A tiny, tiny drop of the literature being published currently discussing what it means to be a Muslim. Or even bringing up a Muslim child. Or being a lawyer and dealing with cases where identity becomes the crux rather than the major issues, such as xenophobia, at play. Or what it means to be a Muslim when you are also a woman. Then the issues are twice as complicated as they are for men since you are also combatting gender inequality. These are some of the very powerful fiction and nonfiction books, published or about to be released, discussing the fundamental issue of being a Muslim. Ultimately, faith is only one aspect of one’s identity. Creating literature that discusses in detail the multiple acts of microagression and racism that Muslims face on a daily basis, perhaps is one of the constructive ways to combat the prejudices of others. It will help to a certain degree to being understood rather than othered constantly.
Do read these books. If not all, at least a couple.
In 2005, I had worked as part of a global team on a seminal report published by UNRISD called Gender Equality: Striving for Justice in an Unequal World. The particular section that I had researched was “Gender, armed conflict and the search for peace”. It was an extraordinary eye-opener for it highlighted the horrendous levels of violence perpetrated upon women and girls, across the world. Somehow conflict situations become an arena where the wild lawlessness thrives and the stark reality of the violence women experience is gut-wrenching. The women are treated worse than animals. Just flesh They are easily dispensed with once the women outlive their utility which in most cases is that of being sex slaves. The UNRISD report went a step further than merely discussing the violence but also documented the various methods of peace that were initiated by women or with the establishment of institutions such as Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and of course, the International Court of Justice.
Award-winning war reporter Christina Lamb in her book, Our Bodies Their Battlefield: What War Does to Women reports from various war zones around the world. She travels far and wide meeting women who have been victimised, abducted, raped, sold by one soldier to the next, etc. She met people like the Beekeeper of Aleppo, Abdullah Shrim, and Dr Miracle or Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr Denis Mukwege, who have helped women. Or the incredible Bakira Hasecic, Association of Women Victims of War, who said her hobbies were smoking and “hunting war criminals” and she was not joking, having tracked down well over a hundred. Of these, twenty-nine were prosecuted in The Hague and eighty in Bosnia. Abdullah Shrim has rescued hundreds of women who were kidnapped by the ISIS and reunited them with their families. He has run extremely dangerous operations and created a vast network of safe houses and carriers who would help bring the women to safety. It has been at great economic cost to the women’s families, who at times have had to fork out sums as large as US $70,000. Dr. Mukwege, meanwhile, has helped reconstruct and fix women victims of sexual violence.
…either suffered pelvic prolapsed or other damage giving birth, or were victims of serial violence so extreme that that genitals had been torn apart and they had suffered fistulas — holes in the sphincter muscle through to the bladder or rectum, which led to leaking of urine or faeces or both.
In twenty years of existence, the [Punzi] hospital had treated more than 55,000 victims of rape.
He is recognised as having treated more rape victims than anyone else on earth. As a trained gynaecologist, he had set up multiple maternal hospitals around Congo so as to tackle the growing menace of maternal mortality, where women uttered their last words before going into labour as they were never sure if they would live. Once the Rwandan genocide occurred, Dr Mukwege, he began to help women victims.
Each group seemed to have its own signature torture and the rates were so violent that often a fistula or hole has been torn in the bladders or rectums.
‘It’s not a sexual thing, it’s a way to destroy one another, to take from inside the victim the sense of being a human, and show you don’t exist, you are nothing,’ he said. ‘It’s a deliberate strategy: raping a woman in front of her husband to humiliate him so he leaves and shame falls on the victim and it’s impossible to live with the reality so the first reaction is to leave the area and then is totla destruction of the community. I’ve seen entire villages deserted.
‘It’s about making people feel powerless and destroying the social fabric. I’ve seen a case where the wife of a pastor was raped in front of the whole congregation so everyone fled. Because if God does not protect the wife of a pastor how would he protect them?
‘Rape as a weapon of war can displace a whole.demigraohic and have the same effect as a conventional weapon but at a much lower cost.
The accounts in this book are meticulously documented. Christina Lamb even manages to speak to some of the victims. One of them, Naima, who had been abducted by the ISIS recalled the name of every single abductor she was sold to. It even astonished Christina Lamb that Naima was able to recall in such detail. ‘The one thing that I could do was know all their names so what they did would not be forgotten,’ she explained. ‘Now I am out I am writing everyting in a book with everyone’s name.’ Lamb travels and meets people in Argentina ( the Lost Generation and the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo), Nigeria and the Boko Haram, Bangladesh and the birangonas or brave/war heroine, the ethnic cleansing of the Muslims in Bosnia, the Rohingya camps of those who fled Myanmar, the Rwandan genocide between the Hutu and the Tutsis, the women abducted and kept by the ISIS, the former sex slaves of Japan or the rape of the German women by the Red Army during the Second World War etc. The list is endless and exhausting.
The graphic descriptions in the book are vile but most likely tamer versions of what was really said, shared or documented since it is impossible to collate it as is for a lay readership. The anger and revulsion that Christina Lamb feels and conveys in her documentation regarding the sexual crimes perpetrated against women is transmitted to the reader very clearly. The mechanical manner in which the women are raped over and over again, leaving the women numb and injured is blood curdling. It is also imbued with a sense of helplessness trying to understand how can this wrong be ever corrected — Why are women pursued in this relentless manner, used and discarded? Or even seen as war trophies. What is truly befuddling is the ease with which men rape women or conduct mass rapes. It is not only the systematic violence that is perpetrated upon the women but the horrifying thought that this attitude probably exists in a daily basis. Men see women as dispensable, as a sex that they have limitless and unquestionable power over and the authority and prerogative to do what they like. War crimes only bring to the fore that which already exists already. It is not a gargantuan leap of imagination by men that requires such methodical violence perpetrated upon so many women in this brutal and agressive manner. What is even more chilling from the facts Lamb unearths is the despicable manner in which the rapists are rarely convicted, and if they ever are convicted it is usually for war crimes. Their convictions are carried out on the strength of the ethnic cleansing that they perpetrated. The absolute lack of respect or value accorded to a woman survivor’s testimony, if some of the victims agree to testify, is atrocious. Instead as Bakira points out that if you do not testify it’s as if it never happened. “Women should be allowed to say things the way she wants, tell the story how she wants.” Unfortunately what emerges is that even the institutions of justice and remedial action are so patriarchal in their nature and construct that they do not wish to acknowledge the ghastly trauma women suffer. Chillingly “in Bosnia it’s better to be a perpetrator than a victim. The perpetrators’s defence are paid by the state while we [the women] have to pay our own legal costs. And there’s still no compensation for victims.”
Our Bodies, Their Battlefield is not easy reading. There is a visceral reaction to reading the accounts. But as Lamb points out that this is a very dark book but she hopes that the reader too will find the “strength and heroism of many of the women inspiring”. She continues, “I use the expression ‘survivors’ to emphasise the resilience of these women, as after all they have survived, rather than ‘victim’ which has a more helpless connotation and some see as a dirty word. Meeting all these women, the last word I would use about them is passive. However, while I do not want to make ‘victims’ their identity, at the same time they are victims of an appalling brutality and injustice, so I do think the word has some validity. In some languages, such as Spanish, the word ‘survivor’ means survivor of a natural disaster. Colombian and Argentinian women I met told me it made no sense to refer to them as survivors. So I have used both where appropriate. In the same way, Yazidis told me they did not object to being described as sex slaves, as long as that was not seen as their identity.” Gender divisions are an age-old phenomena. Seeing women as loot, especially at times of war is also many centuries old. But the fact that these ugly, ruthless, mindless, violent practices continue to exist despite there being so many conversations about gender equality and sensitivity is extremely painful. It is as if those who believe in the dignity of women and in gender equality are expending energy on a losing battle. When will it stop? Will it ever cease? And surely these are learned behaviours and attitudes towards women, so how and when are the younger generations of men being indoctrinated and encouraged to behave in this abominable fashion? It is true that many men still believe firmly in the idea of masculinity being that when you prove your supremacy as an individual upon women, but seriously, can this old-fashioned attitude not stop? War zones are a stark reminder that these attitudes are not going away in a hurry. My only objection is to the cover design of this book depicting women wearing head scarves. Thereby signalling that the violent behaviours documented by Lamb exist more or less within one specific community, ie. the Muslims, who are equally conveniently seen as terrorists. This is wrong. The cover design should have been either an illustration depicting conflicts and different scenarios or had a montage of images from different regions and communities. This striking black and white image does a great deal of disservice not only to the community it represents but also to the book.
Nevertheless, please read this extremely powerful book.
Mega-selling, lawyer-turned-writer Kristin Hannah’s The Four Winds is set at the time of the Great Depression, in the Dust Bowl era.It is about Elsa Martinelli née Wolcott. Elsa was poorly as a child and had been kept more or less confined to her room by her parents. Even when at the age of twenty-five, she was way past the acceptable marriageable age and her two younger sisters had tied the knot, Elsa continued to remain indoors, reading books and creating her trousseau. She was a voracious reader who began to see her life through stories. She yearned for her knight in shining armour and discovered eighteen-year-old Rafe Martinelli, an “Ee-talian” immigrant as her father would pronounce. Ultimately, Rafe and Elsa had to have a shotgun wedding. She readily converted to Catholicism and began to learn the ways of living off the land. A woman who till her marriage had been considered sick with a weak heart and who despite having parents who did not particularly love her, Elsa had been well provided for. But her mother-in-law, Rose, soon taught Elsa how to live off the farm. Elsa thrived. She had a couple of children more and buried one too. She learned to adjust to the ways of the marital family. But then the Great Depression occurred and everyone began migrating in search of food and better economic conditions. One day, her husband Rafe also disappeared. Finally, Elsa with her children, decided to follow and seek him out.
Bulk of the 450+ page book is an account of this journey that Elsa makes with her kids. It is a fast-paced, easy narrative that one zips through, but gives the reader sufficient markers regarding historical events. It is certainly not literary fiction where the writer’s talent would be at display at so many levels. Yet, this kind of popular fiction works very well too. In some ways it is very reminiscent of Elizabeth Goudge and Sinclair Lewis. It works for me. Vast expansive canvas to work within, the literary references in the early part of the book are readily forgotten and not pursued, but it does not really matter to the storytelling. Elsa assumes a proportion and strength in the plot that is gripping and it becomes very evident why so many readers worldwide are avid fans of Kristin Hannah’s books — humongous stories that are told in an easy going style about women facing adversity in harsh environments but emerging stronger. The stories are filled with hope not necessarily by the goals the protagonist achieves but in inspiring future generations, as Elsa does for her daughter, Loreda. As Elsa’s gravestone puts it simply “Mother. Daughter. Warrior.” This is what Kristin Hannah achieves for millions of her readers, she speaks calmly, frankly and directly to them, but focuses on ordinary lives that also have magnificently inspiring stories to tell.
When she began writing this historical fiction, Kristin Hannah was focusing on Elsa and the Great Depression but when she finished writing it in May 2020, the unmistakable parallels to the Covid-19 pandemic did not miss her. Hannah remarks on the unsettling coincidence. This is what she says:
Three years ago, I began writing this novel about hard times in America: the worst environmental disaster in our history; the collapse of the economy; the effect of massive unemployment. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the Great Depression would become so relevant in our modern lives, that I would see so many people out or work, in need, frightened for the future.
As we know, there are lessons to be learned from history. Hope to be derived from hardships faced by others.
We’ve gone through bad times before and survived, even thrived. History has shown us the strength and durability of the human spirit. In tbe end, it is our idealism and our courage and our commitment to one another — what we have in common — that will save us now.
Novels like The Four Winds are easily read in a day or two. They are also easily adapted to the TV or movie screen like the current Netflix adaptation of another Kristin Hannah book, The Firefly Lane. These stories perform a useful function of helping readers combat their anxiety due to the pandemic but at the same time are fulfilling stories that are not easily forgotten. Isn’t that what you want from good storytelling?
The Time Of The Peacock by Siddharth Chowdhury is fabulous. It is published by Aleph Book Company. Fiction that is thinly veiled account of contemporary Indian publishing is always very welcome. But a story/s like this that smartly begins like a “straightforward” story in English, slowly disappears into a fascinating literary rabbit hole of diverse landscapes and cultures and conversations that India has to offer. It requires extraordinary skill sets as a writer to put the spotlight on publishing as we know it today in India and then make mincemeat of it by upturning the smooth English narrative style by slipping into dialects. The plot is deftly contextualised within the disturbing socio-political landscape of India where the publishing world becomes an excuse to dip in and dip out of stories and socio-economic classes, thereby at times highlighting the narrowness of the books being published that at times fail to mirror their society. It is a story that is very reminiscent of Elif Batuman ‘s magnificent novel The Idiot, in which the author transformed not just the protagonist but the reader too with the astonishing storytelling, a combination of the plot and literary techniques that slowly developed, layer by layer, as the student in the novel acquired the requisite academic skills. Similarly with The Time of the Peacock, the reader is left emotionally drained but in a satisfying way. In all likelihood it will be a book that will be read, critically analysed, dissected and assume academic importance in the years to come.
This is an utterly charming, sweet, heartwarming novel about two shy men — Leonard and Hungry Paul. Why he is called “Hungry” is never explained. Both are single and both continue to inhabit their parents home — a deed that in itself is unusual for adult men. Leonard ghostwrites children’s encyclopaedias and genuinely loves his work as these kinds of books gave him joy in his childhood. He is passionate about his writing and factchecking. Whereas Hungry Paul likes to be mostly at home with his parents and sometimes is called in to help with the local postoffice. Leonard has recently lost his mother and misses her but continues to meet Hungry Paul regularly. The friends meet in peaceful silence and are happy to have meandering conversations while playing board games. There is a gentleness to the story which seems to reflect the slow, ordinariness of their lives. But it does not rankle anyone, least of all the characters themselves. They are at peace being who they are. A sentiment that Leonard shares when wooing his soon-to-be girlfriend Shelley. He reminds her that anyone can say beautiful things at any point but that is not real and does not prove anything. Most importantly he says, “I am not scared to be myself.”
This novel is full of lovely insights about character and of course creating books, such as:
Encyclopaedias were books you were meant to immerse yourself in. They created their own worlds with magical pairings of writers and illustrators, using short exciting prose with memorable tableaux, drawn in a way that was meant to look lifelike but not so detailed that a young seven-year-old couldn’t attempt to copy the picture themselves. Yes, they were factual books, but they weren’t just books of facts. They were storytelling books that used the world around us merely as a starting point, as kindling for a child’s imagination.
He had always pictured the author and illustrator as intrepid, inseparable friends who wrote the books about facts they had discovered themselves. The books were written and illustrated with such a personal touch that it was hard to imagine that the people involved had not actually seen all the animals and shared campfires with all the tribes in the pictures. As a child, they showed him what life could be like: an adventure undertaken in the name of curiosity alone. He had resolved to do everything in those books: climb Mount Everest, swim in a shark cage, walk on a tightrope over Niagara Falls, and pull himself out of quicksand.
( pp. 63-64)
Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession is a sleeper hit for Bluemoose Books— it is the perfect healing read during the pandemic. It has generated a lot of chatter on social media with everyone who has read it, recommending it to others, creating the best kind of buzz: word-of-mouth publicity. No wonder it has been selected as the 2021 One Dublin One Book choice in April!
In 2019, en route to attending the Jaipur Literature Festival, Nikesh Shukla lost his necklace at Heathrow Airport. It was very precious as it contained some of his mother’s ashes. He was extremely distraught. I happened to meet him as well and his grief was palpable. I will not forget that shattered look of his. He was numb. He put out a tweet announcing the loss of his locket. The power of social media being what it is, after more than 10,000 retweets, the necklace was discovered. At least that is what this article states: https://www.indiatoday.in/…/author-loses-necklace-with…
Brown Baby is Nikesh Shukla’s memoir that’s opening line refers to his mother’s death. It is a powerful, all-consuming moment in his life and he forever returns to it in his book. The loss of a dear one, especially a parent, is devastating. Shukla’s mother passed away due to lung cancer and once the death knell had been sounded by the oncologist, the family was heartbroken. A grief and despair that took ages and ages to get back their lives to some semblance of normalcy. The structure of Brown Baby is ostensibly a conversation with his elder daughter, Ganga, who seems to have been born after his mother died but he also uses the book as a reason to talk about racism in UK in minute detail. It is an interesting space for him to explore as he realises the immense responsibility that comes with becoming a parent. How much does one teach the munchkins, how do they navigate their world, how do they straddle worlds etc? He reminiscences how his mother brought up his sisters and him — children of Asian origin growing up in a white country. How they learned to preserve their culture ( food forming a large part of their life) and yet learned how to survive racist slurs and develop identities of their own. While his anger in the first half of the book is understandable and how much of it defines him as an author, publisher and parent today, some of it is also self-defeating. His arguments for being a minority because of his skin colour in a country where white is privileged are based on firsthand experience and other facts he has collected, but he makes the same majoritarian mistake that he is accusing the whites of not recognising the variety of cultures that now exist in modern UK. For example, he falls into the same trap by eliding the definition of India being linked to Hinduism whereas Hindus constitute the majority. He says, “In India, the Ganges river is worshipped as representative of the goddess Ganga.” A true statement that would have read as a more powerful statement if he had clarified by adding that “In India, the Ganges river is worshipped [by the Hindus]…”. In this day and age, when everyone is super-sensitive about identity and cultures, it stands to reason that someone like Nikesh Shukla who is very influential globally in the world of letters would be a little more careful in the choice of his words. He has a responsibility not only towards his daughter who he is introducing to their Indian roots, but also to his multi-cultural readers and the Indian diaspora. His word would carry more weight if he recognised these finer distinctions. In India, all of us are different shades of brown, but thrive in a syncretic and casteist culture, so it is not as easy to make these distinctions between white and brown, but these different identities exist. Yet, we manage to live.
The second half of Brown Baby is far calmer and easier to read. He discusses in detail what it means to talk in Hindi, to be a Hindu in Britain, be an Asian etc. There is a fascinating anecdote he shares about submitting a manuscript to a literary agent who dismisses it for not being authentic Asian. Understandably it makes Shukla hopping mad. Anyone would be under such circumstances. Fortunately he puts this anger to good use and has established The Good Literary Agency with Julia Kingsford.
Inspired by a desire to increase opportunities for representation for all writers under-represented in mainstream publishing, we are focused on discovering, developing and launching the careers of writers of colour, disability, working class, LGBTQ+ and anyone who feels their story is not being told in the mainstream.
It also explains this passage in the concluding pages of Brown Baby:
What does it mean to be British when conversations around the subject have their core in protecting Britain’s whiteness? When the multiculturalism ‘debate’, if you wish to call it such doesn’t scratch any deeper than ‘saris, steel bands and samosas’. Where debate events by sixth form debate clubs like the Institue of Ideas present multiculturalism as a threat to the West, as something worth of debate, as if we never got past that basic point, as if the only conversation we can have about immigration and the place of people of colour in society is about their inherent threat to Western values, rather than how we come to a decision about what an inclusive Britishness looks like.
Nikesh Shukla’s heart is in the right place. He knows how to channel his anger that wells up due to the injustice and discrimination he has either faced or witnessed. He wishes to correct some of these social ills by ensuring that his daughters generation learns to be proud of their identities. A spirit his mother imbued him with as well. At the same time by speaking clearly on these issues and offering an inclusive and diverse publishing platform to others, he hopes to create enough of a difference in the mainstream that will enable everyone to be recognised as equals, irrespective of colour, religion, sexuality etc. The mantra in his memoir seems to be that it is imperative everyone learns to be humane to others. This sensitive understanding needs to prevail. It is only then racist/casteist/communal attitudes will be tackled. Otherwise they will continue to exist for generations.
A pile of Dorling Kindersley books that Sarah has amassed over the years. They form the core of her library. An absolutely brilliant set of books that are created by teams of experts. Each page layout is done with care to detail, facts, and matching the text with the image. Children of today are #visuallearners and are fortunate to live in an age where books exist that are profusely illustrated with photographs. So they get doses of reality, a visual mapping, while learning becomes an enjoyable experience. These encyclopaedias are so packed with information but the pictures hold prominence in every layout. An interesting methodology to book design as the child immerses themselves in the book, absorbed by the visual richness and slowly, over a period of time, familiarises herself with the text. It is important to note that the text never dumbs down the facts. It presents them as is.
Some of these books were gifted to Sarah when she was 7+ and my goodness, how they magically transformed her reading experience. She would sit for hours looking at the pictures, flipping pages and as her #literacyskills became stronger, she began to make sense of of text too and identify more about the creatures, plants, organisms, experiments, objects, geography, weather, etc presented in the books. These books snapped her out of only being absorbed by picture books and story books. There is some merit in kids being allowed their free time to.do exactly as they please, whether it is daydreaming or flipping through books. They get lost in their own little dream worlds. These moments of daze are crucial to their growth as it is increasingly being documented that the #brain grows in such moments with the nerves connecting, synapses finding new routes. These magnificent volumes are storytelling with a difference. The child visually maps her world. She is incredible to be growing up in a world where these images are easily available. For instance, the book on Oceans has gorgeous pictures that do not make the watery world mysterious. Whereas we grew up in a world where Jacques Cousteau was still discovering the wonders of the deep. This particular volume has a preface by Fabien Cousteau, s/o Jacques Costeau.
During the pandemic, when children were confined at home and had to attend classes remotely, these DK books proved to be extremely useful resource material to have handy. Sure, the Internet exists. It is a vast ocean of readily available information but it is not the same thing as paper editions. Learning and reading in many ways is a sensual exercise. The brain needs to be tickled to come alive and absorb. Kids are surrounded by visuals and learn better if provided sensual opportunities of learning. They need to be left alone to slowly see, observe, ponder over and make connections for themselves. Large format, richly illustrated books like this permit the children to lie down on their tummies and stare into the book. Many peaceful hours can be spent like this without the parents getting frantic about excessive time spent on electronic devices or worrying about which links the children will click upon leading them to external websites etc. Books like this, developed by established brands, are good investments as they are sound on their factchecking and photographs used. It is ethicalpublishing too as every image or text used is always credited. It makes for reliable information that can be shared easily with children.
Of course these books are priced on the higher side but are an excellent addition to any home or school library. I understand the reasons for the expense and do not grudge it at all. I would rather buy one of these books than multiple volumes of different reading abilities to say explain the human body to the child. Children are incapable of grasping more than they can at any given time and slowly grow into these books. But it is incredible watching their growth as one fine day comes that magical moment when everything comes together. Now we are at a stage whereas parents we have to be very careful about identifying animals or fish as Sarah knows the exact species and names them accurately.
During remote learning I found it convenient to consult these books and explain the basic concepts of energy, periodic table, life cycle of rocks, vegetation belts, the various systems of the human body, etc. It was possible to let Sarah browse through the books and get a grasp of the concepts her teachers were introducing in their virtual classrooms. But when the teacher is reduced to a tiny box on a computer screen and valiantly attempts to draw sketches on her computer screen to explain to her class, it works but only to a limited extent. A substantial part of the heavy lifting of ensuring the child understood the concept is left upon the parents — this has been particularly evident during the pandemic. It is as if parents were assisting the schoolteachers in “minding the gap” between acquiring information and learning. Even so, once the kids begin returning to school, this kind of “blended” learning is here to stay. Schools are preferring to adopt the #hybridlearning — mix of digital and physical classes. But somewhere the balance has to be also struck between print books and online resources as well. This is were publishing brands like Dorling Kindersley India prove incredibly useful.
Raza Mir’s debut novel, Murder At TheMushaira, is a charming historical fiction set in Delhi, 1857. It is set brilliantly in the midst of the 1857 Uprising when Indian soldiers — both Muslims and Hindus —- revolted against the British for insisting upon the use of cartridges in their rifles that were rumoured to be coated with pig/cow fat. All the major people of the time are resurrected in this languidly-told, detailed story about the murder of Sukhan Khairabadi in the haveli of Nawab Iftikhar Hasan. It throws the Brits into a bit of a tizz as Khairabadi had been hired to spy for them. But these are tense times in the city with many stories intertwined. Even the locals are unsure whom they can trust or not. Meanwhile the poet laureate Mirza Ghalib is entrusted with the task of investigating the murder. It is a bit of a bumble in the manner he is appointed but it seems to work out in everyone’s favour. It makes for a very interesting landscape as the reader is left guessing till practically the very end of the story about the identity of the murderer. The storytelling style is caught between two worlds of literary canons — Urdu and English. There is the slow, many times conversational propelling of plot, minute descriptions and male-dominated storytellers, although fortunately in this story, many women come across as very strong and sharp characters. They definitely know how to hold their own — across the social spectrum. So whether it is the spouses of the Nawab or the poet Ghalib, to the lesser mortals, lower down in the social pecking order, the women have a voice, share much of of gossip and control many of the finances and thus manage the men in their lives. It is a very modern take on what may or may not have happened in the past but it is an enjoyable aspect. The English literature canon makes its presence felt by the recreation of a Victorian novel in its sumptuousness, asides, social commentaries and the clever insertions of the authorial voice tucking itself sneakily into the plot or judging characters. It is fun.If it were possible to deem it so, Murder at the Mushaira is like a literary pietra dura. Incredibly packed with descriptions that make the reader pause in amazement at the beauty. It could be anything stemming from the architecture or description of clothes etc. There is so much to appreciate that I am very sure filmmakers are already beating their way to the author/publisher’s door to be the first to option for this book. But more than anything else, reading this book is like a breath of fresh air where communities intermingle freely, without any edges. The characters respect each other’s communal identities and have a fair understanding of the cultural practices to be observed. There is no wilful ignorance instead a gracious acceptance. Something that is sadly lacking in today’s day and age, not just in the way people conduct themselves but also in contemporary literature that is being mostly created in favour of one or the other community. Fortunately, green shoots of recovery are noticeable with conversations in online discussion forums or even in stray examples of publications that celebrate the syncretic beauty of our Indian culture. Murder at the Mushaira is very reminiscent of Abir Mukherjee and Arjun Gaind’s first murder mysteries set during British India. Perhaps Raza Mir too can be persuaded to create this into a series? It is well worth exploring!!
Meanwhile kudos to Aleph Book Company for nurturing this book over some years before deciding to publish it. The time spent on developing this book has been well spent. It is utterly scrumptious!
Build This Book by David Eckold has incredible book design to teach young minds the principles of physics. Concepts like lever, bridge ( to defy gravity), balance, winch, joints and links, turbine, spinner and potential energy are defined followed by instructions on how to make a model demonstrating the principle. The models are developed by children by punching out cards of each page. Interestingly, the perforated outlines are created in such a manner so as not to spoil the next page. There is a card backing to each design.
And then you have sights such as this one that I captured today of my daughter building models while attending online classes.
So much thought and detail to precision has gone into creating this book. Extraordinary! These are exactly the kind of tools one requires to nurture a child. More so now during the pandemic when children have been engaged in long-distance learning and do not necessarily have access to their classroom/ school resources.
I have spent an incredible four days (26-29 Jan 2021) in a webinar, spread across four countries and multiple time zones. The participants included 8 academics, 5 NGO reps, 21 students and 3 media consultants. It was organised and chaired by Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Prof. of Global History, University of Sheffield, to discuss Female Literacy and Empowerment in the sub-continent through Life Writing.
“Life writing” is a loose term as it is documenting lives of women who do not necessarily document their lives in the straightforward linear narrative that is so often associated with predominant narratives. These are life stories created out of bits of evidence and stories gathered from the community and strung together to at times rescue women’s histories from the past or cobble together contemporary accounts. It is exciting, adventurous, relies on documentation and oral histories and is tough to define within the rules of traditional biographies. All of us gathered virtually to discuss material created so far, some of it has been made into draft stories, and we tried figuring out how best to work with the existing material to create these stories, perhaps even in a publishable format. There is a huge range of skill strengths and experiences in this team. This has to be garnered and capitalised upon in a constructive manner. The point being of sharing histories of women for future generations, something that Siobhan has been passionate for years!
It was fascinating hearing the learnings gleaned by the students and the partner organisations. The stories that have been created and the immense possibilities that lie in making these available to children, neo-literates and women in multiple languages, including Hindi, Urdu and English. The challenges that exist in making these available easily to many people and in many formats — print and digital. More importantly, passing on the learnings of the student in gathering oral histories, creating stories, learning to illustrate for children’s stories, creating a range of products, if necessary, translating them as well and learning about copyright.
So much was shared and discussed that it is impossible to put down in a few words. Hopefully the project will move beyond the pilot stage which has been incredibly successful in ensuring that most of the goals it set, were met.
