Memoir Posts

Imran Khan: Memoir ( Jan 2012, BusinessWorld online)

Imran Khan: Memoir ( Jan 2012, BusinessWorld online)

10 05 , 2013 No Comments


This review was published on 20 Jan 2012 in BusinessWorld online. The original link is: http://www.businessworld.in/en/storypage/-/bw/on-a-very-sticky-wicket/379203.0/page/0

As Pakistan is all set to face yet another political tempest, reading the memoirs of one of the key players in the drama — cricketing legend Imran Khan — is worth the effort. In Pakistan: A Personal History, Khan reflects upon the watershed moments in his life. The memoir addresses Pakistani youth — befuddled by existential questions pertaining to their state and their identity — and issues concerning the war on terror — when and how will it end? Are there any solutions? And this memoir is just that. Khan barely dwells upon the magnificent career he had as a sportsman, except to have an account of the memorable and miraculous 1992 World Cup Victory in Australia. He does mention his nine-year-old marriage to Jemima Goldsmith, the birth of his sons and the slander campaign that was instituted against his wife for being a Jew, insinuating that this marriage was the first step in the establishment of a Zionist state in Pakistan. But details of his personal life, except for those relevant to his political career including his growing identity as a Muslim, are relegated to the background. He does not spend too much time discussing Indo-Pak relations either, but he is clear that political dialogue can settle disputes.

For a man who belongs to the elite in Pakistan, with a Western upbringing, educated at Aitchison College, the English-medium public school in Lahore, followed by the Royal Grammar School in Worcester and Keble College, Oxford, and later a successful and legendary cricketer, to enter politics was a major turning point in his life. He established his party, Tehreek-e-Insaaf, nearly fifteen years ago. He decided to set up the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Lahore to provide free care to the very poor. It required seed money of $ 22 million, apart from other funds to sustain it. During the long process of fund raising, the man who was considered powerful and invincible had to face funding fatigue, and learn humility, when the poorest of the poor, came forward and donated small sums of money.

Imran Khan also dwells upon Pakistan’s damaging relationship with US, especially the aid that it is given. “The greatest danger that we face today is if we keep pursuing the current strategy of taking aid from the US and bombing our own people, we could be pushing our army towards rebellion.” He is quite appalled by the impact that this financial lifeline has had on Pakistan. For him, post 9/11, Pakistan is “a country that has fought the US’s war for the last eight years when we had nothing to do with 9/11. Pakistan has over 34,000 people dead (including 6,000 soldiers), has lost over $68 billion (while the total aid coming into the country amounted to $20 billion) and has over half a million people from our tribal areas internally displaced, and with 50 per cent facing unprecedented poverty (while 140,000 Pakistani soldiers were deployed all along our border).” For him a turning point in the political history of Pakistan was 2 May 2011, the killing of Osama bin Laden by the Americans in Abbotabad, a mere 50 kilometres away from Islamabad, and a mile from Pakistan’s Military Academy.

He does not spend too much time discussing Indo-Pak relations, but he is very clear that the Pakistani “foreign policy has to be sovereign and needs to be reviewed with all our neighbours – especially India. All our disputes with India should be settled through political dialogue, and the activities of the intelligence agencies — of both countries — must be curtailed.” In fact, the book was recalled within a week of its release in London as the Partition-time map shows ‘Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir’ shaded in the same colour as that of Pakistan. According to the press release that was issued by the publishers, “the mistake was made by the publishers as the map included in the book was not the one provided to them by Mr Khan”.

Pakistan: A Personal History is a memoir that reads like an election manifesto. It concludes with these lines, where Imran Khan is very sure about his political future. “Fifteen years after forming the party, I feel that my party and I are not only ready, but that mine is the only party that can get Pakistan out of its current desperate crisis. After fourteen years of the most difficult struggle in my life, my party is finally taking off, spreading like wildfire across the country, so that today it is the first choice of 70 per cent of Pakistanis under the age of thirty. … For the first time, I feel Tehree-e-Insaaf is the idea whose time has come.” It is not surprising that this book has been published in 2011, on the eve of elections that are being planned in Pakistan.

(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 30-01-2012)

“And what remains in the end: The memoirs of an unrepentant civil servant” Robin Gupta

“And what remains in the end: The memoirs of an unrepentant civil servant” Robin Gupta

26 04 , 2013 No Comments

Another memoir by an ex-civil servant. An account of thirty-six years of service in the Bengal and Punjab cadre, but mostly focused on events in Punjab. A memoir like this is useful to read since it records socio-historical and economic events that tend to be easily forgotten — at least in public memory. But to wade through this book you will have to ignore the “I, me. myself” tone that does get a tad annoying. In the introduction Robin Gupta says “I should confess at this stage that I have, in these memoirs, permitted myself an element of the writer’s licence to interpret and depict places, individuals and happenings.” Then he should have called it “bio-fic”, a term coined by David Lodge.

In his endorsement of the book, Khushwant Singh says, ” Robin Gupta …memoirs mirror the chiaroscuro of contemporary India as observed by a civil servant…[This book] is a literary milestone.” But in his recently published Khushwantanama says “it is tempting to write one’s life experiences. A first novel is very often autobiographical. However, non-fiction is a different ball game altogether. Memoirs of retired generals and civil servants rarely make for good reading. …What is permissible in a biography is not suitable for an autobiography.”

26 April 2013

Robin Gupta And what remains in the end: The memoirs of an unrepentant civil servant Rupa Publications India Pvt.Ltd. Pb. pp. 290. Rs. 350

On caregiving, review of Jai Pausch’s “dreams new dreams: reimagining my life after loss”

On caregiving, review of Jai Pausch’s “dreams new dreams: reimagining my life after loss”

29 07 , 2012 No Comments

Jai Pausch, dreams new dreams: reimagining my life after loss (Two Roads Books, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, Hachette UK, 2012. Pb, Rs. 295. pp. 224)

In September 2007 Carnegie Mellon Computer Science Professor Randy Pausch’s “The Last Lecture: really achieving your childhood dreams”. ( ) It went viral and within a short space of time had over 10 million views. It resulted in a media buzz and the professor being invited to talk shows across America. In 2006 he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. By the time he delivered his speech, he was terminally ill, having been given only 3-6 months to live by the oncologist. (He was to defy the prognosis by a few months. He died on 25 July 2008.)

His wife Jai Pausch published a memoir dreams new dreams: reimagining my life after loss ( documenting her time as Randy’s primary caregiver and how she learnt come to terms with his death and move on. It is a very moving account of how she learned to balance mothering, housekeeping and being primary caregiver to her husband. Their children were Dylan (four-and-a-half), Logan (twenty-two months) and Chloe (three months whom Jai was nursing) when Randy’s cancer was discovered. It was tough for her. But she writes movingly about learning how to take on more responsibility as Randy’s condition deteriorated. Very quickly she learnt that self-preservation is as important as caregiving. So she learnt to rely on help from family, friends, neighbours to the extent that they helped her unpack her belongings and settle into a new home.

Caregiving at the best of times is a very difficult responsibility and there is no respite, especially if you are the primary caregiver. Schedules of the caregiver, the daily humdrum (which are equally important) can easily go for a toss if not monitored equally diligently, but it becomes quite challenging if it also involves looking after small children. The mother is torn between her responsibilities. And this is something that comes through in Jai’s memoir. When Randy was being given chemotherapy in a different city, she would spend the week with him only to return home to spend the weekend with her children and do everything with and for them, including cooking a regular meal.

A big concern for a caregiver is the looming fear of death. It is a numbing feeling that makes thinking or doing any normal chore nearly impossible since the mind is always worried about losing the loved one to death. It is only when the caregiver faces the reality that some sense of peace begins to creep in. A similar feeling is expressed by Jai when Randy tells her that he saw his dead father in his room. “After months of worry and fear, after living in the shadow of death and witnessing the pain of letting go of life, Randy’s death came as somewhat of a relief to me. I could let go of Randy or at least the role of caring for him. I could stop trying to save my husband by running him to experimental treatments. I could quit obsessing over every change in his health status, stop worrying that even the smallest symptom, like bloating, could be a sign of something more serious, such as kidney failure. The strain of keeping him alive each day, which weighed terribly on me, was now gone.”

The pressure of being a caregiver is exhausting, but it is worsened by being unable to share one’s experiences or even let off some steam once in a while. It is quite normal to want to vent one’s emotions. Jai was fortunate enough to have “had a friend to whom I could talk about my feelings without fear of being misunderstood.” This recognition of reaching out to other people in a similar position like herself had prompted her to write this memoir. She writes, “Their grief and guilt they felt for mistakes they perceived they had made echoed some of my own feelings. I asked myself, Where is the help for folks like us who tirelessly give to our dying loved ones? Why wasn’t the medical community concerned about the people who struggle to carry the medical burden while also meeting normal everyday demands?” With this book she hopes that “my dream is that my story will legitimize what caregivers undergo willingly and bravely as they care for the person they love. Patients need and deserve support, but it’s time for us as a community to understand that suffering that is shouldered, sometimes silently, by our family members, neighbours, friends and coworkers. We need to offer help to these people, to develop and implement programmes at cancer centres and other organisations. We need to empathize with that person taking on the duty of overseeing the patient’s care and well-being. Finally, we need to care for the caregiver.”

dreams new dreams is a must read for all caregivers. Without being dull or voyeuristic, it is sensitively told — it is honest, frank and a useful aid on caregiving.

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