My great-grandfather, Mr. S. N. Mukarji, was the principal of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. He was the second Indian principal of the institution. It was also during his tenure that the college premises moved from Kashmere Gate to the present ones in the University of Delhi. Unfortunately he died while still in service.
Fifty years later I was a student in the college. I was asked to write an article to remember him. I took the help of my grandfather, Mr. N.K. Mukarji, to write this article.
A couple of years ago, my mother, Dr. Shobhana Bhattacharji, went to Armenia to attend a conference on Byron. It is the annual gathering of Byronists that is held every year in a different country. While there she came across a library for children. It looked like an ordinary building on the outside. But once in, it was stupendous. Mum loved it. Here are some pictures from her visit.
It has taken the pandemic for many of us to confront our mortality. Living with the fear of contracting the virus is like living in the shadow of death 24×7. It is a gloomy existence. Fortunately those able-bodied souls who have the chance and exercise their choice, know how to plan for their future, assuming they live. Yet “death” has been explored in literature ad nauseam. It is a complicated part of life since death brings with it a flood of emotions. Grief being predominate but much else happens too. Every individual affected by grief react in their own way.
“Ways of Dying” is a fine collection of literary writings around death and its rites that are observed by the living. All the pieces assembled in this book are extremely well known. But to have them arranged in this manner, shifting gears constantly between the public and personal spaces, unleashes a roller coaster of emotions in the reader. For instance, descriptions of the communal riots in the heart of the Indian capital in Oct 1984 (Amitav Ghosh), Khushwant Singh recalling the last hours of his grandmother, Amitava Kumar’s moving account of his mother’s death, or the fascinating extracts from David Davidar’s book “House of Blue Mangoes” and Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal” leave one’s head spinning. The quality of writing is excellent. Controlled and measured . It engulfs the reader in the writer’s hurt at witnessing death. It is an indescribable moment. But at least we are spared that finality of the moment. Because when it comes, it is devastating. It is numbing. These stories can only bring you close to the experience. No more. But it is sufficiently chilling to read especially during the pandemic.
Maya Shanbag Lang’s memoir What We Carry is an extraordinarily powerful memoir about looking after her mother. Dr Shanbag, Maya’s mother, was a doctor and a fiercely independent woman who always was in charge of her life. She was a very respected doctor in her professional circles. Her outstanding characteristic was that she lived life on her own terms. So much so, she decided when she would quit her marriage or take on a gruelling job at a hospital as it ensured her a pension. Maya describes her mother as being miserly with her money and scrimping and saving all the time. It is not as if Maya and her brother were in want of anything, their mother ensured that her children were well provided for. But it is when her mother begins to show signs of forgetfulness, lose alarming amounts of weight in a very short period of time, have mood swings etc that her children decide to have her medically evaluated. At the consultant’s room in a particularly lucid moment, Dr Shanbhag surprises everyone by acknowledging her dementia. Yet, as the doctor advises that the decline will happen and their mother will no longer able to live alone. She needs supervision and caregiving. This is when Maya decides to step in and take care of her mother. She moves her lock, stock and barrel into her own home. She merely informs her husband via a text message that she is bringing her mother home to live with them. He is so wonderfully accepting of his wife’s decision. While juggling her relatively new daughter, now her mother and her own professional commitments as a writer, Maya has her hands more than full. This memoir is about that one intense year of trying to manage everything singlehandedly and be on top of things. Yet at the same time Maya is perceptive enough to recognise the different stages of caregiving, the spiralling downwards of the patient and the transformation it wrought upon the entire family unit with a heartwarming scene of even the young granddaughter recognising her grandmother’s frailty and holding her hand. While combing through her mother’s papers, Maya discovers that her mother had the astute foresight to invest in an expensive insurance scheme that permitted her coverage indefinitely in one of the plushest old age homes. Maya was astonished and relieved to discover this fact but she reveals this with such grace and dignity in the memoir. Moving her mother to the home is done out of pure love as Maya chooses a place that is not too far from her own home. It also has all the amenities required for old age care but does not traumatise the patient with its forbidding interiors. On the contrary, it is warm and welcoming. Her mother takes to it happily.
You don’t have to be a caregiver yourself to appreciate this gem of a book. But if you are, it is overwhelming to read for its perceptiveness — the kindness it requires to look after a loved one especially a parent, the sharing of one’s grief at witnessing the deterioration of the person as they disappear into a fog from which there is no coming back, sharing also the frustration that relentless caregiving brings with it and most certainly the exhaustion that is never ending. Maya discovers her stress busting moments are frequenting the gym. It helps at times for primary caregivers to look the other way and indulge in a bit of self-presevation and self-care.
As Maya discovers caregiving for the two bookends of life can be brutal but it has its rewarding moments too. It is a very moving account of three generations of her family. It is played out in innumerable homes every day. It is the circle of life.
Ickabog by J K Rowling was released in early November 2020 by Hachette. It is a story that she used to tell her children at bedtime. When the pandemic began, Rowling began to release it chapter by chapter on her website. Then she invited children to illustrate the story. For the print edition, a few of these exceptional illustrations were selected. A stunning hardback edition was created with a deep green-blue-gold cover.
Hachette India very kindly sent a copy. Before I could get to it, my ten-year-old daughter read it. It has been ages since I have seen Sarah immersed in a book. She refused to budge from her chair, instead she read and read. It was such a pleasure to see. This is the second Rowling publication this year that has proven her credentials as an amazing storyteller. ( The other book being Troubled Blood published as Robert Galbraith.) As soon as she finished reading the book, Sarah wrote this short book review.
Sarah reading “Ickabog”
Here is Sarah Rose’s book review
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“The Ickabog” by J K Rowling
“As tall as 2 horses. Eyes like glowing balls of fire.
Long, razor-sharp claws.
The Ickabog is coming…”
This is J K Rowling’s latest book: “The Ickabog”
It is about this kingdom called Cornucopia and its kingdoms: Jeroboam, Kurdsburg, Baronstown. But it is mainly set in the capital: Chouxville.
The king (Fred the fearless) had two friends – Lords Spittleworth and Flapoon. They both take advantage of King Fred. Since he thinks they are jolly good chaps and always take their advice! On the day of the petition, King Fred decides to be on his best behaviour. Since some of his citizens thought he was vain, selfish, and cruel. The king tried to be the opposite of all those things. Back to the day of petition, a man entered when the petition time ended and claimed that the Ickabog had eaten up his dog and asked the king for help and to hunt down the Ickabog.
Almost everyone in Cornucopia believes that the Ickabog is just a legend and created to scare the children. But some believe that the monster is real! King Fred did not want to make people think that he did not want to go after a mythical monster. But most of all, he did not want other people to think that he was scared; so, he went on the 3-day trip to hunt the monster down. The Ickabog lives in the Marshlands. Where it is like a swamp. There is not enough food for the people and the sheep to live in. The king of Cornucopia has an encounter with the Ickabog, and he skipped so many heartbeats!
King Fred got so scared that he did not come out of Chouxville for a long time. In the Marshlands, while everybody was scattered due to the immense, thick fog, Lord Flapoon thought that he had heard the Ickabog and took out his blunderbuss and shot. But did not shoot the Ickabog. He shot Major Beamish, the head of the army and a father. When they came back to Chouxville, (which was a 3-day ride on horseback) the mother and the son soon found out that the body under the cloth is their father and husband. How do you ask? Lord Spittleworth tells them. But he did not tell him that Flapoon killed him with his blunderbuss, but he told them that the Ickabog attacked and killed him while he was trying to protect the king….
What I really liked about the book is how four friends (Martha, Roderick, Daisy and Bert) stop at nothing to save Cornucopia and its citizens. But what I did not like was how and why Lord Spittleworth was blackmailing the king by tricking him into making the citizens of Cornucopia will have to pay by giving the Ickabog Defence Brigade money and gold which equals to poverty because Spittleworth kept on increasing the prices. But he also took most of the money himself. What I also don’t like is how Spittleworth keeps on telling lies and killing people so that his awful plans would not be ruined.
If I had to rate this book from 1 to 10, I would give it 100!!! It is such a delightful book! I do not know about you, but I really love adventure, action, and fantasy. And this book was the definition of all that! And After you turn every page, the plot thickens…there are always twists. For the age group I guess it would be for everyone!
For Marilynne Robinson devotees, Jack, has been a long awaited novel in the Gilead quartet. Many of the characters, especially the protagonist, Jack Boughton are going to be familiar to readers. But this is probably the first time that an entire novel-length work has been reserved for Jack. It is much like a cross between a novelist itching to work out the backstory of a character that has gripped them and pandering to the market demand for more stories about a community that has gripped their imagination. The storyline dwells mostly on Jack and his troubled past but it is also an incredibly beautiful account of how love blossoms. Marilynne Robinson writes of Jack’s courtship with the “coloured” Della Miles elegantly. It is a stunning meditative theological plunge into understanding how love and fundamental kindness works across man-made social structures. In fact Della’s father, Bishop James Miles is much admired and as Rev. Hutchins points out to Jack that they “are the most respectable family on this round earth”. Jack and Della are very aware of the challenges that lie ahead if they wish to be married as they live in a racially segregated world.
Jack is a stunning novel that works as a standalone story but is enriched knowing the other novels in the quartet too. It is seeped in Christian imagery but it is immaterial as the bottomline is that in the eyes of God (whoever He maybe for the reader), everyone is equal. Having said that it is a wonderful reminder that love does conquer all if the couple in question so desire it. A powerful thought to takeaway from a fictional story when in India we have #lovejihad rearing its ugly head where couples marrying across caste and religious lines are being violently prohibited from doing so. An Indian form of segregation based not on colour but social lines. Hopefully many will take to heart that “take any chance you get to do a kindness. There’s no telling what might come of it.”
One of the advantages of making books available across platforms –digital and print– has been the increase in the voracious appetites of readers. It is enabling readers to be at ease with inter-discilinary texts. It has also given publishers the joy of commissioning texts that appeal to lay readers but are encyclopaedic in material with the possibility of many spinoffs in rights deals. The Invention of Surgery, A History of Modern Medicine: From the Renaissance to the Implant Revolution is one such book. Packed with information, anecdotes, historical facts etc detailing the revolution in technology through history reformed surgical practices. And it is an evolutionary process that is ongoing. It is also an astonishing reminder that much of the surgical theory and practices that we are familiar with were discovered during the Victorian Age and twentieth century. Somehow this book reminded me of of the superb BBC TV documentary series made in 1985 called “Soldiers”. It was hosted by author Frederick Forsyth and scripted by renowned historian John Keegan. ‘Soldiers’ told the history of men in battles, bringing together footage, oral histories, interviews etc. It was a fascinating patchwork that really brought the life of soldiers during the World Wars to life. Same holds true for Schneider’s book with regard to modern medicine and surgery. It is a connecting of dots with minute details that makes for a fascinating historical account. I only wish that the font size was bigger and margins broader.
Nevertheless I hope it is turned into a television series soon!
The Museum Of Whales You Will Never See by A. Kendra Greene is an extraordinary book. It is going to become one of those books that will constantly sell and continue to mesmerise readers by occupying that magical space between reality and folklore. On the face of it, the book is a travelogue by an essayist, printer and maker of artist’s books. Greene travels to Iceland to visit some of the 265 museums and public collections that exist in a nation of 330,000 people. These are astonishing collections ranging from.the phallic to rocks. It is impossible to succinctly sum up what this book contains except to say that once done reading this book slowly, it is a satisfying read. Greene does a phenomenal job in promoting Iceland by delving into its history through the various collections browses through. In recent years, it has become fashionable to tell histories through “a object” as if that one object can symbolise a moment in time and culture. In many case by decontextualising the object and focussing upon it, scrubs away layers and layers of history that actually enrich the experience of appreciating the objet d’art. This is exactly what Greene happily undoes in this stupendous book by introducing the reader to various art forms or those that can be called and valued as art by the locals, but the true value of the objects emerges from the interactions of the tourists and locals. Greene also uses different stories as a springboard to go back in time to introduce readers to the vastly rich Icelandic cultural heritage. A past that has not been formed by religious considerations alone but by socio-economic concerns such as trade and the very particular glacial topography. She weaves it all together superbly with the abundant folklore. So much so that it does not seem unusual to move seamlessly between the real and imagined realms. Even the long book title that does hint at the magic that resides within the pages does not prepare the reader sufficiently for the beauteous prose and very fulfilling reading experience.
Rachel Cusk’s trilogy– Outline, Transit and Kudos are a curious set of books. Ostensibly it is about a writer/academic. She takes creative writing courses. She meets people while travelling or as a tourist in other cities. She is always receptive to conversations and adventures. She goes on journeys. She records experiences as if with no judgement but there is judgement seeping through every page of the trilogy. It is a kind of judgement that allows the authorial narrative to subtly insert itself in the stories and share truths that border on homilies. It is quite something to read these books in quick succession. Best way to rwad thr trilogy rather than in dribs and drabs.
Reading these books during the pandemic gave me a strange sense of peace. Although there were moments in the descriptions or the people the protagonist encounters that are mildly disturbing. Yet Rachel Cusk manages to keep a tight control on the narrative persuading the reader to read on. Once done you realise there is nothing remarkable about the story told. It is ordinary and mundane. And yet it is in that very commonness of the telling that the storytelling is so revelatory — there are stories and experiences to be gained in ordinary life. Ultimately it influences the individual too. It is like a journey of self-discovery in daily existence without undergoing a heroic journey of epic proportions. More importantly, it speaks to women too in encouraging them to take small steps before realising that the cumulative effect has had the desired impact of a big leap forward — perhaps beyond their own expectations.
A set of books that are impossible to forget easily.
