Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

Sandwiched between Sahyadri (Western Ghats) and the Arabian Sea, Kerala had always attracted migrants from different parts of India and from outside India. The peace and tranquility in the region, tolerance and hospitality towards aliens and, above all, its location in the midst of major international trading routes encouraged the movement of peoples and the emergence of a pluralistic society.
Saga of Kalpathy narrates the story of a small community which migrated from the Tamil country to Kerala. The early migrants settled in the village Kalpathy in Palakkad. Kalpathy continues to have a sizeable concentration of this community. They can also be found in other parts of Kerala. The trials and tribulations the community underwent led to their migration to other parts of India and across the globe. But, the community is still known as Palghat Iyers and the name has stuck firmly whether they live in Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, New Delhi or in faraway cities like New York or Toronto. The author has retained the anglicized name Palghat, though the town is known today by its Malayalam name Palakkad.

The Bengali word ‘Adda’ when translated as ‘gossip’ slips from a middle class ‘baithak khaana’ and enters into a parlour, club or salon. In the ‘baithak khaana’, ‘adda’ comprises passionate exchanges (the topics may include anything from political, cultural, linguistic to gastronomical), and is, first and foremost, a social speech-act that requires a performance of words-orally. ‘Adda’ relies on a communal appreciation of arguments as spoken words, often deploys sarcasm and laughter, and is solely dependent on the ‘delivery’ of an orator.

If we are to see and analyse the agency of an untouchable in its struggles against British imperialism and against Brahmanism, a lot more needs to be done towards documenting the same and in exposing this ‘twin enemy’ of the people in general and of Dalits in particular. Over the years, there has been spate of some very serious scholarly work that documents Dalit struggles against Brahmanism and the political assertion of their movement as a whole. However, their vital role in anti-colonialism and in the making of modern nation needs a lot more attention than has been given otherwise.

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge…. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance…. Tryst With Destiny, J. Nehru.

The Meaning of Civilization: Essays on Culture, Religion and Politics is a compilation of opinion pieces by Naguib Mahfouz, first published between 1974 and 1981. Written originally as a concise commentary on current affairs for the daily Al Ahram, bearing the title wijhat or ‘point of view’, they cover a range of subjects contiguous to the nature, culture and politics of religion, education, nationalism, popular culture and the bureaucracy in Egypt. Picked mostly from the years 1976 and 1980, the articles are chronologically ordered. A few have been selected from the years 1976, 1977 and 1981. This period coincides with the years Anwar al-Sadat served as President of Egypt. Sadat was among those who had spearheaded the fall of the monarchy and sought freedom from British imperialism in the revolution of 1952. As President, he introduced several major reforms favouring urbanization, agrarian reorganization, a multi party system and an open-door economic policy. He revamped Egypt’s foreign policy quite dramatically

Victor Mallet is the latest in a string of visitors over the centuries who have evocatively recorded their fascination for the Ganges: from Xuanzang, in the 7th century, who was in raptures of its waters, ‘dark blue in colour with great waves rising’; J.A. Hodgson, the first outsider to reach the Gaumukh glacier, who saluted with a bugle march the first appearance of the great river; and Fanny Parkes, the 19th century diarist, who was charmed by everything she saw as she sailed up the river in a flotilla of vessels; to, more recently, Eric Newby, who meandered slowly down the Ganges on a makeshift craft, Sir Edmund Hillary who jet-boated up it, and Dennison Berwick who trudged on foot from its mouth to its source.