NavDharmyug

Writing on History is never easy. In the past, men were giants, Gods or Devils. Distances in time and Affection (or Hatred) impacts the way we look at history, and we tell history. It is often inability to offer human dimension to historical character and to presume that men in those times were, even in those times were guided by basic human instincts and merely responded to the customs and conventions of the times they were captive of. The writing becomes even more difficult when the pen slides on the slippery slopes on the edge where history meets religion. It is not about maintaining the superhuman narrative of the Heroes of those times because one believes in it, rather it is again the century old instinct of survival. How can a religion be legitimate if its founders and heroes were not super human?  It goes totally to the credit of Ms. Hazleton that she makes an extremely impartial and objective inquiry into the truth about the youngest and fastest spreading religion. ...

Intellectuals and scholars like the leaders, at times hold a place of such high reverence in one’s mind that any minor slip, any pettiness on their part, breaks the heart of those who had at one point of time, admired them. I was like most of the Nineties youth was always charmed by Arun Shourie, the Journalist-turned-politician. He, with over-sized half-shirts with pens prominently parked in his pocket was probably the first common man politicians in the post-emergency era, much before Kejriwal turned that uniform into a political attire of Twenty-first century. I was quite young when Shourie came into the political arena and like all young men was quite a fool and romantic. Like Arvind Kejriwal, Shourie moved about with the air of middle-class men, hiding carefully and successfully his background of affluence- like his having been schooled in the elite Modern School and St. Stephen’s in Delhi, and his stint in the world bank, much like Arvind Kejriwal who almost made one believe as...

"As for my next book, I won't write it till it has grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear; pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall."  Ms. Virginia Woolf famously wrote the above on how she decides on the time to start writing her new book. I do not know Chitra B. Divakaruni well enough to know if she waits to write before it grows heavy, asking to be cut or it will fall. But the succulent prose of her novel does suggest a very ripe and mature story. Before We Visit the Goddess is one rare book by a contemporary writer, mainstream writer, if I were to say, that I not only finished; I savored it and finished it with a sense of longing. The story is written with such affection that it shows.  Chitra comes out as a serious writer with deep affection to her story and sincere respect to her craft. The language is not lazy, and the emotions are never half-baked, it almost has the taste of a carefully cooked curry left to simmer overnight, rendered magic...

Winters are here. Not the devastating one which numbs one’s soul and drives deep into the body like the brutal edge of a knife piercing through a slab of ice, with wisps of smoke rising from it. Delhi, the city of extreme weathers, is not there yet. The evenings are cold, but bearable, the mornings are chilly, but welcoming. The war between the Sun and the winter continues. The Sun is brighter than the summer days, but not cruel. There is more brightness than the heat, like a strict disciplinarian father, observing his loveliest daughter, an Elizabeth Bennet to a Mr. Bennet. Winter, in Delhi, steps in slowly with unsure steps and once it finds the ground firm enough to bear its heavy steps, it stamps with the madness of a wild beast, as January brings in the New Year. The bright sunbeams of the initial days of splendid winter mornings dies, helpless in the face of a sudden vengeance of the grey winters descending from an unkind heaven- fog, mist, smog; its broken wings spread, de...

I n a world offering unprecedented anonymity to people on social media, and a tempting opportunity of unimaginable dishonesty to people on mainstream media, it is appropriate to make a disclaimer pronouncing my lack of credentials when I write about subjects in which my interest is limited to being a logical and nation-loving India. I was not an economist when I wrote about demonetization and I am not a military or defense expert, when I am writing this post about the needless controversy being raked about the appointment of the new Chief of Army Staff (COAS).  I wrote earlier on Demonetization as an ordinary citizen and possibly, as a poet and a writer, with no ax to grind. My intent of writing on the appointment of the next Army chief is similar. I do not know the new Army Chief, Lt. General Bipin Rawat, nor do I know the two officers he superseded, both by all accounts of exemplary merit. We live in odd times. The social media is a lawless arena. It offers great opportunity ...

“ What chance would the craftiest biographer stand against the subject who saw him coming and decided to amuse himself .” – Wrote Julian Barnes about Gustave Flaubert , in Flaubert’s Parrot ( Click here to read review ) , a semi-biographical fiction on Flaubert. Essentially his point is let the writer be, as a person, that is. Jane Austen makes for an even difficult person to be traced. Mr. Austen Leigh (Jane Austen’s nephew) wrote about her, “ I doubt whether it would be possible to mention any other author of note whose personal obscurity of was so complete.” It sure does help when we consider the work of a writer which defined the way we looked at things for generations to come. That is the reason having spent one chapter arguing against it, Barnes ended up writing Flaubert’s Parrot and I end up writing here about Jane Austen. But this is not a biography, not even a biographical note (which can be found on Wiki - Link here ), rather a homage and an ode.   ...

It is a pity that I had kept this book unread for such a long time. But then, this is the second book by Radhika Mukherjee that I was reading. The earlier book ( Broken Shadows Review here ) was such a sweet pleasure that I wanted to read this one with due respect that her writing truly deserves. Writings of some writers are like ripe fruit, which if handled carelessly would fall and explode. Her writing is like that. Her earlier book to me was a sweet surprise, this one was an eager expectation. Radhika writes prose but it is so near to poetry. In fact, when you read it, let yourself emerge in it. It has the magic, the vigor and the flow much nearer to spoken-word poetry. The magic of experimental prose is in the honesty it carries. It is as if the writer decided not to let his own consciousness stand between the page and his soul, as if the medium merged into the creator and they are no longer two distinct entities. The magic rises from the mundane, a night, in its...