Book Review #76: Durbar By Tavleen Singh

Title: Durbar

Author: Tavleen Singh

Publishing Year: 2012

Publishers: Hachette India

Genre: Non-Fiction

Pages: 260+ (Digital eBook edition)

Source: Personal Copy

The political journalist turned writer Tavleen Singh has written an excellent book, which is a firsthand information that she has witnessed in her career as a political journalist. This book, as it goes with the name "Durbar" contains the account of the Prime Ministers that ruled India since the 70's. Yes, we are talking about Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi with a brief and startling account of Sanjay Gandhi, and the Italian Wife of Rajiv Gandhi the Antonio Maino a.k.a Sonia Gandhi.

The book is gripping in every aspect pertaining to the insider information of Indira Gandhi’s government. Tavleen writes about the days when Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister of the Democratic India and events followed thereafter. Sanjay Gandhi who appeared to be apolitical, turned out to be someone who ran the government on behalf of Indira Gandhi. The Author has written exceptionally covering every possible details of this crooked Sanjay Gandhi. Sanjay Gandhi In fact had a say in everything in the Indira Gandhi government or she had granted that special permission to his dictator son to meddle with the functioning of the government.

Author goes on to expose some of the murky details of the emergency that Indira Gandhi declared in 1975 after Allahabad court issues a judgment that disqualified her as an MP. The events that followed in the name of Press Censorship during emergency that almost resented by everyone. According to the author, the emergency days were the dreadful days which became the sole reason for the rise of some of the prominent leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and LK Advani etc...

After the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her personal guards and the ascension of Rajiv Gandhi as the youngest Prime Minister of India was one of the notable events in India. But the expectations were soon faded out after Rajiv Gandhi failed to stop the brainless attack on the Sikh people. Author had opinionated that, Rajiv could've done well to stop this. Who will forget that nonsense statement by Rajiv Gandhi when he was asked to comment on the massacre of Sikh community "When a big tree falls, the earth shakes".

The important takeaway from the book is the author's observation of Sonia Gandhi and her political growth. Sonia had relatively fewer friends in India in the beginning when she came from Italy. She was very close to the Quottorchi family. As per the author, these Quottorchi duo were more than mere friends of Sonia Gandhi. They had some unusual influence over the government to get the huge contracts. Sonia on the other hand, was apolitical and kept herself away from all these business. But, she wasn't that regular kind, she was keenly observing every move of her Mother-in-law Indira and her husband Rajiv. In fact she would be there in every interview that Rajiv gives to the media.

The book is clearly an eye opener for anyone who believed Rajiv or Indira has done some good job during their governance. For sure, they would have a second opinion on these Prime Minister duo. Sonia on the other hand was very reserved and careful until her husband's assassination in Tamil Nadu.

The book ends at the stage when Rajiv's assassination took place. The Durbar is truly an account of the blind Durbar (Private Ruling) of these duo who took the country to the dogs. I recommend this book to everyone. A must read.

My Rating:

5/5

Book Review #54: I am Malala - The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot By Taliban By Malala Yousafzai

I am quite sure that those of you who have heard or listened to this young girl’s story would be exclaiming in surprise “She is one tough teenager!” I am also one of them after reading her biography or rather her little story of how this assassination attempt by Taliban has brought this young girl to the outside world. Before I started to read this book, I was under the impression or rather you can say it as ignorance that, what this girl of age 15 has done to Pakistan that has garnered so much attention. And, this book has a simple answer to all those people who are waiting or expecting to know something about this girl’s fight for girl’s education.

Well this book speaks about length and breadth of the problems that any common Pakistani will face in a day to day life. Without giving much importance to the country’s rotten politics or army’s bad attitude or the constant terror threats and attacks, a regular Pakistani especially those who hail from this remote valley called Swat. She writes about her family and its background in the initial few chapters. She also goes on explaining about Swat and its people and how they are more connected to Afghanistan than Pakistan. She describes the cultural practices of a regular Pashtun household.

Speaking about her daring challenge to the terrorist outfits like Taliban who banned girl’s education in their valley, she was well prepared by her father Ziauddin Yousafzai. He is really a good father and a great human being I can say. He was the one who started the English type school in Swat valley at the very beginning. With regular threats from the local mullah’s and other influential hardcore Islamic people, he stood for what he is capable of and ran a school and became one of the respectable persons in and around the Swat valley and in Pakistan.

When it comes to Malala Yousafzai, she started her work towards the girls’ education rights at a tender age of 11. Like any teenager she was also enjoying her family time and all those happy moments with her family. She loved her little family that consists of her mother, father and her two little brothers Kushal and Atal. Ziauddin Yousafzai named his school after his elder son Kushal. It is one of the famous schools in Swat valley today. Malala started to get attention from the public because of her numerous speeches and interviews she was giving regularly. She often travelled across the Pakistan to spread the message of girl’s education.  

The turning point in her life came in when BBC Urdu was looking out of someone who can give firsthand information about the Swat region when it was under Taliban control. With a strong persuasion from her uncle, Malala started to write for BBC Urdu under the pen name “GUL MAKAY”. This has got some great attention from across the world and of course it also brought Malala under the radar of Taliban. Malala and her family used to receive threats and threat notes from unknown sources about their activities. They went ahead and threatened to bomb their school if they won’t stop the girl’s school. But she wasn't the type of quitters. She managed to do well in getting the attention of their government and was getting support from them to bring education to everyone especially girls.

She also wrote about many other details about the Taliban rule and how people initially supported the group by donating money to them. She writes about few dreaded people like Fazlullah, the radio mullah and other Taliban members. For sure, this book will give us a load of information regarding the Taliban regime.

One point which I thought was very unnecessary was her rant about India. She wrote on many occasions that, India is the greatest enemy of Pakistan and some rubbish details about India and Pakistan relationship. We can ignore this part and move on to read other stuffs.

The stirring details of how Malala was shot by Taliban guy in her school bus and the after incident of her treatment and she was flown to UK is a well-known phenomenon.  She thanked numerous doctors and caretakers from both the countries are a nice gesture. She was under induced coma for almost a week and her fighting spirits to get back on heels is a tremendous journey. She described her injuries and other details in great details which can be read in book.

There is a photography section in the book where she posted some of her pictures from her childhood and few pictures from the hospital where she was taking treatment. It’s a nice way to put all those things.

Overall a great attempt by Malala to write all these things. We all know that there are certain sections of the people who hate her and who love her. Leaving aside all those things, she stands as an inspiration for many young girls in Pakistan and around the world. Their family is living in UK now with a little or no plan of returning to Pakistan in future. May be, one day she would visit Pakistan as a politician which she aspired to become.

My Rating:

5/5

Book Review #48: 1984 (Nineteen-Eighty Four) By George Orwell

“WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY AND IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”!!

Probably this is one of the most disturbing books that I've ever read in recent times. I had no idea what was happening but I was sure that, I was feeling all those creepiness, all those dreaded ways of torturing people, and most of which, the way an existing government treats its workers for the sole purpose of staying in power.

At the same time, this is one of the classics ever written on socio-political grounds. George Orwell has mastered at the character creation, that it almost felt like the events described in this book might have happened for real. The Dystopia that Orwell had expressed in this novel is quite an amazing thing. Written in 1948, but for the people of 1984 is what makes this book as a unique and class apart.

Winston Smith, the protagonist of our novel, who happened to be an inner party worker. He always hated his government for their way of treating its people. Their totalitarian way of handling things and events resulted in more hatred from among its workers than the normal citizen. Winston was working in Ministry of Truth, a government organization whose purpose is to distort the dates and events and recreate those things as never happened or happened at the behest of the wishes of government. He was often wondering why things are like this and why their government is behaving like this. Their government went a step ahead and created a new kind of dictionary called “NEWSPEAK" that eliminated almost every word that can be used to describe the hatred against their government. This dictionary always uses words such that, there is no way that anyone can write against government, because, those words didn't exist in the NEWSPEAK dictionary.

As the story further progresses, Winston was slogging every day to his work though he hated it. So, he purchased a diary from local market and started to write his hatred against the government in that diary. He had to keep this activity so secret that, his every move, his every step has been watched very closely by his government and Big Brother. Wherever he used to sit, at his home, at office, on the street, there will be special telescreens that will spy on him and often he gets reminders from the same screen whenever they encounter some unusual activities. Not only was him, almost everyone undergoing this surveillance. They are not even allowed to think against their government, otherwise, this will get booked under the act “Thought Crime”. There are few cases like people were booked under “Thought Crimes” and there are “Thought Police” everywhere in the city to keep an eye on these people.

During these events, he meets a female co-worker Julia from his office that expresses her interest towards Winston. Initially he was skeptical that, she might be an inside informant who is spying on him. Later, he comes to know that, even she hated the government. So he accepts her proposal. They usually go to the woods to spend some romantic time together, since, couples who are going together and are not married is a crime according to the government. So, Winston rents an apartment in the 2^nd floor of an antique artefacts seller.

One fine day Winston meets O'Brien, a colleague of him that pretends to hate their government and Big Brother. He befriends him and reveals all his details and his love affair with Julia. Initially, O'Brien acts as if he is the member of secret group and hands over a book of secret group to Winston to study. He collects all the information from Winston and pretends that they can work together and bring down this government. Winston believes in all these things and along with Julia will head back to their apartment and begins to study that book. This is the longest section from the novel where Winston reads and understands everything about their government and the secret group. In all these events, both Winston and Julia were certain of one thing, they believed that they will get caught sooner or later by their government or people from Big Brother and will be executed. During this phase, their apartment door will be kicked open and both of them will be arrested. The owner of the apartment Mr. Charrington, who pretended to be a normal person, is actually one of the “Thought Police”.

So, both Winston and Julia will be arrested and will be put in separate prisons. This section of the novel is the disturbing section. Winston will be tortured like anything and made to accept to all the crimes that he has committed or not. The twist in the novel appears now, O’Brien, who happened to be a member of the secret group is actually a spy working from outside the party and working for Big Brother. He confronts Winston and reveals his true face and explains Winston about all his spying activities. He tortures Winston in all possible ways and forces him to confess everything. O’Brien transfer Winston to Cell 101, a dreaded torture room specifically designed to torture people in the cruelest way and will be made to confess almost anything that they wanted, even though they never committed in the first place. According to O’Brien, Winston and Julia have committed Adultery, they committed thought crime, they are traitors, they worked against the government, etc… But, all O’Brien wanted from Winston was to forget Julia. He tortures Winston and brainwashes him in such a way that, Winston almost nods for everything and even he accepts 2+2=5!!

Finally, O’Brien was able to brainwash Winston successfully. His final resort of torturing Winston by allowing the rats to eat Winston’s face in a closed box proved to be successful. Winston who often gets dreams of eaten by rats was actually coming true. He decides to confess to his final crime and says to O’Brien that he can torture Julia instead of him. This is the final answer that O’Brien was expecting from Winston. Finally, Winston will be released and was allowed to live like normal Proles. Winston encounters Julia in later days after his release, but, he will realize that, he don’t have any feelings left for Julia.

Overall Winston’s journey is completely filled with torture. He realizes that, one alone cannot do anything against the government. The realization from “I hate Big Brother” to “I Love Big Brother” is a complete brainwashed phenomenon.

I recommend this book to be read by everyone. This book is truly a masterpiece and covers the post war details of the country Oceania in greater details. Though it’s a fiction, but, nobody will come to a conclusion that this novel is purely fictional tale oriented!! The 3 sentences from the novel will be reverberated in your head even after finished reading it. “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY AND IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”!!

My Rating:

5/5

Buy 1984 from FLIPKART.COM:
LINK

Book Review #25: Tantu By Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa

Yet again, I am here to give you all a review of Dr. S. L. Bhyrappa Sir's another magnificent novel Tantu. Tantu can be meant as "Links" or a much sophisticated close meaning as "Relations". This book reveals the various facets of a life and how the bad decisions can affect one's own life and their surroundings. I can say, this book is more or less similar to Anchu in terms of the characters, feelings and relationships are concerned. But still, it makes altogether a different impact on its readers. Much have been talked about the capabilities of Dr. SLB sir and his magic while creating a psychological view of every character.

Tantu is a journey of individual souls that judge things from their own perspective. The protagonists are mere mirror image of a modern society. The reality is, Tantu captures the minute details of a person that you and me see in everyday of our life. This book is a fight between, honesty, bravery, cunningness, illicit relations, upbringing kids in the right way, money, meditation, music, school, government, politics, politicians, journalism, etc, etc..

Spread across 900 pages. This book captures many stories that are interlinked with each other. Author had brilliantly connected each story to the next and previous one in order to achieve the full effect. A complete package of a typical Indian life in a typical India during the time of Indira (the then prime minister of India)!!!.

There is no single protagnonist in this novel. Each character has the same depth of a protagonist range. A Resident Editor of a popular english daily Mr. Ravindra, who sticks to his principles and known for his honesty and integrity. A shrewed woman, wife of the resident editor, Mrs. Kanti, who is least cared about living the life in a right way, she rather believed in living life in all possible way. And, a teenage son of this couple Anoop, who falls in the wrong companionship of wealthy kids, and starts to steal things from his school, steals money from his dad's pocket. Later stage of the novel witnesses Anoop being convicted by police, when raiding a brothel cum nude dance bar.

The story revolves around these main characters. But, the other events and stages of the novel feels as important as these 3 peoples. As the novel further goes, Mr. Ravindra came to know that, his son is going in a wrong direction. He decides to get him admitted to a different school, that runs on the principles laid down by Mahatma Gandhi. The speciality of this school is, it doesn't take any support from the governmental agencies, even, the teachers are mostly celibate and they stays in school forever. The vivid description of this school must be read from the novel itself. Here author introduces us to the scene, where Mrs. Kanti was not at all happy about getting her son admitted to a school in a faraway village. This event had led her to have a spat with Ravindra.

As the novel further goes, Mrs. Kanti decides to go to her hometown for her father's birthday. But, she decides to stay there forever. Reason being, she meets one of her childhood friend, Mrs. Sheetal, who works in external ministry department. She gives Kanti an idea of starting her own cloth export business, for which, Kanti agreed instantaneously. Later events, proved that Kanti grown as one of the successfull business tycoon.

The real twist in the novel appears now. In Anoop's school there is a music teacher by the name of Mr. Hemanth Honnatti, that left his high paying job and decides to pursue his career in sitar music and runs away from his house and was practising in Anoop's school. Fortunately, Kanti knew the parents of Hemanth, she decides to meet him and persuade him to go and meet his parents. As the events unfolds, Kanti realizes that, she is attracted to Hemanth, she slowly shows her intersts in him, for which, Hemanth reciprocates equally. Within no time, their relationship had grown beyond imagine and they started seeing each other almost daily.

As the novel approaches towards the end. Anoop had joined an engineering college to pursue his engineering. Here author tries to explain the grave realities of the problems of a young adult, who is curious enough to try his hands at relationships, but not adult enough to sustain those realtions. Anoop tries his luck with many female students from his college. He also visits brothels, that leads to him in a bigger mess in the later stage of the novel. Finally, he decides to pursue his career in USA for an administration degree in Business. Here, due to Indira Gandhi's emergency declarations in the country, Ravindra decides to quit his resident editor job as he feels that there is not enough room left for fair, honest practice for journalism. His newspaper investors asked him to not to cover any governmental decisions and to stay out of reporting those things. This was the phase, that whole of India was in ultimate shock by witnessing the dictator style of governance from Indira Gandhi.

In climax, Ravindra will come to know about the illicit relationship that his wife Kanti had with Hemanth. He tries to question her, but he gets admonished from Kanti. Even Anoop knows about her mother's illicit relatioship, for which, his mother tactful response makes him silent. Here Kanti had grown out to be a good successfull business icon, but, failed as a wife and a mother. She had suffered a massive heart attack and passes away in isolation. Ravindra was put behind the bar for writing against the Indira Gandhi's government, Anoop marries his girlfriend and decides to stay in USA. The final scene marks, where Ravindra and few other were shouting slogans against the government for its decision to arrest common people. This marks the end of the book.

As though my review seems to be long and very simple. It's not the case, I didn't even revealed 20% of the novel in my review. It is such a huge novel, and it is difficult to write a conclusive review after all. It exposes those persons that lives in each one of us who are after material desires than relations and responsibilities. As we witness in this novel, Kanti failed as an honest wife and a loving mother. Anoop failed as an honest son, Hmeanth failed as a trusted friend, Ravindra failed for being an honest man!!. Their relationships or TANTU with each other seems to be just on the papers, and it has broken long ago.

We all must appreciate the hidden meaning in this novel. Don't just think it is a work of fiction, it gives all of us some lessons on how to maintain our relationships. If we go behind just material desires, our relationships, for sure, goes in a different direction. We wouldn't even realize it. By the time we realize, this TANTU or RELATIONSHIP will be beyond the stage of repair. A must read for everyone.

My Rating: 
5/5

Book Review #19: The Accidental Prime Minister By Dr. Sanjaya Baru

Probably this is one of the first book that gives us the insider picture of a Prime Minister's Office, popularly called as PMO. Sanjaya Baru tells us his journey and his memoir of his tenure as a Prime Minister's Media adviser from the period of 2004 to 2008. Being an elite columnist, journalist, editor and an economic expert, he has shown us a great detail of how the PMO works. Nobody has known how a PMO works for PM, especially media advisers and PM's personal secretariat officers. This books gives us a clear picture of all those things.

The_Accidental_Prime_Minister is a popular bestseller of 2014 in India under Non-Fiction category. This book came at the right time when India was preparing herself for the epic general elections. This book was an oasis for opposition parties especially BJP, that was always blaming the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a non-functional, spineless and a yes madam type PM. I pity them, because those people wouldn't even have read a single page of this book.

This book doesn't in any manner, I repeat, doesn't in any manner degrade former Prime Minister ManMohan Singh. This book has given a complete detail of how MMS (short form for ManMohan Singh) rose to be the successful Prime Minister of UPA-1 tenure between 2004 to 2009. The successful nuclear deal with the US, which is surely a feather on the cap for MMS and his many popular schemes that was launched to uplift the poor classes of India.

This book is a narration of the Author Sanjaya Baru, from the time of his appointment as Prime Minister's Media Adviser till he resigned from his post. He just recalled his memory and presented before us a memoir. Author has begun this book, by introducing us to the phase where he gets a phone call from none other than MMS to come and work for him as his media adviser. Here, the author emphasizes a phrase that MMS has asked him when he joined his office. "You have to be my eyes and ears"!!

Then he goes on describing his tenure and his ups and down as his advisor. How he got along with PM and how he was admonished on several occasions and on the same time, how he was congratulated by PM for his excellent works and so on. The minute details of how a PMO works for PM is an excellent read from this book. Several committees, groups, elite panel and other intellectuals that was in the team of PMO has made sure that, PM's job was kept in super vigilant and they ensured that PM was functioning in right spirits.

The entire focus of the author has been on PM MMS and his relationship with him. At times, you may feel that, this book is just about self boasting of Sanjaya Baru. Of course, he deserves his due credit, he prepared MMS from what we known as a silent, not so talkative, reserved PM to one of the best PM's that India has produced over the years. He was the only PM that ran his office for a complete 2 terms.

Author had not forgotten to explain us, the soaring success of MMS and his downfall at the beginning of 2009 by his own partymen. Author tells us that, PM MMS was infact sidelined at the beginning of 2009 and most of his ministers were not even reporting to PM. They were actually reporting Sonia Gandhi, the party president and leader of UPA. This has made MMS dull and low on several occasions.

Author introduces several persons in front of us, that were very close to Sonia Gandhi. Especially Pulok Chaterjee, Ahmed Patel, Pruthviraj Chavan, P. Chidambaram and Pranab Mukharjee, who were reluctant to listen to PM MMS and they thought they are never answerable to MMS. They were only listening to Sonia Gandhi. At the beginning of 2009, PM MMS was not even in a position to select his own ministers for his cabinet, which is usually the job of PM to select his ministerial team. This was done and finalised at the Sonia Gandhi's office. This was the incident where, the tainted minister of 2G scandal, A. Raja was appointed as a minister in MMS cabinet. MMS has strongly opposed to the induction of A. Raja, but, he failed to do so.

This book just goes on in this tone of sad story of MMS's downfall. The interesting section was, when MMS about to take some credits for his good work in UPA-1 tenure. His own partymen from congress tried to snub MMS, by elevating a dimwit Rahul Gandhi as the person behind expansion of NREGA, RTI and other popular schemes which happened because of MMS's hard work. This was the point when Congress was ready to take his resignation and promote Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Minister. Later, when Congress came to know that, Rahul was not prepared for this huge role, they let MMS continue for his full term. MMS on several occasions told Baru that, "She has let me down".

At the end of the book, Author reiterates the phrases told by MMS. "You see, You must understand one thing. I have come to terms with this. There cannot be two centres of Power." This phrase rightly pointed to the person who has the actual power of government.

Overall, a must read book for every Indians. After reading this book, My opinion on MMS have changed a bit. He was used as a mere pawn by Congress and its allies in UPA. From a popular economist who held very responsible positions in his entire lifetime, became Prime Minister by virtue and not by accident has let down by his own people. that's the sad part. From "Singh is King" to "Singh is Nothing".

My Rating: 5/5