Book review: Ultimate Grandmother Hacks by Kavita Devgan

Reviewed by Shikhandin

Ultimate Grandmother Hacks.jpg

Title: Ultimate Grandmother Hacks – 50 kickass traditional habits for a fitter you
Author: Kavita Devgan
Publisher: Rupa Publications
Pages: Paperback, 218
Price: INR 295/-

 

The title of the book will grab any millennial’s attention. The book cover is elegant and clutter free, in spite of packing in a title that runs into a sentence, the author’s name, the visual element and an endorsement by Kiran Mazumdar Shaw.  The back cover is strengthened by two more celebrity endorsements, apart from a pithy blurb set to hook the reader. I am certain this book is doing well. Especially since it embraces a subject that will always remain ever green – fitness through food.

“Ultimate Grandmother Hacks” is written in a conversational style, like most books of its ilk, dishing out tips and recipes and so forth, in what the author and her editors assumedly believe is accessible, readable. I guess it really is a matter of individual taste. Accessibility can become frivolous, and at times talk down to the readers. It was probably this aspect that made it a little difficult for me to take this ride with Devgan. Every now and then, I felt like a tourist being led by a guide who has nothing new to say, but gushes about it, nevertheless.

“Now all mothers are amazing. But mine is not just amazing, she is somehow supremely attuned to all things healthy too. Case in point: one of her recent concoctions is grated beetroot and carrot atta (dough), seasoned with salt and ajwain (carom seeds). Imagine beetroot parantha (bread). Unusual, agreed. But what a fantastic, even if somewhat twisted way to sneak in healthy eating.” This piece, in the prologue, breezily proclaiming a standard homemaker’s tactic to make regular paratha to be her mother’s invention, was off putting; and then, going on to explain Indian words to an Indian audience, pretty much throughout the book. If one must make allowances for foreign readers, then, please just add it to the glossary at the end. Readers are not fools, nor are they all that ignorant. Though going by the tone of the whole book, Kavita Devgan obviously believes so. And, then it hit me.

Who is this book really for?

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Book review: Book of Prayers for the nonbeliever by Dibyajyoti Sarma

Reviewed by Paresh Tiwari

book of prayers front and back

Title: Book of Prayers for the nonbeliever
Author: Dibyajyoti Sarma
Publisher: Red River (2018)
Pages: 128 (Paperback)
Price: INR 400

To read Dibyajyoti Sarma’s, Book of Prayers, is to see — in one’s own lifetime — the birth of a modern mongrel mythology, rendered skilfully on every page. Dibyajyoti’s poetry deftly fuses together bits from Mahabharata, ancient Assamese lore, and his own story. The terrain is one of love, loss and longing, and that in itself isn’t something new or particularly unique. What, however is, is his voice. Dibyajyoti’s poems are travellers. Brimming with symbolist images, the poems move deftly from deeply personal experiences to mysticism and fables, relentless in their pursuit of the self.

Dibyajyoti opens the book with a warning where he candidly owns the reader, when he says – this book is about you, and me. In this one sentence, so seemingly innocent, he establishes a tone of confession – almost as if he and the reader are lovers – and it is this tone of confession that roots the book in a pursuit of truth. With this one line, which isn’t even a poem but a precursor relegated to a page before you dig your teeth into his work, he joins the pantheon of Walt Whitman, striking an intimate relationship with his reader. And we gladly hold his hand.

Book of Prayers is divided into five sections, the first four named after an element each and the last titled ‘An Unfinished Yantra for an Unnamed Personal God’. In each of these sections, Dibyajyoti shines a light on humanity, in all its messy, heartbreaking, soaring glory. He gets down into the soil of his roots, digging with his bare hands. His poetry deftly navigates the history of an entire community, touching briefly yet deeply, myriad subjects and themes – love, lust, longing, pain, memories, to name but a few. And he juxtaposes them with mythology known and unexplored, which reminds us that the universality of human emotion is not even a factor of time, and in this timeless saga, life germinates over the pages one ink blossom at a time.

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Book excerpt: In the Time of the Others by Nadeem Zaman

in the time of others

From Chapter 17

The soldiers formed a firing squad on Shaukat’s order, waited for the officer to be clear of the scene as they had been ordered, and emptied their rifles into the prisoners.

 ‘Sir? Wasn’t this night a complete waste?’

 Shahbaz had been watching the soldiers dump the bodies into the river. The ones from inside were brought out and also thrown in.

‘Fifteen Muktis a waste?’ Shahbaz said. ‘Nights like this are what we need.’

‘I understand, sir, but – ’

‘You want to keep telling what’s better and what’s not?’ Shahbaz’s head turned slowly.

‘No sir, of course not.’

‘Did you know that in a nuclear holocaust the only living survivors would be cockroaches?’

‘I didn’t know this, sir.’

‘It’s true. The determined, nasty little bastards will survive it all. That’s what these Muktis are. That’s what their race is. They’re nasty little bastards, meant to be crushed, but you can’t get rid of them if you think they’ll just go away, disappear, die on their own. The only good thing is that these Bengalis are flesh and blood humans, and those we can get rid of.’

Shaukat allowed the convoluted analogy to sink in. Offered a cigarette, he accepted it with a quick glance at Shahbaz. Shahbaz’s attention was still pinned on the soldiers’ activities. Shaukat lit his cigarette and felt the wave of the momentary release wash over him.

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Short story: Terms of Service by Timothy Yam

The Best Asian Speculative Fiction

“Diana, can you hear me?”
There was no response.
“Diana?”
Stephanie’s voice echoed through the house. The little glass dome hanging in the corner of the kitchen glowed with pink light. Stephanie put the shopping bags on the marble countertop and sighed. Diana had been sluggish for about a month now, and whenever she was queried about her slow responses, would simply reply, “I recommend that you update my operating system. I assure you that it will greatly improve my ability to serve.”

As compelling as that argument was, Stephanie had been reluctant to comply. Yes, a fully upgraded Diana would provide her with more help, and some of her new features sounded good. Okay, she didn’t understand what they were exactly, as they had names like the Oneiric Satiation Module or the Phronesis Budget Calculator, but she had to admit that they literally sounded impressive. But there was a part of her that took a spiteful glee at saying “no” to Diana, which was odd considering how hard she had pushed Jason to purchase her when they first bought the house.

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Book review: State of Emergency by Jeremy Tiang

Reviewed by Mitali Chakravarty

state of emergency

 

Title: State of Emergency
Author: Jeremy Tiang
Publisher: Epigram Books, 2017
Number of pages: 245

Jeremy Tiang’s State of Emergency won 2018’s Singapore Literature Prize (SLP) for fiction. Kate Griffin, one of the judges for the award, wrote in an article, “Erasing Histories” (https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/article/erasing-histories/): ‘State of Emergency, Jeremy Tiang’s beautifully written first novel, highlights a lesser known side of Singaporean history, exploring the leftist movements and political detentions in Malaysia and Singapore from the 1940s onwards, through the stories and memories of an extended family.’

Focused mainly within the local and Malayan Chinese community, the Communist movement found refuge in the jungles of Malaysia. The novel traces the development and then the quelling of this movement through the stories of three generations of Jason Low’s extended family. Jason’s wife, Siew Lee, chooses Communism over her family and leaves for the jungles of Malaya, partly to save herself and partly to live by her beliefs. Jason loses his sister in the 1965 Konfrontasi terrorist bomb blast in MacDonald House where she worked in a bank. The Konfrontasi was an Indonesian reaction to oppose the colonial decision for the formation of a separate Malaysia (of which Singapore remained a part till August 1966). These political movements in the ASEAN rip through the fabric of the Low family, tearing it apart.  Though his daughter continues to work as a Singapore government official, his son leaves him to immigrate to the United Kingdom and Jason Low finds himself in a ‘C’ class geriatric ward.

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