Books of January

The first one for 2013 was The Postmaster by Rabindranath Tagore. This is a short story collection written while he was still in his youth, mostly from his experiences as a landlord when he had to travel around to collect the rent from tenents. As it says in the introduction, it was the young Tagore all the way, yet those stories seem to extend to eternity, like the wait of that girl in Postmaster, or the presumed meeting of Kabuliwalah with his daughter, and similarly, the people left to themselves in their dilemma. I suppose it was the beginning of his sagely transformation. One could sense some faint hints of disenchantments and detachment brooding in dark corners. The book also packed some poetry as well as fascinating letters he wrote to his niece and friends, brimming with compassionate and wise words. I felt his narrative to be very simplistic and straightforward. I was thinking how apt Tagore's stories are for children for its simplicity.

 

The second book was The Stranger by Albert Camus. It is a dispassionate first person narrative of a seemingly simple person. He is kind of an outsider to the society and even himself. One might be tempted to call him cold. For instance, he goes to a comedy movie with his girlfriend a day after his mother's funeral. Does that sound odd? Does he not have sorrow? he does. Is it necessary behave so as to show that to the public?, it might appear as misplaced. But here, he loved his mother. Yet, that is what he is. The story takes tragic turns and at each turn we cringe as to why he yield to a prescribed social conduct, even when it is judging him on their misplaced unreason. One might even get annoyed at his complacency. In the afterward, the author tries correlate the protagonist of this story with Christ. But here I didn't feel like he was deliberately acting out that way. I was hoping that author would say that it is perhaps a neural abnormality. A very valid point the story puts through is how someone who doesn't fit into the shoes of the society may be treated with hostility. Rather, it creates panic in the people who follows a certain order, for they know better of its fragility. V (of vendetta) says something interesting as well while tipping off his dominoes.

 

The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human. Dr Vilayanur Ramachandran is a popular neurologist whose studies on brain and various neural abnormalities have shed light on possible several interesting things that perhaps gives hope in explaining a lot about humanity, and human behavioral and cultural evolution. It also explains several little known aspects of brain. In this book he tries to find how human nature developed in humans, basically through his study on mirror neurons. Also have several interesting writings on Autism, synesthesia, creativity etc. Not only that, he also dwells into things like self-awareness, language, syntax etc, and tries to explain how they all workout in the brain. The book is written in a very humorous way, and I felt non-medical people as well can understand it.

 

V for Vendetta. "Behind this mask there is more than just flesh and blood. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof." Don't have anything much to say about this book. It was just awesome. Story is by Alan Moore and graphics by David Lloyd. Whatever the words couldn’t express, Lloyd has filled with images. The masked man had created a rave after the book was published, and got more popularity with the movie by Watchowski brothers. What I like about V the most is he is masked; he is anonymous, his thoughts are not corrupted by what he maybe. Like he says, he is merely an idea. He doesn’t have an identity, he is thus free. Although I have watched movie umpteen times, I had the same exciting experience reading it. I might as well buy one for my shelf.

 

റവന്യുസ്റ്റാമ്പ്‌ Revenue Stamp. This is the autobiography of famous Punjabi writer Amrita Pritam. I haven't read any other works of hers. Besides, from what I have read and heard, her life story is perhaps the best place to start. Incidentally I came across this Malayalam version and picked it up. What is so inspiring is her broad mindedness, and a lively outlook towards life, love, friendship and literature. Her recollection of those love affairs and friendships that fueled her creativity, nonetheless were very inspiring. She also recollects the kind of attitude she had to confront from many other contemporary writers. Perhaps a woman writing openly of her thoughts terrified them, made them insecure. One would wish how beautiful it would be to be in company of people who could only speak in the language of art and literature.

 

Shadow lines by Amitav Ghosh. I liked this purely because of its introspective narrative. I felt genuineness in the concerns, fears and this whole narration of his life singled around the political violence. Loved each character in this book and the way narrator presented them. A self-styled Intellectual and mentor, his Hermione Granger kind of cousin whom he adore, a towering grandmotherly granny and many other family members makes this a very domestic story of families placed in Kolkata and London.  The narratives shift spaces and time erratically, it was consistently narrated as a memoir of this wide eyed boy who isn’t able to emotionally catch up with the families disintegrating and tragedies that they are all trying to come in terms with.

 

This is the fictionalized account of real story of two young men who, of disappointment in not finding money they expected to steal, brutally murders everyone of a family. But when their story is told, it turns the whole thing awkwardly revolting. Capote's masterpiece shows establishes what fragile society we live in, which is reluctant to accept the responsibilities of the monsters it creates every now and then. At the end, although trial and execution is over, something still lingers on, like a disappointment at how people could have otherwise nothing wrong, tumble senselessly into the abyss of crime.

This book had created a lot of controversy, on capital punishment, on mindless gun usage and also on giving false hopes to the accused from whom Capote had extracted a big part of the story. In the movie 'Capote', this incident is depicted.

Shoulders of the Giants

What do I know about Robert Hook?. I surely have heard that surname before. It comes in one of those chapters that are kept for the last, called elasticity. Hooke's law. y = -kx where k is spring constant. This law was put forth after his experiments on spring, where he figured out that the pull of the spring is proportional to the displacement, obviously. The interesting thing is that it was used to put forth the idea of force for the first time that was before Newton put forth his laws of motion. That was not just one thing. Hooke was more of an experimenter and inventor. He had built several prototypes of microscopes, respirator, spring balances, clocks etc. One of the main funding for Royal society came through entertaining the elites using science. So they had to have a curator and Hooke was the most popular one.

Royal society in a way was Noah’s ark for science in Medieval Europe. Till Royal society had taken shape science was a hush hush word in selected, politically protected circle. It was a time when church was very powerful in Europe, particularly France, Italy, Germany etc where newer scientific fraternity was struggling to get a blanket or anonymity, often finding refuge under several secret societies. Several scientists were killed or silenced over heresy. Copernicus was burned at stake. Galileo Galilee was able to buy life in exchange for house arrest and it was when scientific renaissance was heading for a premature death, the protestant England was wholeheartedly looking to challenge the Roman Catholic rest of Europe by promoting anything that Catholics were against. Fortunately science was one of them. And a period of superstition, plague and civil war was paving its way to a new age of science.

Formation of Royal Society was not abrupt. It started with a group of philosophers and scientific enthusiasts meeting at Gresham College. Royal Society came to being in early 17th century with King Charles II giving the go and formulating the diploma for the Royal Society for study and promotion of science and philosophy . The new scientific revolution took Baconian scientific approach. Francis Bacon was one of the important non-scientists of the lot, but he realized and promoted scientific thinking through his philosophical lectures. His three stage process of starting with hypothesis first, followed by theoretical articulation and finally experimental confirmation, would still be pursued as the best scientific approach. Royal society has had several illustrious fellows, who would keep lighting up the scientific temper till the rise of modern scientific advancements.

The book by John Gribbin was a very enlightening read. It took me to the minds of some of the finest personalities in science. It also revealed a lot more about them and their personality. Some popular figures like Christopher Wren, an architect and a fine engineer who along with the other fellows of the society took up the task of rebuilding London after the great fire of 1660, Robert Boyle, an Irish chemist and physics got his assistant Robert Hooke to design him an air pump with which he demonstrated the Boyle’s law, Isaac Newton, Edmund Halley and their interactions and conflicts that would only build an incredible establishment for scientific fellowship. If there is a revolution, there would be rivalries. Perhaps they were the tipping points of several discoveries.

Rivalry between Newton and Hooke is the most popular of the Royal society ones. Newton was more of mathematician, while Hooke was more of experimenter. Hooke couldn’t become a fellow for a long for he was not a gentleman (whatever meant at that time), Newton was extremely introvert and doubtable schizophrenic. Their personalities had a common link, a sense of insecurity. It was not just around the concept of force did they lock horns. Hooke had predicted the planetary motion, made several thesis on optics, all which later got published in Newton’s papers without giving due credit. When Newton became the president of society he got all the portraits of Hooke dismantled from the hall. In popular science while Newton became a giant, Hooke diminished.

Perhaps we are not reading thing the way it should be. I feel we tend to idolize someone, and build myths and superman stories around them and betray an array of contemporary minds. What was Isaac Newton was he a physicist or a mathematician? What was Boyle, a chemist or physicist? Was Charles Darwin a geologist, biologist or a naturalist? Ernst Rutherford appears in Chemistry school textbooks, while he was a physics guy. Yet several of them, William Gilbert, William Harvey and several others. These are people who have never allowed themselves in any box. That is one fabulous thing about classical scientists. They are more of philosophers, guess that is why they are scientists too.

More interesting things: Originality of Species

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War that couldn't end all the wars

In 1914, when the biggest and most horrible of wars that they have witnessed swept across Europe, H.G.Wells remarked that this will be the "War that will end all the wars", perhaps thinking that people would learn something from this war and work towards more peace. This was perhaps the last of the wars that were fought in many aspects. One, the use of military for imperial expansion started getting criticized. The wars to protect "humanity" started becoming more pronounced. The need for reasons to war became more necessary. Second world war had points to justify, it was fought to save humanity and the victims of holocaust still remind us about that.  But for the first world war, they didn't have any answer to those questions. First world war happened at a time when the world was turning itself around. The voiceless started getting voice, the people who were otherwise suppressed were getting empowered to let them be heard in the annals of history. In other words, the usual elites interpretation of wars and its cultural symbols started changing. People started asking why was this war being fought? Soldiers who otherwise never seem to have any significance in any literature or news started getting more importance. So such questions started moulding the nature of wars. League of nations were formed since the great war, which then became the United nations. But, most prominent of all the changes were the de-culturalisation of war. Pulling down all those glossy, heroic stories that inspired countries and kingdoms to war. In other words, the anti-war movements, which were in their nappies, started coming to age.

I was reading few books that incidentally sets itself around the First world war. The first one was a non-fiction called, 'Missing of the Somme'. This was the book that spoke of the aftermath of the Great war. The author travelled through the European cities exploring how the memorials are built and what message does the 'memorialisation' of the war, as projected to the later generations. It was since First world war the anti-war literature started becoming very popular. There were many war-poets and war-writers who wrote of the futility of wars and its brutal consequences and better options. Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves etc. are some well-known war poets, they wrote poems from trenches in Belgium, France borders.  The book heavily criticized the way the war is represented, which often being in the custody of warmongers, has only tried to justify their stance. A dead soldier is always a martyr for good cause. I remember a poem from school days where a soldier who was decorated for killing an enemy soldier consciously was awarded death sentence for killing another civilian in a drunken brawl. When you make someone martyr you are actually glorifying the purpose for which he died. A soldier who dies is always given a honour of one who tried to protect the people and safeguard the country thereby justifying the war, whatever be the original reason. 

The above mentioned book explored all the aspects of the Great war that is represented through paintings, sculpture, memorials, literature etc. It talked about sculptures that were commissioned by the governments, which gave a heroic representation of the soldier, then there are other sculptures that shows the other side of the war, of the faceless soldiers, soldiers crying over the body of his best mate, of soldier holding  his dead horse against his chest. The memorials were designed by many well-known architects e.g.. Luyten who had built New Delhi. One of the war memorial built in London is called 'Unknown soldier'. As a post war activity the governements had to ensure proper burial of all soldiers. But the war fronts were sprewn with countless un-identified bodies that it started getting difficult. So they picked whatever they could, the mortal remains of an unknown soldier, and was cremated in the capital city on which the memorial was commissioned. Siegfried Sassoon's and Robert Grave's poems spoke of bloody atmosphere of the war front where the supply is scant, so is ammunitions, poor communication devices, slow yet dedicated medical services and of strange state of humanity that people learn only after they experience hell in person. During the war, the punishment for deserters were death and thousands of youngsters were killed by their own nation because they flee from the war front, from a war that wouldn’t serve any better purpose. It was only recently the governments apologized to their families and gave them honours for volunteering for the war. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A very long engagement tells the story of a girl trying to find her lover who was sentenced to death for trying to escape.

Another book was the last book of 'Regeneration' trilogy of Pat Barker. That was when the war was described with a bitterness, with a nonchalance that may sound suicidal. It was about a young soldier who was brought from the war front with shell shock, who after his treatment, has to report back at the front. The other character is the doctor of the hospital who has to witness countless causalities and broken down soldiers and try to recuperate them. Another book from the same writer was 'Life Class'. A tale of two youngsters and how a massive force like war impact the idea of love, art and freedom.  It retells the horror of the war through the eyes of one of the protagonist who volunteers as nurse in war front.  Both the novels emphasized on the brutality of the war and its vanity as opposed to the excitement and chivalry that normal war literature give. It was a pointless war, where  people went and died in scores. There wasn't a definite answer to the question as to why was that war fought? Was that the vestiges of imperial strength show that it had to prolong unnecessarily.  In  the narratives, we could feel the hopelessness of a soldier who might very well be walking into his death. That book had received Booker prize in 1995

'Penguin book of First world war stories' was the last one. It was a meticulously arranged collection of short stories told in the backdrop of First world war. It had stories written by Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad, Katherine Mansfield, Conan Doyle, Julian Barnes etc. It is arranged into 4 sections  - Stories from the front of which a story called 'Blind' by Mary Borden and A. W. Well's 'Chanson Triste' were incredible, second one was on spies and intelligence used during the first world war - Sherlock Holmes appear in one of them penned by Conan Doyle, At home - this section had stories of people back home, of mothers  waiting for their sons, Hugh Walpole's 'Nobody' was a heart breaking tale of a 16 yr old boy who faked his age to enter the army and was sentenced to death for deserting, and In Retrospect, it was about the impact of war in the future generation. Julian Barnes' 'Evermore' was the best amongst that. The story was an attempt to exorcise the ghosts of un-redeemed soldiers and their stories that got buried under the bigger second world war that eclipsed the first. Christian Caron's movie Joyeux Noel is based on a story from this book, the incident was real though, where on the Christmas days the soldiers from British, French and German fronts defied the higher commands and celebrated the festival together.

In the movie 'Troy' Odysseus tells Achilles "This war will never be forgotten, nor will the heroes who fought in it", but do anyone remember anyone other than Achilles or Odysseus or Hector? , in Baghavad Gita the war was a righteous move to get back what was rightfully theirs, to protect dharma (whatever that means). Is it a dharma of a poor foot soldier to die unnecessary for a feudal war between two arrogant clans of co-brothers over who will own the kingdom? Had those soldiers been given a voice they would have called Mahabharata an epic blunder. If you look at the gods and heroes and legends that people follow or worship there is this war or their violent nature associated with it. There is an embedded heroism in war that still hasn't lost its seductive charm. It shows off patriotism, manliness, heroism etc.  People hate Gandhi for his unmanly non-violence philosophy. And on the contrary adore authoritarians inspired over their megalomaniac tendencies. 

Around 1000+ American soldier died in the last Iraq war, and they were honoured for protecting humanity. That is just like legitimizing the war which was fought for oil companies as something fought for humanity, waged to safeguard the world against mass murdering despotic country. And every dead American was made a martyr, like he died trying to protect his country or even the world. A 100 years ago a country never had to give an excuse to fight wars, but now they have to. So it is the duty of the governments to demonise a country before attacking it. If you read the amount of propaganda materials against Iran, however true or false, one cannot escape a thought on the need of such necessity. In the naxal hinterlands, the brutality of naxalities are measured in terms of number of CRPF jawans or policemen killed. Higher the number more brutal they become. Though they are deployed there to protect the interests of some mining company, their martyrdom makes an impression that they are there to fighting for people. The people back here loves it. To many war is the first step of negotiations. "The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug" said Chris Hedges in "War is a force that gives us meaning" .  For that reason there is an overt inclination to such violence of huge proportions. The thrill of some poor soldier killing another can always be an incredibly good entertainment for the public, like getting a chance to view their frustrations getting redeemed.  In all the wars perpetrated in democratic nations, the culpability of the public can never be underplayed.  H.G.Wells may have been wrong,  what couldn’t end all the wars started the fire at least.

Writer's Block 3

Writer’s bloc is an annual play writing workshop sponsored by the British council. The idea behind writer’s bloc is to appreciate and promote the writers in an age where the actors or directors try to don the centre space. After the successful completion of the workshop 12 plays were finally born. Writers are all young and energetic. They all portray the contemporary society and its greyness. Rage theatre group, headed by Rajit Kapoor and Shehnaz Patel, organised the Writers Bloc – 3 theatre festival in Mumbai in January this year. Following its success, they are were in Bangalore with 3 of the 12 plays which was showed on 17^th, 18^th and 19^th Feb. They were

 

Spunk!

As the name suggested it was an adult play, humorous and concerning the gender. The synopsis is like, there is a guy who is a wannabe actor in the day and a sperm donor by night. He, as per the experiments and experience, has magical sperm that has only ‘Y’ chromosomes. Which means, he can only give boy child. Next is his business partner – A broke single mother working in a gynaecologists clinic running lucrative male-chromosome business which is actually her main source of income. She doesn’t have to try too hard, most of the couples buckles when they are given a choice of a male child.  They have been running this business smoothly until this chap mistakenly spills his secret during an audition following which the lady who was directing the audition starts stalking him, and needless to say he falls for her and to the first lady’s dismay that impacts their business drastically. Things soon goes out of control as we see the darker side of all fantasies leading to a tragic ending. This pokes at the latent weakness when it comes to gender when they are given a choice. And how, the smell of money can drive people to the boundaries where something harmless whilst illegal start become vulgar and uncontrollable. Apart from this bit there had been several scenes that just adds to the humour and flow of the play and nothing more. Like the story of the second girl was rubbish, like she is unhappy and consults a spiritual guru who points her to this chap with a prediction that only he can make her happy. They were hilarious and as a story they all gelled well and was hilarious and entertaining. But there wasn’t anything take away idea from them. Needless to say all the crew were exceptional. The play was written by Siddharth Kumar and was directed by Akarsh Khurana

 

Pereira's Bakery on 76 Chapel Road

This is the story of a street in Bandra and the people living there and how their life is affected when they are served eviction notice to allow a multi layer parking lot for the new shopping mall , by demolishing their house. Story revolves around Pereira, his family and friends and his bakery that was started by his grandfather and is now part of his family legacy. The story initially resembled the Malayalam movie ‘Vietnam Colony’, an employee from the construction company befriending Pereira’s daughter and influence them to comply with the company’s wishes. But play didn’t take the route of fantasy that movie imagined. The reality is bleaker than what we would expect. The unending piling and demolition, harassment from the land owner and construction company, betrayal of friends and communities strain the bonds of friendship and tests the endurance of humanity before the weak finally succumbing to the onslaught of the powerful ones. The play wasn’t that bleak, it was humorous. The characters were very lively and witty. Even till the last minute there were enough stuff to tickle the funny bone, even when we see them bearing and battling all that with their little vanity and heroism. People can relocate, but legacies cannot. They simply get buried under the rubbles. This subject, though had been written about, movies made, plays enacted, there is always a gap. A gap which a person who really get uprooted from their homes and the reader or viewer who tries to get into their shoes and feel it. This play too fails to give the proper impact. The bigot society needs a much stronger pinch to feel how it is to bear someone arguing why they should give up their existence for an ill-quantified economic development of unknown people. The set was the key thing in this play, they had built a two storey scaffolding to put the play and that was incredible. This play was written by Ayesha Menon and was directed by Zafar Karachiwala.

 

Mahua

A tribal joke goes like this “Heaven is a forest full of Mahua trees, and hell is a forest full of Mahua trees with a forest guard”. Mahua in its positive and negative impacts are shown as a central symbol to the tribal traditions of Orissa. It says Mahua trees make them feel like home. For gents, Mahua means liquor. The story takes us into the life of few tribals and their struggle to live in the world where they are not sure when they would be evicted for minerals, or be bombed by the army testing camps in one of their testing mistakes or be rounded up for being a maoist sympathiser. The play was in Hindi, raw with ample use of expletives. The story goes like this, Birsa, an ordinary chap from the village of Bihabund is caught for shooting arrow onto an old man from the adjacent village. The punishment the panchayat pronounce is to marry Birsa to Gilli, that old man’s unmarried daughter who is 12 years elder than Birsa!. Mahua flows and the marriage woes and other funny moments takes us into their life. But the cement companies have now got the rights to mine and the villagers have to relocate. Their struggle to oppose the move,  is suppressed with state sponsored violence. One friend joins the company seeking comfort while the other gets recruited by Maoists. Birsa and Gilli relocates to the new unknown corrosive terrain into the devilish toxic testing grounds that shakes their hut and life. As life gets more difficult, they get into smuggling unexploded arms. When one night a test bomb finds their already dilapidated hut as target, Gilli is wounded and bedridden.  Their misery worsened and death was the only thing they wished for. The writer of the play, Akash Mohimen drew his inspiration from the article from P.Sainath’s ‘Everybody loves a good drought’. It was about the tribals who were evicted for a limestone mine from their villages and rehabilitated in a wasteland in the middle of Army’s arsenal testing camps. The issue is a big question mark to the ideals boasted by the nation, and to disfigured face of humanity in this country that has made it a habit to view everything through the concept of development. The play ends with a soul stirring folk song of Kheria tribe which translates to this:

 

In the region of Hamko-Simko,

There came together the tribals of the forest.

Against the king and queen,

Against the taxes, they did protest.

 

There was no fight, there was no war,

As the queen ordered the soldiers to fire into the crowd.

Red blood flowed over, across the soil;

As the gunshots and cries, grew equally aloud.

 

They brought in motor trucks in large numbers,

And in them the bodies were loaded.

They took them to seeming,

And to Riaboda they were carried.

Until in Baamana a grave was dug,

And back into their beloved earth they were buried.

 

It was great. The plays were all original. It shows the emergence of new wave of Indian playwrights who are concerned with the social and political state of events. These writers are all youngsters, doing theatre as part time. The idea of promoting writers through such festivals makes this even better. I guess they would be bringing the remaining 9 plays too to Bangalore in instalments.

Remembering Misha

Does this name invoke anything to anyone? Like it does tickle little nostalgia to me?.

 

Misha(also known as Mishka) was the mascot of 1980 Moscow Olympics and the cute brown bear was an instant favourite that Disney brought Misha into Mickey Mouse comics as a guest from Russia. MIR, the Soviet Union's publication house started a children's magazine called 'Misha' soon. They used to have folk stories, science fiction, some make it yourself stuffs, science and cultural tid-bits and Chess tutorials, the national game of USSR.

 

My grandfather used to subscribe for 'Sovietland' magazines long back. Maybe that is how, when Misha came through, he subscribed for that as well. My father says those magazines used to be very cheap at that time. I guess it was Prabhat Books, that took the subscriptions for the MIR publications books and magazines. I don't recollect reading Sovietland, but definitely yes, the memory of indulging in children's magazine 'Misha', lies just like that in mind, maybe little tattered.

 

Sometime before we grew up to realise the novelty of such magazines, USSR was gone, Misha and Sovietland had stopped, and whatever that was left at home was given away to bottle-paper collectors. I had been searching for that in internet for a while, that is when I came across this! 

http://issuu.com/arohufish/docs/misha879001">Misha

 

PS. Does anyone still hold any old copies of Misha? or Sovietland? Just curious!

Born into Brothels

Sonaguchi is a notorious red light area of Kolkata. Prostitution, abuse, drugs and many other evils had been thriving in the dark alleys of that slum. The most unfortunate ones of that slum are the innocent children on whom society have stamped the seal of outcasts. This is the story of eight children from this brothel, their lives, their fears, their likes, their dislikes and how through the efforts of two documentary photographers, for the first time, they starts to dream of a freedom from a curse that has been tagged on them from birth.

Zana Briski is a professional photographer and a social activist mainly working for towards empowering women and creating awareness of the condition and exploitation faced by women throughout the world. That is how she learns about the infamous red-light area of Kolkata. She travels to Kolkata to work with the local NGOs and take the photographs of the lives of people particularly women and children in these areas. But as a photographer it never worked out as she cannot go inside the slums and their homes to capture the very day to day life, most of them would shy away from an outsider who has come to photograph them.

During her stay she had to interact with many children of the prostitutes, from that interaction she thinks of teaching them some photography in return for the pictures that they take inside the slums. They  wouldn’t have any inhibitions to go to any dark corner of the slums, nor does the people bother some kids having time pass. Many drops out and finally the group closes to a bunch of eight children who were completely smitten over the art of photography. They would come to her house daily and there she would teach them the basics of photography, composition tips, post processing etc, then she would give them a camera and assignments to go into the brothels and come back with pictures. Soon she comes very close to these kids and there starts her mission to find out some way to save these kids from the brothels, particularly the girls whose destiny is otherwise the brothels of Sonaguchi. She and her friend Ross Kaufmann chronicle their experiences in Slums, the lives of the children, and their struggles to find a rehabilitation for these children as documentary.

The documentary is mainly in Bengali with English subtitles. The sight of the slum and the living condition of the people are sickening, yet the enthusiasm of the children over small small happiness could give heart aches. The first half of the documentary shows the lives of the children and their family. It follows the children as they run around taking snaps of the unawares, and showcasing some of the classic pieces of street photography captures by their eyes. They interviews the children, who talks about the kind of lewd questions the people ask them and their fear of falling into the profession the society have already thought for them.

Most of the families have been involved in pimping and prostitutions for generations and in such a tied up world apparently breaking away is a very difficult task. One of the girl Suchitra’s aunt had already received advance for transporting her to Mumbai. The boys don’t have that much fear as girls. One of the boy Gaur is determined to break out, as he says the future of the girls born there are in the worst waters. Now Zana and Ross have a task at their hands. Later part is mainly around how Zana and few friends try to rehabilitate these children through photo exhibitions and giving them recognitions in a wider society. Amnesty, UNICEF etc are few of the NGOs who have bought their pictures for calendars and awareness. They struggle in getting the parents convinced about the future of the children and few of them react positively, then she gets formalities sorted out of the labrynths of govt public service departments, speaks to various rehabilitation centers.

 

The documentary ends with the successful rehabilitation of few children and with a hope to continue this forward to other children.  One of the boys, Avijith, gets invited to attend the World press photography workshop in Amsterdam (only 9 children are chosen from across the globe!). They have opened an organisaton called Kids with Camera in Kolkata and couple of other places. The struggle for saving the children are still going on. This documentary can be viewed in various perspectives, from a child welfare, child empowerment, social isolations even street photography. A child is a raw gold, highly malleable, breakable, but pure, innocent. Our ears should hear every child’s cry, but they don’t!

 

This feature won the Academy award for the best documentary in 2004

More details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_into_Brothels

http://kids-with-cameras.org/calcutta/

Boy with a Suitcase

Rangashankara from Bangalore and Schnawwl theatre group from Germany has come up with a very beautiful play Boy With a Suitcase, about the journey of a boy with a red suitcase from his war ravaged home seeking an asylum in London. The play is based on the story by Mike Kenny and was directed by Andrea Gronemeyer. The cast includes a mixture of German and Indian actors. The play completed a successful run in Germany and reached Rangashankara last August where it ran successfully for a week .

The story starts with Naz, a 12 year old Asian boy, along with his mother and father fleeing their home following a devastating war and ending up in a refugee camp. But from here Naz has to travel alone through treacherous world of bandits, wild animals, human traffickers, sex traffickers & smugglers, to London where his sister lives. His mother arranges for Naz’s escapade through a human trafficker by selling everything that she has, including herself. All that he has to accompany him is a red suitcase filled with memories of his home, and the treasure trove of stories that his mother had told him.

 

Leaving behind his mother and father, the heartbroken Naz finds company - an east European girl who too has reasons to flee, along with whom he escapes the bandits who try to rob them on the way, and the wolves as they try to cross the dangerous mountains. Their journey takes them to a city where an illegal immigrant meant easy target for sex trade or bonded labour . While escaping a pimp, the two ends up under the doorsteps of a crony clothes factory owner who threatens them to be sent back to their homes if they do not oblige and work in the factory. Trapped for over two years, they finally manage to escape with his money and flee to their destination. But would they find heaven, ultimately?

A very well executed play, with beautiful technical side to back especially the music dept which is covered by the co-actors themselves.  I felt the music, which ranged from guitars to very crude flapping aluminium sheets, recreated the environment and situations very aptly. The play interleaves several tiny beautiful stories with the situation. Often inspiring an adventure while sometimes sober to sit and think or humorous to make things light, Naz always has some story to tell. This story itself is partially narrated by the adult Naz as a memoir, like a children’s fairy tale, underplaying the misery of immigrants’ and refugees’ lives. And all the while, as Naz imagines his voyage as Sinbad’s and all the adverse situations as challenge, we discover more poignant meaning of the endurance of humanity.

Kes

Kes(1969) is about the life of a boy named Billy set in a working class Yorkshire mining community. It is a hostile world for Billy, his day starts with abuse from his step-brother mostly violent, His divorced mother while trying to make the ends meet have no time to worry about her children. The apathetic school management’s attitude to the children from the working class makes the life even worse. With innocence lost, he is nothing better than a local urchin.

That is when he finds a Kestrel from a nearby farm, a bird known to soar high against the winds. He hides it in his barn and secretly trains the bird for falconry, he names it Kes. His fondness turns into a kind of respect to that bird. The bird’s destiny becomes the crux of Billy’s oppressed life.

Kestrel is quite symbolic here. As Billy explains about his bird to one of his teachers (the one who is more kind and understanding towards him),"This silent bird cannot be petted, but only be manned and yet it never becomes anyone’s slave. It does a favour by allowing its trainer come close to it because the trainer does a favour back by feeding it." Billy empathise himself with the bird, both share a similar hostile environment having to fight to keep up the dignity.

There are many other things that this movie passes by. The abusive nature of Billy brother reflects the frustrations of the work culture in mines. In a very conservative Yorkshire town the attitude of the school management reflects the class divide in the England of 60s. From the sadistic football coach to the bully at the school, the fragile social setup is quite visible subtly under their behaviour. One of the finest movies of Ken Loach which tries to dissect through the lives of working class of post World war England.

The movie is made based on the Novel A Kestral for a Knave by Barry Hines

Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch

It tells the story of Jaff and his seafaring friends and their disastrous maritime adventure. Jaff is born in a poor working class slum, and works in a local hotel cleaning the vessels. Once while on one of his walks he falls for a Tiger on loose, that he tries to touch its nose in turn to get caught in its jaws. That simply implies to his fascination for animals, birds and natural history. He says that is when he was born again. Jamrach, an animal collector and an adventurer himself, rescues him and takes him to his unique menagerie of exotic animals and Jaff just finds where he wants to belong. That is when a ship is chartered for Dutch East indies on a mission for Jamrach, and Jaff couldn't resist from signing up for it. Thus begins the ride through the turbulent Atlantic and peaceful Pacific into Dutch East Indies like the good old Jack Sparrow.

They arrive at the Dutch east Indian colony, possibly one of the present Indonesian islands, to capture the dragon(iguanas) and take it back to the ship. Somehow the hell breaks loose after that animal arrives in the ship. A maritime adventure has one thing inevitable, storm and a shipwreck.  I was anyways waiting for that to happen. Now that happened in their return journey to Valparaiso. That journey would test their spirit of comradeship and friendship against instincts for survival as the ship gets caught in a deadly maelstrom and is crushed, leaving them to take refuge in two boats against the violent ocean.  As their supplies starts running out, so does their sanity. When caught in a calamity, somethings have to be forgotten and some unforgivable choices have to be made for the survival of the most. For the survivors it would leave scars irreparable for lifetime.

I first found this book to be in league with children's adventure book and was wondering how it got nominated for Booker. The characters, apart from few important ones, were rather flat and the story proceeds mostly on the strength of narration. Even then the journey and the menagerie of sailors entertained themselves with wit, songs and hope for adventure. But soon, as the tragedy befalls, and the waters started getting murkier, as the adventure ends and horror begins, the mood of the novel turns darker. The final chapters of Part 2 just shies away from sickening the readers while the Part 3 tries to rehabilitate the shattered spirits. The second half of the book somehow reminded me of the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Water water everywhere, not a drop to drink". It is an unforgettable adventure.

Oru Deshathinte Katha

I have finished reading SK Pottekkatt's 'Oru deshathinte katha'(Story of a Village). Jotting down some words about it. To summarize, this is a simple story of a village called Athiranipaadam spanning about 50years narrated mostly from the point of eye of the protagonist of the story Sreedharan. Just like Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘One hundred years of solitude’, SK Pottekkat has created a world out of thin air through this novel consisting of innumerous characters entering and leaving its frame. Story starts with Sreedharan returning to the village he left 30 years ago, from there on as a flash back the story follows the birth of the village Athiranipadam and ends with its death (and a re-birth).

The book could be classified as a autobiographical, dramatic, humorous, tragic, adventurous, romantic, poetic piece of fiction. It is filled with short stories in the form of fables, real incidents, memoirs, history, flash-backs and rumors about all the colorful characters of that village, everyone well connected to the flow of the novel. The characters are very real and there would be someone whom you could always relate to . Their little adventures, romance, fights and grief is what this novel is all about. These stories would ultimately they leave some marks in our hearts, good or bad.

It is a period novel set in pre-independence Kerala and hence the story touches through the Feudalistic culture, incidents like Moplah rebellion, revolutions like gandhian independence struggle, world wars etc. As mentioned above major part of the novel is around the life of Sreedharan, the style of narration matures as he move from his childhood to Adulthood, from his schoolboy mind to a more matured adult. His dislike of mathematics and inclination towards the literatures and poetry later flowers into some fine poems through the novel.

Memories are tastier than imagination. This novel has that taste of memories. Like MT says in Kaadhikante Panippura ‘Stories are the unspeakable pain of writer’s heart’, as SK lets the memories flow out of him through his pen he lets those suppressed emotions also fill into the words. The episodes of Sreedharan’s childhood adventures, ‘Supper Sarkeet’ gang, Krishnanmaster, the Railway signal control room, Kunjappoo’s life, the Kunjikelu Melan’s contemptuous life, Kuloose Parangodan, Ammukutty etc vividly creates an Athiranipadam of imagination in the mind and at the end you will feel that so long you have been living in that village along with all these people.

Written in a very simple and colloquial language, it is a must read!

The Hunger

On the wake of Anna Hazare’s Hunger strike, I happened to see a movie on another hunger striker, Bobby Sands. "Hunger", directed by Steve McQueen, depicts a real life story of IRA revolutionary Bobby Sands as he, along with other prison inmates, goes on indefinite hunger strike to protest against the English occupation of Northern Ireland and the denial to give political status to the IRA prisoners. The movie covers the days of “blanket and no wash” protest and the subsequent indefinite hunger strike. The hunger strike and subsequent death of 9 prisoners including Bobby Sands lead to a worldwide protest and condemnation of Margaret Thatcher’s policies and lead to a new wave of Irish nationalism.

 

The main theme of the movie is still Hunger, which is also metaphorically used as hunger for freedom. The movie explores the psychology behind the human will power to fight against the needs of his own body. With very little, and hard hitting, dialogues, the movie is slow and unnerving as it passes through the silent harrowing moments. As said, the monotony of solitary confinements doesn't spare the viewers as well. In the movie “Fight Club”, there is a dialogue which runs as “How do you know yourself if you have not got yourself into a fight”. In that movie, it shows the fight against one’s own body lead to a strange sense of liberation.  I believe same works out for hunger strikers, mainly because that becomes the ultimate weapon he/she can use to demonstrate their protests.  I somehow feel that such defiance increases the courage to continue, which is probably what encourages them to push their limits further. There are people who have attempted violent suicides, hoping for a painless quick death. Then there are people like this, deterministic on the slow death unwavering from their position despite being self aware of the state.

 

There is an interesting conversation between Bobby Sands and the Father Dominic Moran, who was called in to dissuade him from the strike. That scene, about 20 mins long, was shot in a single go, and comes up suddenly after an hour or so without any dialogues.   Michael Fassbender, who plays the role of Bobby Sands, went through a crash diet for the final part of the movie. The painful final minutes were indeed well enacted and picturised. The movie never tries to take sides. There is a scene where an IRA man comes and shoots a police man, in cold blood, inside an old age home when the policeman was talking to his aged mother, in front of her. It also tries to look at the conditions of policemen and wardens of the prison and how life becomes unsettling amidst riots and death threats.

 

After the success of various hunger strikes this has apparently become a favourite tool against establishments. Many bogus hunger strikers have emerged in political circle. Though many hunger strikes assumes the cloak of non-violence, there are always a threat of unprecedented violence on the event of the death of the striker. LTTE leader Thileepan, when IPKF was brought in, went ahead with a hunger strike. He thought India was still Gandhian and would consider his peaceful protests. But IPKF stayed and Thileepan died after 86 days. And we all know how they had started the plan to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi that moment and where it all ended. Similar thing happened since the death of Potti Sriramulu. That exactly would have happened, had GOI allowed Anna Hazare to fast until death. And that is what makes it a blackmailing act, which may or may not be an intention of the striker but definitely looms as a tipping point for an avalanche of human sentiments. That makes hunger strike a potentially violent act.

 

PS. Bobby Sands was elected to British parliament when he was doing hunger strike in the prison. Iranian government changed the name of ‘Winston Churchill Boulevard’ where British Embassy stood to Bobby Sands street. British embassy changed their entrance to adjacent street to avoid using Bobby Sand’s name in their address!

What is it with corruption

What is it with the protests against corruption that attracts much people, that protests on other crimes do not? Irom Sharmila had been fasting unto death for repealing the Arms force special act from Manipur. Medha Patkar had been doing various protests for long, for Narmada bachao andolan, recently against the eviction of a slum for some new building. But none of the above stuffs managed to gather any significant public support as the fight against corruption did – considering the fact that the corruption in various forms has become a part of daily life of individuals! Every employed/unemployed lower/middle/upper class would definitely have had their brush with some or the other forms of corruption. Giving bribe to get something done quickly, or maybe a traffic policeman or quoting wrong figure in the land/building registration paper. Still why are people against corruption?

Money is a big factor for all the classes, especially the middle class for whom tax is nothing less of an enemy. Nobody wholeheartedly love paying tax. It would be surprising to find people giving away tax with pleasure and a smile just because this money funds some state school or subsidize the vegetables. And there wouldn’t be anyone who have tried all sorts of schemes and techniques to save the tax. Now, despite of all the efforts we sometimes have to pay some money every month as tax. It is this piece of heart that is flowing into the pockets of certain set of people (that probably deserves only despise), explaining why corruption is such a painful thing for middle class. This explains why a dam, invading the home of a lakh farmers, or Arms force special act, curbing someone’s rights, is not much of a concern to the wider public. This also explains why the public is adamant over political corruption which according to me covers only a small percentage of the total corruption. The amount of corporate tax evasion using existing loopholes, buying out the officials or making policies convenient to them, is a much bigger territory.



I was reading an article about the tax havens, tax evasion and corporate and government’s role in it. First of all, these Tax havens and other lucrative techniques were not built by politicians nor are they built for them. They probably do hold sufficient money in many lucrative banks but that just comes to a very insignificant(for the country?, oh no!) percentage. Most of the major transactions pass through tax havens, the report says. On top of that the misquoting of taxable and non-taxable items helps evade tax better. Every year approximately 5 lakh crore rupees of corporate tax are being written off in this country and to me that is nothing short of 5 lakh crore worth a scam! The black money, tax evasion etc are some the business as usual for corporate and hence day dreaming that routing out corrupt politicians would end corruption is just futile because they are just middle men in this whole drama.



Today’s newspaper showed how RIL had been goofing the treasury department by quoting over hyped rate over the Krishna Godavari natural gas extraction and supply. The claims, that the license-raj devil can be wiped out by liberalization, proves to be just a lame tirade of the investors lobby. On the contrary what we are witnessing is pure puppetry. Just like how various corporate lobbys, pulling the strings of US policies, have shown how dependent corporates are on policy and law makers, every corporate house expects a corrupt government to be in place so that their monopolist intentions be well managed. We witnessed several high adrenalin protests against the politicians on 2G scam. The investigation reports did mention their names so they rightly deserves chappals and eggs, but the reports also mentioned the names of Reliance, Tata, Uninor and many well known corporate houses. Forget about high decibel cries, did we hear any word being spoken about these big shots in media or any other social gatherings or sites or forums? It could be imagined that Raja wouldn’t have sent out an email to all these chaps asking whether they want some spectrum. In the corporate world politicians are merely agents who gets things done for them, just like a middleman. If these middle men deserves stones and sticks, their employers deserves much more.



Imagine, if Anna Hazare asks the protesters to sell all the Reliance or Tata shares that they are holding, to protest against their corruption, how many of the corruption fighters would be ready for that? What are the chances that Anna Hazare gets tagged as a joker or something like that? Some might want to argue that, as they bring ‘development’ and all that nonsense, it is ok. So should this be interpreted as – I am ok for corruption as long as I am getting a cut out of it? My question is, whom should I slap first? :).

George Orwell & Animal Farm

In my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated. And so for the last ten years, I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the socialist movement.

- Preface to the Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm, as published in The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell : As I please, 1943-1945 (1968)

 

It was only recently that I picked up the Animal Farm from the library, for reading. I had read two of his auto-biographical works ‘Homage to Catalonia’ and ‘Down and out in Paris and London’ and had ever been glued onto the Orwellian perspectives. Animal Farm is, as anybody would know, one of his most popular satire based on the Soviet union during the Stalin’s rule. As much the story is, interesting were the introduction and several prefaces that had been compiled over the book. And as the literary critics claim, this had been one of the daring satire on Soviet Union and highly misinterpreted book much to the sake of the cold war propaganda machines, which in fact contributed to its immense popularity.

 

George Orwell, born in Calcutta, left for England for schooling to come back later to Burma to join the Indian Imperial police. Having witnessed the ruthlessness of imperial police force he quits the job and leaves for England to concentrate on literary activities. Like many writers and poets did in those days, to free themselves from bourgeoisie culture, he decided to lead a ‘Bohemian’ lifestyle in a Parisian working class suburb in a tiny uncleaned room infested with bed bugs. He later spends a similar life style with the tramps of London. His Down and out in Paris and London comes from those adventures.  He later travels to Catalonia to fight along with Anarchists (Trotskyites), against Franco’s fascist forces during which he gets shot through his throat. His Homage to Catalonia accounts his adventures on the war front, commentary on the sophistications of a subaltern’s army and the betrayal of the Soviet supported allied troupe. In between the war, the idea of permanent revolution and the war of independence locked the horns of the Trotskyites and the Stalinists. Orwell believed in a socialism that promoted human freedom and a classless society which he found in Barcelona when it was under the control of the anarchists. Waiters never accepted tips, none address each others as senors or senoritas – they were all comrades. But then the Stalinists, who had been supported by the soviet union, wanted to postpone the revolution for the sake of war against the Franco, which they argued couldn’t go hand in hand as Trotskyites claimed. This later took an ugly turn when the Stalinists captured the Anarchists buildings leading to an internal crisis and bloodshed which ended in the persecution of the Trotskyites as traitors. The Stalinists were much ably equipped with arms compared to the Trotskyites, latter only armed with rifles that either explode when fired or are always jammed. Orwell though manages to escape the persecution, had to witness all his comrades getting captured and ‘disappear’. 

 

Europe, at that time was heavily influenced by the success of Russian revolution. It was, since the failure of Paris Commune, the proletariat government coming to existence breaking the cynicism of the right-wing world. The intellectuals, workers, peasants were all in the move to change the face of Europe. Labour parties and new leftist movements erupted throughout the world since then. Orwell after compilation of the Homage to Catalonia found it difficult to get the book published, which was then picked up by a pro-Trotskyites publishing company which gave much negative publicity to the book as it was conveniently made to believe a Trotskyite propaganda behind it. The idea of Animal Farm must have been in his mind ever since that incident. Orwell was surprised at the silence Britain was having against incorrect propagandas of the Soviet Union and on its contrary censorship move against any anti-soviet union literature. It was a situation where a criticism against Britain is tolerated while a criticism against Soviet union was not. He was annoyed that when the British press did wrote in detail about the famine in Bengal, they chose not to report the famine in Ukraine.  The Soviet Union, at the meantime, was improving ties with European nations through the workers union and intellectual circles which were having tremendous influence in the political arena as it would prove in later years at the emergence of socialist parties in Europe. Hence, after he compiled the Animal Farm there was no publisher ready to pick the work out of a fear of displeasure from the government. He quotes, the left leaning publishers were blind and wished to stay so while the right-wing publishers shied away quoting excuses like unavailability of paper and representing the head of the Animal Farm a pig. The only publishing company that came forward was the same Trotskyite leaning Secker and Warburg who published his Homage to Catalonia. Both the author and publisher was aware that this work might get criticized as a usual Trotskyite, anti-Stalinist literature hence that book was, after several delays, published post war as Animal Farm: A fairy tale.

 

This was, thus, initially promoted as a children’s book, much to Orwell’s annoyance. And since the end of World war and the beginning of the cold war, this book rose to immense popularity due to its childlike narration of history of modern Russia. As mentioned earlier, much to the irony of the original theme, this was then set to become part of the propaganda machines of capitalist block during the cold war, primarily United states. The prefaces of the American editions were largely botched, trying to convey that Orwell was actually writing against Socialism. Much of Ronald Reagan’s propaganda videos tried to replicate the imagery created by Orwell’s Animal Farm. An abridged version was later included as part of the children’s curriculum in schools as a lesson on the evils of socialism. It became a household name for utopian socialist society. Naturally the book was banned in all the soviet bloc’s as well as the countries on soviet alliance adding value to the myth. Though the original title had ‘A fairy tale’ written on it, that was taken out by many publishing companies later so that people don’t ignore it as a children’s book. Several right winged book reviews generously praised Orwell for his anti-communist intellect. Some even argued that this book received much acclaim purely due to its utility during the cold war time.

 

Much to the polarized state of the world during cold war period, a critical study of his work was not widely taken up due to its political influence. Interestingly it was children who alone took the book in its right sense. When spoke to some children, what they understood from the story was simply right, what Orwell wanted to say. The children spoke that they supported the animal farm when they overthrew the Mr. Jones as Mr. Jones was abusive and treated animals badly, while later, was saddened by how evil animals like the Pigs cheated and killed good animals like the horses, for power. There were many critics who question the usage of Animals taking control of the farm from Humans, as it portrays an unrealistic takeover. This picture was again used to convey a futility of a socialist system that it is inherently unstable. The true failure had nothing to do with the animals taking over the farm. In fact the story did proceed with the initial success of their farm through equality and hard work. Orwell states in his prefaces that his intention was not to project the takeover of farm by animals as a futile move but rather pin point the corruptibility  of power, that lead to the ultimate betrayal of the revolution. Looking at his writings and his accounts on days with anarchists, he probably favoured a liberal socialism with an inclination towards anarchism, out of his distrust on any ‘ruling’ system or ‘big brother’ susceptible to corruption (expressed in 1984).

Behind the Breaking news.

The prominence of media in the pseudo-democratic society like India is not under-rated, with most number of newspapers and news channels in several languages frantic on a pursuit to let the people know of the latest hot news. Media, being the fourth estate of a nation, has played its part for keeping up that little bit of democracy it could. At the same time it is challenged by the upper hand of the politics waging secret war against the true journalism. One of the great things that happened in the recent years must be the Rights to Information act rolled out by UPA I. Though now they are realizing the sting of its bite, and is working towards restricting its range, it brought the public closer to the wynds of journalism. Interestingly Journalism is getting crony, while the new age whistle blowers and RTE activists try to fill that gap, often leading into their persecution and even assassination, as we witnessed in last few years. 

I happened to read a fabulous book called 'Breaking the big story: Great moments in Indian Journalism' where nine journalists accounts their moments of adventure, fear, joy and despair while bringing some of the news that shook the pillars of this country. Many of them have been forgotten by the public even when the aftershocks of the buried lies continue to the rock the belligerents’ bases even today. Ever after the advent of 24x7 channels, the public have been mislead to believe that Prannoy Roy, Barkha dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai  and many other figures scurrying over the already reported news with their verbal circus constitute the fraternity of Journalists. And the public seldom delve beyond those smokescreens to get to know the actual reporters and the effort and pain they have put to bring the scams, scandals, truths and lies through grass root level reporting. This book doesn't simply stagnate at the stories as such, but also reveals the adventurous and dangerous culture of journalism.

The book is edited by the eminent media analyst and statesman B.G.Verghese. He gives the introduction to the book passing through the prominance of media in the democratic society like India and how the democracy itself got strengthened and at the same time challenged by the secret war between the true journalism and politics. As he emphasised the need to report a news from all the sides as opposed to the one-sided reporting which he believes is caused by the 24 hour news broadcast trend that is depriving the journalists the liberty to report the right news. While he pointed out the relevence of Rights to Information act passed by the UPA govt as landmark in terms of making the system transparent for the public and at the same time, ironically though, he was emphasizing on certain restrictions in RTE. He treats it diplomatically by appreciating the impact of RTE and at the same time mildly raising the apprehensions of information leak. I couldn't agree with that part though, as any legislation brought towards restrictions in RTE would end up eating the whole thing up, unless judiciary intervenes, which will be an unnecessarily laborious task in India.

The stories covered are - Bhopal MIC tragedy by Raajkumar Keswani, The starvation deaths of Kashipur by Sampad Mahapatra, the Nelli massacre by Sanjoy Hazarika, Tamil genocide in SL by Anita Pratap, the post militant political Kashmir by Muzamil Jaleel, match-fixing scandal in Cricket by Pradeep Magazine, Bofors scandal by Chitra Subramaniam, Tehelka sting operation by Tarun Tejpal and finally on the Gujarat communal violence by Teesta Setalvad. The authors of each chapters tells it from the beginning of their involvement, how they got the tip, ravelled each piece of jigsaw, brought the story into public, were accepted by public, hunted and harassed down by the wielders of power and their lives impacted by these work.

Book starts with the account of Raajkumar keswani, a small time reporter from Bhopal who had been reporting about the potential danger of the union carbide plant in the village ever since it was installed. Even before the final disaster, he accounts, there had been small leakages and minor industrial disasters that had claimed the lives of many workers. Despite of the safety and standards audit showing dismal performance by the company, the government never bothered to investigate the news reports he published. Until the disaster struck, none of the news papers, except Indian express in a single occasion, bothered to throw some light on it. I wonder how many such news reports are getting overlooked or purposefully downplayed in this country, waiting for the tragedy to happen. Jaitapur Nuclear plant, Mullaperiyar dam, how many more? The massacre at Nelli was no different. The illegal immigration from Bangladesh, and gross social unrest that were perpetually downplayed by the government and equally ignored by national media ultimately culminated in a gruesome massacre of Bangladeshi immigrants in Nelli village in Assam.

Chitra Subramaniam's and Anita Pratap's accounts had many similarities; they are the 2 women who brought much trouble to Rajiv Gandhi. One in the form of Bofors scandal whiles the other on the Tamil massacre and about subsequent involvements of IPKF into this trouble.  She being one of the few journalists who had been into the war front news correspondence early in the times of print and radio journalism, tells about her rub-off with the defence and intelligence officials despite whose hurdles she was able to bring eye-witness accounts of civil war in Srilanka, which in fact boosted the morale of the Army. When the passion of journalism creeps into the blood it eclipses everything, even the family, says Chitra subramanian. But as all the fights against a powerful system are destined, both of them had to finally quit although she pursued it even after The Hindu took the story off its shelf following political pressure. And after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, to their dismay, the investigation went into total oblivion.

In a civil society which is not transparent yet, I personally believe that, the people in power should never be given any benefit of doubt. Looking the balance of power, there is hardly any place in this country where we can say that, here people are in power and not politicians. In such a place, a good journalist would be the one who is a thorn in the velvet cushion of the powerful. The big news is big only because it shakes the establishments of power. Such a government having sold itself off to the private parties tries to play off a mean game against a village that is reluctant to give way to a mine in Orissa. When several villagers in Kashipur died, the village officials decided to write it off as food poisoning, which was in fact a food poisoning induced by un-availability of food. Sampad Mahapatra got involved in the investigations that told a simple fact that, in the time of dire situations humans try to find something to hang on. And these villagers, having been denied their rightful share of ration, had been pushed to a state where they had to consume contaminated dried mango kernels and wild mushroom. The government still stands by their claim that it was a mere food poisoning, and consuming mango kernels was their tradition.

The thin line between an investigator and reporter, between activist and reporter is tested in many such cases. I cannot deny that even when I am typing this, there is someone scheming about some crime of wide social consequences. Plenty of things happening around, often under our noses or about something which is outright guessable, like the illegal mining, encroachments, land mafias, defence lobbying. A true investigative reporter should be able smell those trouble, says Chitra, which was what she had been looking out in the multimillion deal that was being signed between the Swedish arms giant Bofors and GOI. It is the same sixth senses that lead Tarun Tejpal to initiate his Operation west-end that trapped money hungry politicians and army officers in sting operation. Pradeep Magazine's scoop came out through a casual talk with a bookie in West Indies which prompted him to disguise himself as someone close to the cricketers. His adventure ended up in exposing one of the biggest match fixing scandals that rocked the trust of millions on the game of cricket.

Jaleel's account on Kashmir talks about how, as a journalist, his credibility was tested in Kashmir as caught between devil and deep sea. If a journalist writes about atrocities of Kashmiri militancy he would be declared as pro-GOI and would end up becoming a target for separatists, whereas if he writes about army atrocities the GOI would declare him as pro-separatist and could end up in censoring his articles. Being a territory of where a sane journalist would never want to stay, he managed to survive and had been successful in gaining access to the areas which had been barred for other journalists. He accounts for how many journalists have been targeted in Kashmir, as he says Army takes it away in day time and militants takes it away at night. He isn't sure how long he can survive in a place of least press freedom and high volatility without losing the trust of either side.

Beyond the stories, it also tells how these impacted them personally. Anita pratap talks about how RAW agents were advised to threaten her by kidnapping her son, if she did not reveal the names of her sources of leaked news.  Chitra Subramaniam speaks of how terrified her husband and in-laws was when she was making calls to the sting agents in sweden, on Bofors issue, two days after the delivery of her first child, from the hospital bed! And Tarun Tejpal recounts the tense moments of Samuel Mathews and Anirudh Bahl and their laborious editing phase and the period of dark clouds when Tehelka was destroyed from the arena. Teesta Setlevad's account on post-godhra riot had the flavour of human rights activism more than journalism. Her’s were the account of how a state deliberately tried all it could to let the rioters have a carnage for days. The reluctant hospitals, who denied treatment to wounded, unbothered police force and the ordeals in bringing the guilty in front of justice, are accounted in the final chapters.  

Often the journalism has come under the scanner of being biased, this stigma still holds true in all the major media houses. They often end up as mere mouthpieces of either the political parties or corporate. Hence the biggest challenge a journalist face would be to get the facts sorted out from all the parties. Taking the case of the Maoists insurgency or the Kashmir issue, only a few media did cover the news from all perspectives. The new age of 24x7 news channels has failed in this case, mainly because of the competition to report something before the rival channel. They invariably end up with the most easily accessible sources, like the police or army or political spokespersons for news, editors then sensationalize it and that comes as breaking news they are not patient enough to get the complete picture leading to bias in the report, which they hide skilfully with their diplomatic statements. Another problem with the 24x7 channels is that the shelf-life of a news item is very less. News of importance loses its temper after few days or until another breaking news surfaces. Ultimately this TRP hunter ends up more as a bane rather than becoming a boon! So, while the TRP hunters are on their spree, all we can do is to trust those unknown faces that are on prowl at the backyards of the society to unveil the veiled.