth. And there he found a man with many arms—was this a God who had lost his way, Jara asked himself in wonder and fear; his complexion was as dark as the blue nights of Jara’s dreams, and from his feet, blood trickled steadily. Jara’s arrow had sliced away the ankle of his foot. Instead of pain and horror, however, this injured otherworldly person sat there in silence, with his eyes closed, as if he was meditating. And then, perhaps stirred by Jara’s presence, he opened his eyes and smiled at him. A generous and beatific smile that took Jara by surprise, for he had expected to be on the receiving end of anger and abuse. Overwhelmed by grief and guilt on having hurt somebody, Jara bowed to this injured being and for reasons unknown to him, tears welled up in his eyes. He bent down to touch this being’s feet, out of concern and in regret, as if to make amends for this gratuitous injury. When Jara looked up again, the many arms on his body were no longer there. He was just another ordinary man, even though his presence exuded a form of gentleness and beauty of the kind that Jara had never thought possible in another human. Perhaps, Jara tried to reason, it was another trick played by the forest. Then, this kindly one spoke, ‘Jara, my dear friend. I hope it wasn’t too difficult for you to find me.’

Jara looked at him again, only to recognize an intuition froth within him that his wanderings through the forest which had lasted for weeks, had now come to an end. The man’s presence—despite the blood and agony all around—filled Jara with a kind of peace that he had not experienced in a long while. Then, even as he bled to death, the man said with an easy contentment: ‘I am Devaki’s son, Rukmini’s husband, and Arjuna’s friend. I am also known as Krishna of the Yadavas.’

He paused to let silence enter between them and then said to Jara, ‘I have waited for you my whole life.’

**

Some books we cannot wait to get our hands on in 2021

Posted on by vanyajaiswal

This year has been nothing short of a rollercoaster ride for all of us. With the pandemic reinforcing our belief in books’ magical ability to take us to better worlds, it’s only natural that we are now looking forward to glorious new books releasing in 2021. So here’s a list we hope you’ll enjoy going through as much as we enjoyed curating it for you.

 

Unfinished

Priyanka Chopra Jonas

front cover of Unfinished
Unfinished || Priyanka Chopra Jonas

 

A book that is warm, funny, sassy, inspiring, bold and rebellious. Just like Priyanka herself. Unfinished takes readers from Priyanka’s childhood in India before being sent away to boarding school; through her formative teenage years in the US; to her return to India, where she unexpectedly won the beauty pageants that launched her acting career. From her dual-continent career as an actor and producer to her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, from losing her beloved father to cancer to marrying Nick Jonas, Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s story will inspire a generation around the world to gather their courage, embrace their ambition and commit to the hard work of following their dreams.

 

The Good Girls

Sonia Faleiro

front cover of The Good Girls
The Good Girls || Sonia Faleiro

 

From the acclaimed author of Beautiful Thing comes a book that investigates the truth behind the death of two teenage girls.

In the summer of 2014, India woke up to the news of two teenage girls found hanging from a tree in Katra, a village in Uttar Pradesh. A photo found its way into the digital world, jolting the nation. An arduous investigation followed and arrests were made.

Sonia Faleiro lays bare the heart-breaking truth of what happened that night through the voices of the girls’ families, those who saw them last, and the legal and medical officials who were on the case. The reality that the book illuminates, wrapped in pressures of caste, gender, technology and teenage desire, proves to be more complicated and just as devastating.

 

Unscripted: Conversations on Life and Cinema

Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Abhijat Joshi

front cover of Unscripted
Unscripted || Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Abhijat Joshi

 

Vidhu Vinod Chopra has blazed a trail in Hindi cinema over the last thirty years. From someone who once released his student’s film incomplete because he ran out of money and film stock, he now has the distinction of heading one of the biggest production houses in India. Not only is he a film-maker par excellence, he has also nurtured some of the brightest talents in the Hindi film industry, director Raju Hirani, composer Shantanu Moitra, actor Vidya Balan and scriptwriter Abhijat Joshi, to name just a few.

In Unscripted, Vidhu speaks to Abhijat Joshi about his exceptional journey. Consistently brilliant, outrageous and illumination, this is a peek into the mind, method and madness of one of contemporary Hindi cinema’s brightest directors.

 

Platform Scale for a Post-Pandemic World

Sangeet Paul Choudary

Front cover of Platform Scale Economy
Platform Scale Economy || Sangeet Paul Choudary

A comprehensive and thoroughly updated edition for the post-pandemic world, this is a guide for entrepreneurs, innovators and educators looking to understand and implement the inner workings of highly scalable platform business models. The pandemic has accelerated the developments on which Big Tech was supposed to be regulated. Data access, privacy and usage laws are being revisited to counter the pandemic through contact tracing and other surveillance mechanisms. The pandemic has reinforced the importance of the platform economy. In the 2020s, we will see the platform economy gain further strength as the post-pandemic world uncovers new value pools for platforms to exploit. This book provides a compelling framework for building platforms, networks and marketplaces. 

 

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

Bill Gates

front cover of How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster || Bill Gates

 

Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet’s slide toward certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal.

He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions-suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise.

 

Klara And The Sun

Kazuo Ishiguro 

front cover of Klara and the Sun
Klara and the Sun || Kazuo Ishiguro

 

From the bestselling and Booker Prize winning author of Never Let me Go and The Remains of the Day, a stunning new novel – his first since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature – that asks, what does it mean to love? A thrilling feat of world-building, a novel of exquisite tenderness and impeccable restraint, Klara and the Sun is a magnificent achievement, and an international literary event.

 

First Person Singular

Haruki Murakami 

front cover of First Person Singular
First Person Singular || Haruki Murakami

 

A mind-bending new collection of short stories from the beloved, internationally acclaimed, Haruki Murakami.

The eight masterly stories in this new collection are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From nostalgic memories of youth, meditations on music, and an ardent love of baseball to dreamlike scenarios and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. Occasionally, a narrator who may or may not be Murakami himself is present. Is it memoir or fiction? The reader decides.

 

Which of these reads are you most excited about?

 

Phoolsunghi: The importance of the first ever translation from Bhojpuri to English

Posted on by sanjeeta

Phoolsunghi (1977) is arguably the most loved of all Bhojpuri literary works. A historical novel, it traverses a period of ninety years in colonial India, roughly between 1840s and 1931.

 

Pandey Kapil’s translated version – The first ever translation of a Bhojpuri novel into English – transports readers to a forgotten world filled with mujras and mehfils, court cases and counterfeit currency, and the crashing waves of the River Saryu.

Here we understand what the translation truly means for the community, through a note from the book.

 

Drawing upon his experience as the series editor for People’s Linguistic Survey of India (2012), G.N. Devy concluded that ‘Bhojpuri has not only stayed alive . . . in the whole world, Bhojpuri is the most rapidly developing language.’ According to various estimates, there are close to 200 million Bhojpuri speakers living in India and overseas. While the majority of them live in Poorvanchal—a geographical unit comprising parts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh—a sizeable Bhojpuri-speaking population lives in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Nepal. Further, as a result of ‘girmitiya’ or indentured migration during the colonial period (1832–1914), the language is also spoken extensively in Fiji, Mauritius, Suriname, South Africa and parts of the Caribbean. The word Bhojpuri derives its name from Bhojpur, an ancient feudatory located near Arrah in Bihar. The feudatory, in turn, derives its name from Bhoj, the ancient king from Ujjain (Malwa) whose descendants ruled the province.

 

Literary Bhojpuri claims a fairly old ancestry. It has been suggested that the earliest literary specimen with Bhojpuri expressions date back to the medieval devotional compositions of the Nath sect. The tradition of writing in Bhojpuri begins with Kabir (fifteenth century)—often considered the ‘Adi Kavi’ or the first poet of Bhojpuri— and includes the devotional compositions of saint-poets such as Dharamdas (sixteenth century), Dharni Das (seventeenth century), Shiv Narayan (eighteenth century), Dariya Sahib (eighteenth century), Lakshmi Sakhi (eighteenth century) and Bulakidas (eighteenth century). By late nineteenth century, Bhojpuri had produced its first literary prose. According to George Abraham Grierson, Ravidutt Shukla’s play ‘Devakshar Charitra’ (1884) is the earliest recorded specimens of literary prose in Bhojpuri. A year later, in 1885, a Banaras based wrestler, Teg Ali, published Badmash Darpan, Bhojpuri’s first published work. Yet, a literary culture, so long and diverse, remains largely neglected. If one was to draw a list of factors that may have led to this neglect, two causes stand out: the perception that Bhojpuri is a folk language, spoken by illiterate villagers, and the near absence of its interaction with the other literary cultures, through translations or otherwise. Hopefully, the present translation will change some of that.

 

For close to seven decades, Pandey Kapil championed the cause of Bhojpuri with an indefatigable zeal—leading literary associations, editing periodicals and bearing with grace the burden of being a Bhojpuri author, consigned to anonymity outside the Bhojpuri belt. Get your copy of Phoolsunghi now!

Why design thinking is need of the hour?

Posted on by vanyajaiswal

Creative problem-solving is at the heart of innovation, and some of the world’s most innovative companies are very systematic in following this approach. Pioneered by IDEO and Stanford d.school, design thinking is one such approach that draws inspiration from the realm of product design. This book attempts to offer a practitioner’s perspective on how the tenets, methods and discipline of design thinking can be applied across a range of domains, including to everyday problems, and help us become expert problem-solvers through the use of the appropriate toolsets, skill sets and mindsets.

Here’s an excerpt from the book which elucidates why design thinking deserves to be adopted more seriously and pervasively.

**

Whether you are buying a product or hiring a service, at the end of the day you are consuming an experience, and in this experience economy, a lot more of your senses are involved. The traditional products have become more like services, and services have become experiences. In today’s marketplace, customers are shifting from passive consumption to active participation. Memorable experiences are not scripted by leaders or marketing departments but are delivered at the moment of truth by the customer-facing executives. And such experiences must be crafted and delivered with the same precision as the products. We are all seeking authentic experiences and even the most mundane task can be made into a cherishable experience. Such authentic experiences often take shape by allowing for spontaneity, and, paradoxically, this spontaneity must be designed beforehand, and technology is only a small part of that desirable experience.

Do you wonder why people spend such huge amounts to attend TED Talks, when all of these are available for free on the Internet? Because people want to ‘experience’ being in the company of thinkers and doers and get inspired. That is the same reason that thousands of Indians queue up every summer to watch Indian Premier League matches in their cities. Many of them travel across cities, stand in lines for well over four hours, often in scorching heat, when they could have watched their favourite players from the comfort of their living rooms. They seek genuine experiences, and they are ready to pay anything, risk anything to seek that involvement.

front cover of Design Your Thinking
Design Your Thinking || Pavan Soni

 

People, rich and poor, are going beyond amassing stuff to seeking experiences, and that is visible among a wide cross section in India and in several other emerging economies. Abhijit Banerjee, co-recipient of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, notes, ‘Generally, it is clear that things that make life less boring are a priority for the poor.’6 He offers a counterintuitive explanation of why the poor spend more on festivities, marriages and other social functions, even if they are often deprived of material goods, such as televisions, bicycles or radios. Another explanation is to do with social equity and collateral, but equally, there is the desire to seek an experience and make life less boring.

Is it possible to infuse experience through design in the most commoditized and undifferentiated products? Yes, and the Indian watch brand Titan has made an empire doing so.

In December 1987, when Titan opened its first retail outlet at Bangalore’s Safina Plaza, watches were perceived as functional products, dominated by HMT Watches and Allwyn Watches and a few international brands whose watches were smuggled into the country. It was Titan that made us think about watches as pieces of adornment and even collectables. (The same was done later for jewellery, accessories, perfumes and, more recently, sarees.) Since its formative days, Titan has paid special attention to how its watches are displayed and to the overall buying experience. Notwithstanding the award-winning designs of its watches, the company’s focus has largely been on designing the buying and gifting experiences. Not just these, Titan has also invested in the product repair experience, setting up repair centres within showrooms to win customers’ trust.

On how Titan went about improving customer experience, Bhaskar Bhat, the company’s former MD, notes, ‘Formalising an informal sector and transforming it for the benefit of the consumer is what we have done best. We are sort of bringing order from disorder. We create elevating experiences for the customers.’7 As Titan demonstrates, designing experiences could be an enduring competitive advantage.

**

 

Escaping the present to start a new reality far, far away

Posted on by sanjeeta

Garv Roy Gill and Yahvi Kothari are consumed by the proverbial once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. Bored with their mundane daily routine, their adventurous streak makes them decide, one day, to escape the present and begin a new reality somewhere far, far away.

The day arrives and we experience it through Garv’s perspective. Things, however, don’t seem to go to plan.

We picked the most enticing quotes to give you a glimpse into what the present looks like for him though Novoneel Chakraborty’s thrilling writing from the prologue of his book, Cross Your Heart Take My Name.

 

Garv lights a cigarette early morning, unlike his everyday habit of smoking with his coffee at office.

 

‘…But today was different. Or perhaps today was mundane but I was different.’

 

We get a glimpse into his emotional side this morning, knowing he is soon to leave everything behind.

 

‘Leaving something behind always troubled me. But for the first time, I was seeking adventure in that “trouble”’

 

‘Nobody knew I was going to disappear. It was unfair to my employees and the company. But the essence of this plan was to not think about others. It was about being selfish and living for yourself.’

 

He reminisces his relationship with Yahvi.

 

‘I realized it was not about the number of meetings or the amount of time that you spent with a person, it was about how intense your feelings were for each other, how strong the bond was.’

 

‘What did we have between us? This question had given me sleepless nights. I wanted to ask her so many questions.’

 

Unfortunately, things don’t go as plan. Yahvi shows up at the meeting point late, only to say they must delay their plans. He drives to office.

 

‘Though I wasn’t supposed to go to work, the change in plan made me decide otherwise. I kept checking my phone for messages from her but there were none.’

 

Finally, before sleeping, he gets a message from her.

 

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you today. Will meet you soon and discuss our plan. I have cancelled my ticket. Hope you have done it too.

I read the message again and again but still didn’t understand what she was talking about. I replied: We did meet. What happened? All okay?’

 

What’s happening? Why did the plan get cancelled and why did Yahvi act like they hadn’t met at all. There’s more thrill to come, get your copy of Novoneel Chakraborty’s new book to join the journey!

 

 

Salma’s women live fragile lives but dream of hope

Posted on by ashmita

Salma’s women dream of a better world and better lives. Caught up in their circumstances, this simple dream seems more and more distant. Read an excerpt from Women, Dreaming, translated into English by Meena Kandasamy:

 

Parveen runs as though her head is falling apart. Seeing Amma, Hasan and a few others chase her, she runs even faster. The panic of being captured makes her run without paying heed. She runs bounding across walls, past open grounds, she runs and runs…

Waking suddenly out of this nightmare, Parveen was very relieved that no one had caught her. Drenched in sweat, lazy and reluctant to get out of bed, she started thinking about the nature of her dream, what she could recollect of it, the dregs of an earlier life that tormented her now in the form of fantasy. She hated it. She pinched herself to make sure that she had really got away – and that made her overjoyed – then she once again raided her memories.

Meanwhile, downstairs… ‘Her mother has come to visit Rahim’s wife,’ Hasina heard the violent disdain in Iqbal’s voice. Absorbing her husband’s words, Hasina gathered her loose hair, tied it up in a bun and slowly made her way out of her bedroom. Because she could not see anyone in the living room, she shouted, ‘Parveen, Parveen,’ her voice loud enough to display her authority as mother-in-law.

Parveen shouted back, ‘Maami, here I come,’ as she rushed down the stairs. Hasina saw Subaida trailing behind her daughter. Responding to Subaida’s muted salaam with a loud and prolonged ‘wa ‘alay- kum al-salaam,’ Hasina sat down on the sofa.

When Subaida asks her how she is doing, her tone is reverential, its politeness exaggerated. Hasina’s cold response – ‘By the grace of Allah there is no dearth of wellness here’ – comes across as slightly menacing. Although Subaida is upset that Hasina hasn’t asked her to take a seat, she hesitantly stoops to perch on a corner of the sofa.

Parveen is annoyed and angered by her mother- in-law’s tone and manner, but she quickly pacifies herself, refusing to show any sign of being perturbed.

Front cover Women Dreaming
Women, Dreaming||Salma

‘You took the stairs to be with your daughter without first paying your respects to me,’ Hasina remarked. Subaida, registering the reason for Hasina’s displeasure, attempts to placate her: ‘You were sleeping, that’s why I went to talk with Parveen. It has been two weeks since I saw my daughter, you see, so I was very eager…’

This makes Parveen even angrier, to watch her mother plead and try to make peace in such a cringing act of deference.

Perhaps because Hasina had just woken from a nap, her face appeared to be bloated. She had not parted her jet-black hair, merely tied it up into a loose knot, not a hint of grey visible. Parveen compared her mother’s veiled head; most of Amma’s hair had gone white although both women were of the same age.

‘Here, I have brought some snacks,’ Subaida extended a bag that she had brought with her towards Hasina, who rejected it casually.

‘Why? Who is there to eat them here?’

Parveen ground her teeth in anger – this was all too much to take.

‘So, what happened to your promise of buying a car for us? This Eid or the next one?’

Parveen caught the sarcasm in Hasina’s sudden barb. She looked towards her mother to see how she would react.

Parveen could not forget that this was the same Hasina who on the day of Parveen’s marriage to her son had said, ‘She is not your daughter – from this day, she will be my daughter, she will ease my pain of not having given birth to a girl.’ She wondered if her mother, too, was ruminating on something similar that Hasina had told them in the past…
‘It has been three months since the nikah. When are you going to make good on your promise? Your daughter doesn’t understand the first thing about how to conduct herself. She appears to be unfit for any sort of domestic work, as if she was a college-educated girl. Even after I’ve got a daughter-in-law, I’m the one stuck in the kitchen.’

Subaida regretted having come here. Parveen was meanwhile chastised by Hasina: ‘Why are you standing here like a tree – go and fetch some tea for the both of us.’

Parveen moved towards the kitchen. She was curious to know what excuse her mother was going to provide for the demand of a car – but she also knew that she did not have the strength to listen to her spineless words. They must not have promised a car. Why should they have sought an alliance like this? What was wrong with her? Why did they arrange this wedding? She understood nothing.

She filtered the tea into a tumbler. She carefully stirred only half a spoon of sugar in her mother-in- law’s cup, knowing that she had to keep an eye on her sugar intake.

Though Parveen had eagerly awaited her mother’s arrival, her foremost instinct now was that Amma should leave here immediately. She had wanted to share as many things with her as possible, but now she decided not to confide in her at all. She only wanted her mother to return home peacefully.

With shaking hands, she extended the cup of tea towards her mother-in-law, then served Amma, looking at her intently for some clue.

Hasina, taking a sip and grimacing, remarked: ‘Hmm, it’s too sweet. Why have you poured so much sugar into this? There’s nothing you can do properly. In three months, you have not even learnt how much sugar to add in your mother-in-law’s tea. Go, add some milk to my cup and bring it back.’

Her harsh tone made Parveen feel crushed. She worked out that her mother’s response about the car must have displeased Hasina. She could see from her mother-in-law’s face how embittered and angry she felt.

The house wore a dreadful silence.

~

Women, Dreaming is a beautiful and painful read, both heart-breaking and hopeful at once.

Time for some tough questions with Deepak Ramola

Posted on by penguin

50 Toughest Questions of Life invites people to have a conversation about themselves with themselves. Author Deepak Ramola’s quest began after he was inspired by the life lesson of a young girl who said, ‘Life is not about giving easy answers, but answering tough questions.’

Today we ask him some questions, to understand him and his journey a little bit better.

At what point did you decide to write a book with your experiences?

Last year, in February, while standing at the self-help section of a bookstore, I had an epiphany that most books were full of answers. I was curious to find out how people would respond to a book of questions. I had so many of them documented over the years, I started to give them shape and context for the book. I started writing in school for debates competitions and school magazine, I guess the seeds were sown there.

What is your favorite part about this book, and what was the most challenging question for you?

Front Cover 50 Toughest Questions of Life
50 Toughest Questions of Life || Deepak Ramola

Favorite part:

The stories that follow each question, encouraging people to put themselves at the centre of their life without guilt has been my goal with the book. I really love the story about the visually impaired girl who talks about the advantage of being blind along with the Mexican stories about the two trees of harm and healing.

Challenging part:

To keep it simple and honest. I was cautious to never over-impose my answers on to the readers but nudge them just enough to come up with their own. I had to go through a personal emotional roller-coaster with each of the 50 questions. Particularly reflecting on my toughest goodbye, how can someone make me feel loved was hard.

You started with around 500 questions, how did you come down to 50?

I followed my instinct on what seemed difficult to me and then, how people over the years responded to certain questions. I shuffled the list quite a bit with each draft. There are so many questions that I am yet to answer for myself, so I pulled them out in hope for a sequel to this book. Lastly, these 50 questions I feel are the ones we all need to answer collectively as the human race to be more kind and empathetic.

Who were the people that inspired these questions?

My mother never went to school but treated life as her classroom was a big inspiration for me growing up. Many questions emerged from our conversations. She taught me that literacy and education were two separate things and if we ask the right questions, we can educate ourselves beyond the infrastructure of curriculums. Apart from that Oprah Winfrey. Maya Angelou. Vishnu Kaushal. My team at Project FUEL. Interactions with Syrian refugees. My sister Deepika. And people I have learnt from and taught over the last 11 years. David Cooperrider once said, “We live in the world our questions create.”

What was the first question you ever wrote? And what is your next question going to be?

First question:

How would you introduce yourself with love?

Next question:

Have you ever given up on something beautiful and why?

The understudied feminist who played an important role in the creation of Pakistan

Posted on by sanjeeta

‘In terms of courage of conviction and strength of character, Mrs Jinnah remains a role model for every man and woman who cherishes freedom.’ 

 

If Joan of Arc and the Rani of Jhansi are known for their rebel spirit, physical beauty, love of freedom, hatred for the British and deaths at a young age, Mrs Jinnah fits seamlessly into their ilk. Ruttie Jinnah, Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s wife was a fierce nationalist in her own right, and a proactive political companion to her husband. 

 

From Saad S. Khan’s biography, Ruttie Jinnah we extract quotes that show her feminist side. 

 

‘Among the top Indian leadership from the turn of the century to around the time of the First World War—including Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Motilal Nehru and Jinnah, for instance—Mrs Jinnah was the only politically active and publicly visible wife of any leader.’

 

‘At South Court, Sheela Reddy argues, Mrs Jinnah was the ‘passionate participant of political discussions, the organizer of all dinners at the home to facilitate these plans, a cheerleader for Jinnah and his acolyte, all rolled into one’. In fact, it was not only about Jinnah’s political meetings with other leaders that Mrs Jinnah was party to—he loved to discuss his political ideas with her first.’

 

Mrs Jinnah would support her husband through the hustings during the elections to the Central Legislative Assembly; she would accompany him to Delhi and Simla during legislative sessions; and, most unusually for those conservative times, she would sit in most, 

if not all, of the public meetings on the stage beside her husband, as well as attend closed-door political meetings at home.’

 

‘…All these facts lead us to a better appreciation of her indirect political role in charting Indian history, through her influence on her husband during these years of camaraderie—one that would outlive her own life or, for that matter, Jinnah’s. But for this influence that she wielded over Jinnah, Mahatma Gandhi, who is not otherwise known for corresponding with any spouse of a political leader of the time, would never have written to her to win her support for his ideas.’

 

‘…it was not just Jinnah who was the leader of the Muslims, but Mr and Mrs Jinnah together who led the community—as its first couple.’

 

‘First and foremost, Mrs Jinnah was the political lieutenant and adviser of her husband, joining him in his engagements with the British government, at interactions with the Congress and the Khilafatists, and, of course, in his political activities as head of the All India Muslim League.’

 

‘Ruttie’s decision to marry Jinnah owed a lot to his politics, which is what had mesmerized her in the first place. Hence, her participation in Jinnah’s political activities began from Lucknow, well before their marriage. Despite her father’s opposition, the young Ruttie attended the joint annual sessions of the Congress and the Muslim League, held in the city in December 1916.’ 

‘Mrs Jinnah had the nerve to not stand up to greet the viceroy at functions. ‘He is a man, after all!’ she would say, implying a lady was not required to pay respect by standing up for men.’ 

 

‘She ordered a British police officer on Hornby Road who had kicked an old woman—a street vendor—to put back all her strewn fruit into the latter’s basket. From the policeman, who was the smallest instrument in the colonial administration’s coercive authority, right up to the viceroy himself, Mrs Jinnah refused to be intimidated by anyone.’ 

 

‘Mrs Jinnah’s dress sense was so marvellous that she became a trendsetter in India. The ‘Indian blouse’, her signature combination with the sari, became a fashion statement in the country, and continues to be even today. She was also the first notable Muslim lady to be seen out of purdah, and this boldness of appearance influenced other Muslim women decades down the road to come out of the veil and take active part in the Muslim separatist struggle. This does not mean that her dresses were in any way explicit. By any contemporary sartorial standards, her dressing was more demure than daring.’ 

 

Read Ruttie Jinnah to get an incisive look into Ruttie’s life and legacy – and get a novel and fresh understanding of Jinnah and the freedom movement.

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