Meera Nanda. ‘A Field Guide to Post-Truth India’. [5 *****]
‘Let Truth Triumph’
This is a bracing, inspiring read. If we want to prepare our children and grandchildren to face the future with heads held high and eyes wide open, this is the book for us. The challenges of inequality, climate breakdown and global political challenges have to be met with intelligence, common sense and determination, not wishful thinking. Let us first clear our heads with this exceptional, world class book that maps the contours of India’s intellectual landscape with amazing clarity and accuracy.
[Posted on my page on 15/12/2024]
*&
Siddharth Deb. ‘The Rise of the Hindu Right and the Decline of India’ [*****]
Excellent description and analysis
It is hard to think of another book that has such a neatly balanced subtitle and does perfect justice to each half of it. Part I is eloquent on how ‘matsya nyaya’, as the Mahabharat put it, took over India after a Toyota truck rolled across it. Part II s highlight is an uplifting view of ancient Indian experiments in aeronautical engineering. Part III has splendid essays on dissent, political and literary. Bravo, Mr Deb. Reminds me of Komireddi and Meera Nanda, in different ways.
*&
Jayanta Bhatta. ‘Much Ado about Religion’ [Reviewed in India on 17 December 2024.5 *****]
High art meets sophisticated thinking in this play from classical India. This is a thoughtfully and stylishly produced work from the marvelous Clay Sanskrit series. Bhatta attempts to put down the philosophic thought of Jains, Buddhists and all schools of the Carvakas in order to establish the supremacy of Vaishnavaism. The savage satire and wit still delight A very helpful introduction, valuable footnotes and a commentary in the form of end-notes are enormously helpful for readers unfamiliar with Sanskrit and the historical background. A beautiful book and a model translation.
*&
Shailaja Paik. ‘The Vulgarity of Caste’ [Posted on 17/12/24. *****]
Pioneering work of great sophistication
Richard Hoggart and Alan Bold, over a generation ago, studied working class culture in England and noted how discontent and rebellion often took the form of obscene songs and jokes. But working class lives and identities were informed by a morality built around the ideas of work and community. Shailaja Paik examines ‘Tamasha’, the Marathi form of popular theatre, with sophistication and depth and shows how beneath the crude binaries of ‘vulgar’ and ‘refined’ and ‘high’ and ‘low’ lie a complex history and sociology of cruelty, oppression and marginalization and a fight for dignity and humanity. Paik opens up the sex-gender-caste complex like no one has done before. A pioneering work of great intelligence and compassion.
*&
David Quammen. ‘The Song of the Dodo’ [17/12/24. Posted on Amazon India. *****].]
If you are going to be on a deserted island with only one book, this is the volume you should have. Quammen, master story teller, tells us how the theory of evolution took shape and how the role of islands and their biogeography helped biologists like Darwin and Wallace understand the dynamics of speciation and extinction. This book of rare beauty and charm uses the incredible explanatory power of the theory of evolution to show how ecosystems were shaped and how they continue to evolve. He dwells on the fragmentation of land and the resultant loss of biodiversity. As we shred the Persian carpet of creation through development a bleak future awaits mankind.
*&
Hope Jahren. ‘The Story of More’ [Posted on 17/12/24 *****.]
Less Stuff, More Hope
More cannot be said about the need to consume less stuff in fewer words than in this crisp work. Very US-centric but is of global relevance. Fact after fact is presented by Jahren about production and consumption, often in interesting nuggets. She is upbeat about how we can overcome climate catastrophe and the sixth mass extinction and offers the mantra that we should use less and share more. There are also tips on how to do this. If the facts she presents are correct, there is little reason to justify her optimism that things will turn out well. But “positive thinking” is an American condition and Jahren cannot escape it.
The Indian middle class should take a look at Hope.
*&
John Gray. ‘The New Leviathans: Thoughts after Liberalism’ [Posted on 21/12/24 *****.]
Honest, Brutal and Brief.
The condition of “positivity” pervades the cultural space of the western world. Truth and freedom are much spoken about but the real emphasis is more on make-believe and libertarianism. John Gray is too much of a philosopher of the old fashioned kind – acute, deeply learned, solidly knowledge-based, up to date and unflinchingly honest – to delude himself or his readers. Smug western commentators speak about the triumph of liberal democracy and science and industry. Gray sees, instead, greed, arrogance and the narcissism of a contemporary hyper individualistic world in the vice like grip of technologies that men cannot understand or master that will lead to a few islands of prosperity in oceans of anarchy and inequality. Great prose makes his mordant pessimism readable, even enjoyable. Indians should like the occasional turn to Schopenhauer who derived much of his gloom from Sanskrit classics. An honest and courageous thinker.
*&
Franklin Edgerton. The Elephant-Lore of the Hindus: The Elephant Sport (‘Mātañga-lĩlā’) of Nilakanta. [Posted on Amazon India on 28/03/2025.]
A fabulous world
Would you like to roam and luxuriate in the fabulous world of classical India’s great works? Welcome aboard. One gets a glimpse of the enormous world of information that must have existed in classical India about the elephant, the “leading technology” of the world for over a millennium during the ancient period, according to the historian Thomas Trautmann. Elephants were supernatural in origin, could fly and go invisible at times. A valuable and critical introduction sieves the real and the practical from the fabulous. The sharp observational details commingle with implausible explanations to provide an exhilarating and joyous ride.
*&
Dennis Kincaid. ‘British Social Life in India: 1608 – 1937’ [Posted on 19/12/2024. [ *****.]
Ceaselessly entertaining: Wine, women and money.
Unpretentious, naive-realist account that extends from the first Englishman to arrive in India (a Jesuit priest in 1579) to the 1930s when, after about half a century of arrogance and racially inspired hatred, the English realized they would have to leave. Much of the book is about the simple regulars of the East India Company; a story of adventurers, brigands, thrill-seekers, traders, soldiers etc etc, all looking for money and pleasure and never missing a chance to have more of it. The snobbery is exquisite, both the men and the women are shown, in a nice set of prose caricatures, desperately trying to keep up with the Joneses, partying, dressing up and merry-making. It is a wonder anyone found any time to administer Britain’s largest colony. Some of the great heroes of history appear with both feet of clay, weak, venal and ridiculous.
*&
Saket Soni. ‘The Great Escape’ [Posted, 21/12/2024. *****.]
A great David vs Goliath story from the 21st century.
When over 500 Indian workers were enticed to go to the USA in 2006 to work as welders and their trips arranged by powerful multinationals no one imagined that it was a case of modern slave labour. Living and working in inhuman conditions in post-Katrina Louisiana the men eventually revolted. Helped by a labour organiser named Saket Soni the men walked off their jobs, marched to Washington DC and staged a ‘satyagraha’ before the White House. After years of pain and humiliation and constant struggle their voices were heard and relief made available. A tale full of twists and turns, heroic efforts and great stoicism. Soni also provides sobering insights into the real nature of modern industrial society. Very, very highly recommended.
*&
Meera Nanda. ‘Breaking the Spell of Dharma and Other Essays’ Five stars. [Posted 25/3/25. *****.]
Locked in to a poetic past.
Nanda looks at the problems nostalgia for a mythic past can entail for the intellectual life of a
modern nation. We then posit connections between the natural and the social world that are unreal. A careful analysis will set us on the right course; paths sketched by Indian thought-leaders who were analytically sharp and historically aware and driven by a desire for justice. If our liberal democracy should be robust and thrive we need to pay heed to Nanda’s diagnosis of our problems and the road map for an equitable and forward-looking perspective that will energise and steer us. Three brilliantly argued essays will convince us of this.
*&
Emmanuel Carrère. ‘Yoga’. Translated by Paul Lambert. [Posted 26/12/24. *****.]
Mesmerising and exasperating
Only a French writer, one feels, would get away with something like this – attempting a book that is unclassifiable, is both exhilarating and painful and which contains sections of exquisite beauty while also containing banal and dull and repetitive parts. The book is long, meditative and self-absorbed and mixes the factual, the fictional and the imaginative with great ease. Yoga or meditation is the main thread that binds the whole together. We move from Pondicherry to Paris, the Charlie Hebdo affair, cartoons, mental illness, depression and ECT and then to an island in Greece where Carrère tries to teach Muslim boys, refugees during the great Syrian crisis of 2016, along with a new friend Erica, also a volunteer at the camp. He moves on to narrate the poignant story of his relationship with his editor and friend Paul. The sublime and the ridiculous, the serious and the comic, the factual and the fabulous, the exceptional and the common all mix and mingle in this extraordinarily sensitive narrative that is so tangled and rich it probably reflects the maddening reality of real life in our time. Or maybe it does not.
*&
Swami Agehananda Bharati. ‘The Light at the Centre: Context and Pretext of Modern Mysticism’ [Posted 25/12/24. *****.]
Insights galore, but “caviar to the general”
Swami Agehananda Bharati, a German anthropologist and scholar of religion, studied mysticism first as a practising sanyasin and later as an academic researcher at Syracuse University. While deeply religious, Bharati’s primary motive is intellectual curiosity. He brings his razor sharp mind ruthlessly down on any idea that is illogical and untenable. For truth his standards came from the best epistemologists both Asian and Western. For solace, he found the best in classical Hinduism. But his writings, sparkling and rich in knowledge and insights as they are, have proved to be “caviar to the general”, unread, underappreciated, never discussed. Except in the pages of a Meera Nanda, who zeroes in on truth with a similar zeal. No one who hopes to understand Indian culture can afford to ignore either scholar.
*&
Patricia S. Churchland. ‘Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition’: [Posted 22/12/2024 *****.]
Moms and babies, the roots of morality.
Here is a slow, cautious, methodical and systematic exploration of how Homo sapiens came to have a moral sense and how and why it works in different ways in different societies. Churchland’s ideas flow from evolutionary biology and her ground-breaking work in neurophysiology. The root of all morality is the attachment all mothers have for their babies. This is extended to other kin, in wider circles, until it gets embedded in the brain and is experienced as the voice of one’s upbringing. Along the way, Churchland rejects the Kantian view that morality emerges from pure logic and the view of the Utilitarians and their contemporary descendants like Peter Singer and Joshua Greene, because biology contradicts them. Chruchland also rejects the claims made by religions about the source of morality. A great work, a landmark in the march of knowledge.
*&
‘India and the Unthinkable: Backwaters Collective on Metaphysics and Politics’ [Posted 6/12/2024.**]
Brave but futile
This is a collection of essays by a brave set of scholars who seek to show that metaphysics is a form of knowledge superior to every other form of knowledge, one that needs to be resurrected for India to regain her international standing. But no amount of scholasticism can achieve this. Not even when, ironically, the outward forms of scholarly writing, the citations, footnotes and so on, are mimicked. A contributor rightly credits the social reformer and saint Sree Narayana Guru with initiating the steps that ushered in change to Kerala, but says his real contribution is in resurrecting Sankara’s advaita philosophy which, for him, was the actual basis for the reform movement. The contributors are all “blessed” by their inability to feel cognitive dissonance. The ability to mistake ideology for metaphysics is an added asset that helps them take the moral high ground. Enthusiasm is one thing, knowledge another. It is a shame that the two do not meet within the pages of this audacious book.
*&
Adrian Daub. ‘What Tech Calls Thinking: An Enquiry in the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley’. [Submitted to Amazon. Date, not certain.]
Exposed, with subtlety and smartness.
Adrian Daub brings a different kind of perspective to bear on the claims the tech brotherhood and their cheerleaders make about the intellectual underpinnings of the ideas that drive them. With wit and logic he exposes them for what they actually are – a tribe of greedy, powerful, ambitious, manipulative and ruthless operatives who care neither for morality nor public good. Many cultivated myths are exposed. “Dropping out” was not an act of genius. Quoting McLuhan’s insight on the medium and the message was not to describe the new media but to shirk any responsibility. Ayn Rand’s pseudo philosophy allowed them to justify selfishness while using open source knowledge and benefitting from public funds. Daub brings value to a field already rich with the contributions of Jaron Lanier, Max Fisher, Tim Wu and others. There is no “thinking” in Silicon Valley, only deeply theological ways of feeling that manifests as self-serving greed and socio-pathological behaviour.
Adrian Daub brings a different kind of perspective to bear on the claims the tech companies and their cheerleaders make about the intellectual underpinnings of the ideas that drive them. With wit and logic he shows what they actually are – a tribe of covetous, powerful, ambitious and focussed operatives who look altruistic and good. Many cultivated myths are exposed. “Dropping out” was not an act of genius. Quoting McLuhan’s insight on the medium and the message was not to describe the new media but to shirk any responsibility. Ayn Rand’s pseudo philosophy allowed them to justify selfishness while using open source knowledge and public funds. Daub brings value to a field already rich with the contributions of Jaron Lanier, Max Fisher, Tim Wu and others. There is, in Silicon Valley, only deeply theological ways of feeling that manifest as profit.
*&
James Suzman. ‘Affluence without Abundance: What We Can Learn from the World’s Most Successful Civilization’. Posted 4/1/12.]
Truly radical.
Suzman takes a calm, well-informed view of the various stages through which man has moved since he evolved; the hunter-gatherer, pastoral, agricultural, industrial, technological and post-technological phases he has been through. After careful consideration and evaluation, he declares that the hunter-gatherer is the winner, if this were a competition. History, seen as a story of progress, is actually one of loss. Suzman rejects the white-colonial view, and even the view of African pastoralists, of the Bushmen of southern Africa as primitive. He describes the richness of their science and art and culture. If longevity and contentment are used as the criteria to measure civilisations, the San will win hands down. Along the way Suzman makes a powerful case for the reassessment of modern man’s claims to success.
Time for some serious reconsideration of received ideas.
*&
Khyrunnisa A. ‘Agassi and the Great Cycle Race’. [Posted 24/3/25. *****
Khyrunnisa A. is at it again, using her unique gifts to narrate a story that grips and pleases, with twists and turns to keep you eagerly turning the pages and with allusions that delight and resonate at the same time. Kids will enjoy the suspense while older readers can relish the author’s famous gift for allusions and references that will keep one smiling till the last startling simile or metaphor. We are told the story of a boy stuck with a name he does not like, Agassi, stoically going through life trying to comprehend the idiocies of adults. He hates racquet sports and is quick to spot the absurdities adults force on their children. How he enters a cycle race, learns the trick of cycling in about a week and how his dear friend Zeba helps him participate in the race are the stuff that keep us turning the pages of this absolutely charming book. Does he win? Who is Steffi? Read and let Khyrunnisa’s magic envelop you as you find out. Pure joy. Read and relish it.
Namit Arora. ‘The Lottery of Birth: On Inherited Social Inequalities’. Five stars. [Posted on Amazon India on 2/4/25.]
Books of cultural commentary sometimes age fast. Cataclysmic natural disasters or epoch-changing unnatural disasters like general elections alter political and social landscapes so fast that critical commentary often dates quickly. It is rare to find a book that analyses a national culture with intellectual acuity so sharp that it appears ageless. One such book is Namit Arora’s ‘The Lottery of Birth’. Most aspects of our national culture are analysed with a coolness that is rare and refreshing. Colonialism and the need to decolonise in meaningful ways, the role of English, the doggedness of caste, religious belief and morality in India, a land that is still searching for a way to live up to the dream the makers of our Constitution had; all these are handled with a fairness one expects from the highest judiciary. Intellectual soul-searching and social criticism sit easily side by side. The essays can still be read with the joy and understanding they gave when they first appeared almost eight years back. This is one book about which one can say ‘buy it, read it, recommend it’ to anyone who reads. It will be a tribute to an author whose sympathies are as wide as his intellect is sharp and whose abilities for self-analysis and criticism are exceptional. We need more such works.
*&
Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey. ‘Waste of a Nation: Garbage and Growth in India’. Five stars. [Posted on Amazon on 28/4/25.]
Meticulously researched and tenderly narrated this is one of the best books on the modern world’s most intractable problem; waste. The book is not just descriptive but provided, nearly a decade ago, a blue print for setting up a pragmatic, workable, self-sustaining system to tackle contemporary waste, from pesticides and hospital waste to kitchen waste. The examples come almost always from some corner of India where committed NGOs or an exceptional bureaucrat has worked diligently to tackle a problem before it buries our hopes for development. The two meanings of the title are clear. It is about waste in India and how a great chance to be among the advanced nations of the world is being squandered by our haphazard approaches to the waste we generate. Apart from the enormous cost to health and well being there is a warning, implicit throughout the book, that so long as the approach to waste in based on the notion that only dalits should deal with garbage, for that is their karma and the rest of India has little to do with garbage, the problem will remain unsolved. This is a valuable book; one that opens our eyes and nudges us gently to change our mindset.
*&
Khyrunnisa A and Abhijeet Kini. ‘The World of Butterfingers: The Halloween Adventure and Other Stories’
From India’s best writer of children’s literature and her creative partner, Abhijeet Kini, has come a second collection of stories in comic form. In the first story, Mr Daga, the bee keeping, ill-tempered neighbour of the Kishens, and the Heebee Jeebies, Amar Kishen’s favourite rock group, form an unlikely union. Will they be able to help the musicians’ campaign for nature? Will Daga find a good source of honey for his pets or will Amar ruin his hives? In ‘The Halloween Adventure’, Amar and his friends find themselves in the wrong hotel in Ooty during a holiday. A stack of stolen money and a wig for a bald man get mixed up. Will Amar unwittingly help the rightful owner? In ‘Butterfingers and the Antiquity Stall’ Green Park, Amar’s school, is forced to hold an exhibition to mark ‘History Day’. Class VIII has been chosen to organise it and in a spirit of parody and fun, Amar and his mates use everyday objects from their homes to pose as objects from across the ancient world, from Egypt to Ceylon. How will the judge, Ms Jayawardene from Sri Lanka, an actual antiquarian, react to this obvious parody? Can history become fun if Amar is around?
Good, clean fun.
Any subject is enjoyable when Khyrunnisa gives it her special touch and this collection will keep all readers hooked from page one. Kini’s excellent art work adds to the joy of reading this collection.
P. Vijaya Kumar / PVK
profpvk@gmail.com
Thank you. Nandri. Namaskaram.
PVK 08/June/2026.
PVK's Book mark 