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Reading the recently launched Hindi translation of the book A.P.J. Abdul Kalam: A Life by his close associate and friend Arun Kumar, the tone and intention of the author becomes very clear early in the text. The book is worked out as a hagiography of a person who had achieved a status comparable to a saint, maybe even more than that, in his lifetime. The work is not meant for critical understanding. You need to read it in a particular way in order to appreciate the contents of the book.

Dear Kalam Sir, a compendium of tributes to the ‘people’s president’, ‘the missile man of India’ amazes us by the sheer novelty of the idea. An initiative of Letter Farms, this book is a testimony to the fact that Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, with his ideas, words and actions reached out and touched a great number of lives. A man who rose from a humble background to become President, India ever had, Kalam’s life is a lesson that ‘dreams with a vision and hard work ensure success.’ ‘Postcard is your canvas and sky is your limit’ is the single line instruction with which Letter Farms began the community art project Dear Kalam Sir, which is a confluence of ‘art, articulation and passion’.

It comes almost as a relief to see a picture book titled Kasturba. There must be, or should be, few who don’t know that she was Mahatma Gandhi’s wife. He is among the most written about individuals in the world. And there are many who believe she hasn’t been given her due in history. However, I wonder if the title is somewhat misleading because the story is actually about a little girl called Nina who discovers her Kasturba voice and the reference to this context is what drives the action in the story. It is October 2 once more and Nina’s class teacher is preparing her class to do a play to commemorate the occasion.

Sakhi-Time with Nani Ji is inspired by the life and teachings of Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion. Guru Nanak, born in 1469, witnessed lot of turmoil and atrocities committed by the rulers of that era in the name of religion and caste fundamentalism. He organized his followers to challenge the protagonists of extremism and founded a new church to build an egalitarian society. His message of universal brotherhood, peace, love, emancipation and empowerment of women, and faith based on oneness of God and boycott of superstitions and idol worship, appealed to all ordinary people who suffered persecution and social injustice.

Approaches to Childhood: Issues and Concerns in Creative Representations, an anthology of essays, is yet another contribution to the academic studies on heterogeneous aspects of childhood based on the recent developments in various disciplines like psychology, sociology and anthropology. Nibir K. Ghosh rightly comments in the foreword to the book that the narratives ‘emanating from the fertile soil of human compassion, sing profuse strains of deeply meditated creative renderings not only of distress but also of a child’s capacity to survive with courage and dignity in a hostile world’ (pp. 7–8).

The book starts off with an explanation of what child rights are, who needs them, who protects them and how they can be violated. Tracing the timeline of the child rights movement internationally, and then in India, and including a description of the forerunners of the child rights movement in India helps the reader to understand the genesis and current status of child rights. ‘Education’ gets a dedicated section in which Bajaj focusses briefly on the ‘Right to Education Act’ and its practical repercussions.