(27 May '12)
One thing good about
living in a village with poor transport and internet connectivity is that one
gets to cook, eat, sleep and read.
After years of slogging
at job and domestic chores, I’ve gone back to the first love: books. Until I
was in college, I’d read anything, even the paper in which groceries were
wrapped. Now I’m more selective. This spree of reading began with the Thinkfest
in November. I bought Tarun Tejpal's Valley of Masks and wished I’d written it.
All those who worship swamis, gurus, masters, priests must read it to get an
idea of how people follow leaders, and more importantly, how organisations
entice and mould followers. How philosophies that are morally logical and good
for mankind can use methods quite the contrary that no one down the ladder will
ever know. And how escape from such 'ashrams' ,if one could call them that, is
so difficult.
As I’m slow in reading
in Marathi, I took a long, leisurely time in finishing “Postmortem' by Dr Ravi
Bapat. This books brings out the dirt that's happened in our medical education
and to what depth our healthcare system has fallen. I was pleased to note that
he and co-author Suniti Jain have also pointed out the exceptions to the rule,
doctors who sweat blood and are upright and honest in all that they do. Perhaps
they form thirty percent of the total members practicing in India, but they are
the ones to be highlighting and made heroes of. The book covered only the
allopathic stream. The other Marathi book I read was Maansaanchi Khair Nahin by
Prakash Ramchandra Kshirsagar.. The book is a collection of small, light
essays. I find vernacular writing flowery and repetitive at times. However,
Prakash has managed to keep his essays brief and easily readable. What I found
interesting was that his book gave me an insight into Bharat (as opposed to the
English speaking India) and small town life in and around Goa. In the first
essay, he describes the recipient of a 'pink slip'. It was hard to believe the
reason he's given for it: a small error on the part of an employee. That and
another essay, Anamikay ne vachavle, lets us know that the writer Prakash has a
soft corner for the lowly and downtrodden. The pedestrian is not wrong, the
driver of a car is, when mud is splashed over the former. In my view both would
be responsible,.... or sometimes, the situation, not the person. His
description of bus travel where soft skills are absent in the staff is worth
translating. Truly, in the hinterlands, rudeness rules. The essay on the rain
had good imagery. Another one on a local who wants to speak English was also
insightful. Prakash wields a fluent pen
for sure.
The English translation
of 'Rasachandrika”, the bible of Saraswat cooking, is excellent. The recipes
are fool proof.
Once More Upon a Time
is the biography of Pascoal J Menezes, written by Ivan Arthur brought home the
fact that Goans value history, but its documentation must be of some quality.
This book had stories strung together,
written in indifferent prose; Sudhir Deokar's illustrations were good, though.
Frederick Noronha of
1556 is doing a good job of helping lesser known Goan writers to get published.
“The Tulsi”, written by Dr Pundalik Gaitonde's wife, Edila, is an anthology
that can't be called literature, but which tells us a lot about how people
lived in Goa in the mid 1900s and the attitudes of the Hindus and Catholics
towards each other, their traditions and the rulers.
The best read of all
was The Emperor of All Maladies. This biography of cancer, by Siddhartha
Mukherjee is a book I will prize for its
scientific content, history, elegant use of language and grip. Its words and
paragraphs have lingered in my mind over the months. The loss of a close
relative to cancer recently brought every word in it alive. Siddharth wrote
this book whilst still practising as an oncologist. How did he find the time to
do the research and type it out? How did he imagine and express the flow of time
and events? I’ve always believed that some human minds are superior to others.
Siddharth has proved that.
There are so many books
on my to-read list. More about them later, after I’ve digested them.
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