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Compiled and edited by Khushwant Singh’s daughter, writer/publisher Mala Dayal, Me, The Jokerman, is a selection of his writings that appeared periodically over the years in the columns of nationally acclaimed newspapers and magazines such as The Hindustan Times, The Illustrated Weekly of India and The Tribune. These had made him a household name for his vigorous wit and sharp, analytical point of view. Singh never demurred from saying it as it was, or as he saw it was, and this assemblage of over fifty of his essays, most of them as yet unpublished in book form, are an example of his honesty, courage, humour and style.

You think of Arthur Conan Doyle, and the name that immediately comes to mind is that of the iconic Baker Street detective Sherlock Holmes. For lovers of crime fiction and Holmes, Baker Street is on the bucket list during any trip to London. Even today, Sherlock remains the most popular and iconic detective of all times, comparable perhaps only to Poirot, with a canon that has enthralled generation after generation of crime fiction lovers.

Reema Abbasi is truly a citizen of the world and one who is able to bridge many gaps in our world. Her first book, Historic Temples in Pakistan: A Call to Conscience, about the state of temples in her own country, was a trailblazer. This time she crossed over the border to write on Khwaja Garib Nawaz Moinuddin Chisti. This is a much-needed book in times of bigotry and growing misconceptions about people whom we think of as ‘the other’. Here I am in conversation with the wonderful author whose book is just steeped in spirituality, love and our shared heritage.

Language is a plaything in poets’ hands, a raw material shaped into a sculpture. How far the poet engages with this challenge varies across the spectrum of this genre. Poets like Dastidar are not bothered about assuming the role of ‘legislators’ as Shelley would have it. Nor has he planned to be different, but he naturally achieves this as poet Mona Arshi observes in the blurb, ‘There really is no one else currently writing poetry quite like this.’ By implication it also means that this is not the collection one would decide to sit down with the cocoa, have feet up, and relax to enjoy it.

Dalit literary movement stormed the Telugu country in the 1990s after Women’s Writing shook the literary establishment in the 1980s. While Chikkanavutunna Pata (Thickening Song) edited by Tripuraneni Srinivas and G. Lakshminarasaiah in 1995 remains one of the most powerful anthologies to have brought out poetry from a large constituency of writers that included the SCs, BCs, and Muslim Minority writers, it fell short of its expectations with not a single woman writer being represented.

Years ago, I had seen Indira Parthasarathy when he joined our family in Srirangam on a day the Lord comes out of the temple in procession. He was looking intensely at the gorgeous presence of the Lord: was he wondering how Sri Ramanuja would have felt walking in the streets of this temple city and watching the Lord during the days of special procession? It was an unforgettable moment for me as I realized that Indira Parthasarathy has been more than a Professor of Tamil and an outstanding scholar.