On The Shelf

The Unfinished Agenda: Nation building in South Asia Edited by Mushirul Hasan & Nariaki Nakazato Manohar, Price: Rs 800

The title of this beautifully mounted volume is more than a little misleading, for one. This is not a book about South Asia. This group of Japanese and Indian scholars who met at the University of Tokyo over two years ago had their viewfinder trained pointedly on India. Then, there is the ennui. Another millennium volume, pretending, despite all earnest disclaimers, to be ‘the’ profile of India at 50 plus?

Having said that, it is easy to enjoy this volume. The essays are erudite and richly layered. As many as six essays of the 15 focus on Partition — as event and as construct. In fact, the exploration of all the themes is marked by the scholarly determination to show up official discourses of history by uncovering contested meanings. To dispute that narrative — ‘‘We do not know. It was all dark. We could not establish who the killers were. But we knew who they were.’’ And to make that assertion, ‘‘No citizen of India can avoid being Hindu/Muslim, Bengali/Kannadiga, shopkeeper/ labourer, man/woman, father/mother, lower caste/upper caste, at the same time. It is tyrannical... even to suggest that it should be otherwise.’’

—Vandita Mishra

A New World By Amit Chaudhuri Picador India, Price: Rs 195

Life’s mundane and ordinary details are chronicled with eloquence in Amit Chaudhuri’s fourth book, which is now available in paperback. Economist and university professor Jayojit Chatterjee comes home to Calcutta to find a world that is changing yet managing to cling on to old customs. He brings his son Vikram, who was at the centre of a custody battle, to his home and parents. An unease permeates the relationship between the America returned and the Indian residents. The unease mainly stems from Jayojit’s failed marriage that nobody wants to talk about. The book crawls along at a lazy pace chronicling the professor’s emotions and thoughts as he struggles to come to terms with a failed marriage and the aftermath of a stormy custody battle spanning two continents.

—Nirmala Ganapathy

Mirza Ghalib: A Creative Biography By Natalie Prigarina OUP, Price not mentioned

While there are a number of books on Ghalib’s poetry, there are very few on Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib the man. The Russian author of this book attempts to recreate the historical atmosphere in which Ghalib lived, as well as describe as fully as possible the events of his life. In the author’s own words it is a ‘‘creative’’ biography. But if you are looking for details of Ghalib’s tragic life (not one of the seven children his wife bore reached the age of two), you will be disappointed. Apart from a sprinkle of words devoted to Ghalib’s ordeal to obtain his pension, and an alleged affair with a singing woman, the book focuses on providing explanations and an impressive chronology of his work. So at the end it remains just another book where Ghalib’s poetry overshadows his life.

— Priya Kapoor