Perspectives 2015 - 2016 One World, Many Paradigms The way we see it
A Collection of Book Reviews by Students of Social Sciences
Contributors Sujitha Prabhakar Milonee Sanghavi Vidisha Mishra Annigeri Aishwarya Akanksha Sridhar Deepa Padmar Yogada Sandeep Joshi Anshu Pal Sanah Javed Anshu Pal Pranav S. Krishnan Aakanksha T. Supreetha Krishna Nishta Sinha Nirmal Bhansali Prajwal M. Lakshmi Karlekar Nikita Divekar Nikita Divekar Talin S. Animesh Bhandarkar Sheeba Jacintha Maithili Manoharan Nithin J Shuba S. Sujitha P Sanyuktaa Thakur Twinkle Sethia Ashwini Kailas Shreema Upadhyaya Amir Sohail Nidhi Srivatsa Ishika Saxena Nikita F Nikita F Shreya R Meera B Kaustubha Verma
Editorial Committee Faculty in Charge Dr. K. Kanishka
Student Editors Ishika Saxena, Lakshmi Karlekar
Foreword
Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. Reading, writing and articulating one’s thoughts has at all times and all ages been a great source of knowledge for mankind.
The department of Social Sciences has created a wonderful opportunity for passionate readers and writers to excel in this realm. I am glad to mention that the students of Social Sciences have always been very special for their positive attitude and for their ability to excel in every opportunity given t o t hem. P erspectives “ A Collection of Book R eviews” i s one s uch opportunity given f or a ll t he s tudents t o r ead, w rite a nd s hare t heir pe rspectives. It i s heartening t o know t hat more t han 100 r eviews been registered, while 50 be st reviews are selected for publication.
Reading is no doubt a s tupendous habit as it broadens vision. It can make an inactive and unproductive mind rich and cultivatable. It brings out the best in someone. Reading also helps one to see the present relations between the past and the future and thus develop a critical perspective. It is noteworthy to mention that students are provided wonderful experience and enriching exposure to reflect on issues portrayed by leading authors.
As t he s eventh edition of P erspectives i s b eing successfully released, I appr eciate a ll the faculty members for motivating students to review books. Motivating and engaging students to read, analyze, w rite, and articulate t heir t houghts com es eas ily w hen they are cur ious, exploring a nd e ngaged. F aculties c an t ake advantage of s tudents’ innate t alents and inquisitiveness to develop language skills, while reading different concepts.
At this magnificent outset, I congratulate and appreciate the students for taking the initiative of reviewing books and sharing their perspectives. I am sure this en riching experience has kindled their aptitude to read and share more in the days to come.
I wish all the readers all the best. Rev. Fr. Sebastian Mathai Principal, Christ Junior College
Preface
“The aptitude to articulate eloquently is one of the greatest gift acquired by the chosen few” - - Dr. K Kanishka . Department of S ocial S ciences has al ways be en a special pl ace for t he budding s ocial s cientists w ho c an e xplore t he u nexplored know ledge, creativity, s kills e tc. Perspectives “A Book Review” is one such academic venture conceptualized to give impetus to the voracious readers and prolific writers to share their point of view on different books they have read. It is a platform created for all the students to read, analyze and share their perspectives. The crux of this initiative is to inculcate, strengthen and enhance the reading, analyzing, writing skills among the student fraternity. This endeavor kindles the students to go beyond the syllabus giving scope for exploring different horizons.
As we release the seventh edition of Perspectives, we would like to express our gratitude to our Principal, Fr. Sebastian Mathai for his constant guidance and support. We also extend our appreciation a nd t hankfulness t o a ll t he f aculties of t he S ocial S ciences D epartment w ho mentored and monitored the process of book reviewing. We would like to thank the student editorial c ommittee f or the ir tir eless e fforts t aken in collecting, compiling a nd editing Perspectives. We would also like to thank Mr. Joy Vadakan for elegantly and aesthetically designing P erspectives. L ast a nd de finitely t he m ost i mportant s takeholders, t he s tudent reviewers need to be applauded for intellectual rigor and commitment.
Machiavelli said, “Anyone can state a f act but it takes an artist to have an opinion.” As we release P erspectives, we hope th at our e fforts to r each out to all th e s tudents w ill be w ell received and we hop e t hat eve ryone w ho reads t hese r eviews w ill enj oy the pe rspectives shared by the reviewers.
Dr. Kanishka.k Faculty, Department of Social Sciences
INDEX
Sl. No. SUBJECT Page No
1. Economics 02 - 15
2. Political Science 16 - 40
3. History 41 - 50
4. Psychology 51 - 80
5. Sociology 81 - 92
6. Research Paper 94 -104
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ECONOMICS
CONTENTS
Sl. No. Title and Author Reviewer
1. King Solomon’s Mines, H Rider Haggard Sujitha Prabhakar
2. English, August, Upamanyu Chatterjee Vidisha Mishra
3. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky Akanksha Sridhar
4. The Bachelor of Arts, R.K.Narayan Yogada Sandeep Joshi
5. Making Globalization Work Sanah Javed
6. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert T. Kiyosaki Pranav S. Krishnan
7. Chanakya’s Chant,Ashwin Sanghi Supreetha Krishna
Naked Economics – Undressing The Dismal 8. Nirmal Bhansali Science, Charles Wheelan
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TITLE AND AUTHOR: KING SOLOMON’S MINES, H RIDER HAGGARD REVIEWER: SUJITHA PRABHAKAR, II HEPP ‘N’ TEACHER IN CHARGE- MR XAVIER LOUIS DSOUZA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
‘King Solomon’s Mines’ is a popular novel authored by the famous English fabulist H Rider Haggard and published in the year 1885, which is of the Lost World literary genre. Sir H Rider Haggard was also involved in agricultural reforms throughout the whole of the British Empire along with being a writer of exotic adventure literature. Some of his other works are ‘She’, ‘Ayesha’, ‘Scramble for Africa’, etc.
BOOK REVIEW
‘King Solomon’s Mines’, although officially of adventurous nature, deals with aspects ranging from British imperialism which aimed at opening new markets by using political devices to the consumer culture of the British, which in those times, was usually called the “finders keepers” attitude. “Wealth is good, and if it comes our way we will take it; but a gentleman does not sell himself for wealth,” says Sir H Rider Haggard in ‘King Solomon’s Mines’. In the beginning, the author clearly talks about the open market that they utilize in Cape Town to sell their ivory and diamonds. He talks about the wealth that he steadily earns through this thriving market in the British colony that adds up to his son having a luxurious and entertaining life as he studies for his medical degree. The plot, superficially, is quite simple, sort of like Treasure Island which the author has tried to imitate through this novel. It starts out with treasure maps, a mission to find somebody or something that is lost and an adventure in the waiting. In this case, Sir Henry Curtis, the narrator Allan Quatermain’s ally, along with Captain Good and the narrator set out on an adventure to find Sir Henry’s lost brother, George who went in search of the legendary diamond mines of King Solomon. Throughout their journey, they come across many natives from whom, through the act of deceit and taking advantage of their lack of awareness, they manage to either escape from holding up their end of the bargain, or simply robbing what they find most valuable.
This story inevitably speaks about the increasing commoditization that seemed to take place in the lives of the westerners during those times. The moral question of whom the goods belong to in an imperialist economy when competition for the said goods increases, arises in
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this story. This shows the existence of a classical era of capitalist market where instead of firms dominating the economy, it was usually an individual.
In the entire story, the Africans, natives to the region are portrayed as barbaric, violent and primitive in their thinking. Twala, the king of Kukuanaland is described as wearing a large uncut diamond on his forehead as a decorative piece which brings about the thought that it is alright to take the wealth native to that particular colony since the people there are most likely not aware of its value. The ‘get rich quick’ theme is spread throughout the length of this novel. Also, the protagonists in this story hold a mission to procure enhanced social status through the means of exploiting the wealth they need for the purpose. Since stories like ‘King Solomon’s Mines’, ‘Treasure Island’ and the like were mainly purposed to indoctrinate the young boys and men who lived in the colonizing nations during that period with imperialistic ideals, these books to a large extent served their purpose as most men grew up adopting its principles of making their own fortune which in turn inevitably benefitted the mother country’s economy. ‘King Solomon’s Mines’ although a fairly good read in its assigned genre, is a better one if one wishes to understand how literature largely influenced the aggressive turn imperialism took economically towards the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century.
TITLE AND AUTHOR:ENGLISH, AUGUST, UPAMANYU CHATTERJEE REVIEWER: VIDISHA MISHRA, II HEPP ‘N’, TEACHER IN-CHARGE: MR XAVIER LOUIS’ D SOUZA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Upamanyu Chatterjee, an Indian civil servant by profession was born in 1959 at Patna, Bihar. He joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1983. He has written a handful of short stories including “The assassination of Indira Gandhi”. His best-selling novel,” English, August: An Indian story” (subsequently made into a major film), was published in 1988 and has since been reprinted several times. His second novel,” The last burden”, appeared in 1993. “Mammaries of the welfare state” was published at the end of 2000 as a sequel to “English, August” and he won the Sahitya Akademi Award for it in 2004. Since he was an Indian civil servant, he based his novels and stories on his personal experiences as an Indian civil servant. In 2009, he was awarded Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in recognition of his
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"exemplary contribution to contemporary literature”. The novel “Way to Go” was shortlisted for the The Hindu Best Fiction Award in 2010.
BOOK REVIEW
This book revolves around a young Indian civil servant named Agastya Sen, who has forcibly joined the civil services and has an extreme lack of interest towards his work and the bizarre and eerie ways of the working of the government and administration. This young man’s mind is dominated by women, literature and soft drugs and has nothing to do with making his country a welfare state. Agastya faces a tremendous culture shock when he gets posted to a small provincial, imaginary town called Madna in the vast Indian hinterland. The novel turns out to be a journey of the young man from him feeling completely out of place with the mosquitoes and frogs in his room and totally away from city life to discovering himself as a citizen of his country by knowing the realistic trends of his country’s grass root level administration. The novel clearly depicts the situation of the Indian administrative service in the emerging welfare state. The novel presents the paradox of being a civil servant in India through the protagonist’s journey, showing the sharp contrasts of urban life to that of rural India and a man influenced by alcohol, marijuana, women, and the like and having no interest in the working of the government to that of a man working for the government and for the welfare of the people and fitting himself to the schemes of the administration. This novel was written during the 1980s when India was coming out of its economic isolation and was moving towards more economic growth. During this time, though the economic growth was more, the gap between rural India and urban India widened. This novel shows, how well off the protagonist was when he was in a city and what his situation turned into when he came to rural India. This shows there was very less or no accessibility to resources in rural India. The economic growth which took place at that time was mostly based on industrialization and rural India was highly neglected, in terms of growth. Also, in my view, the trends of Indian administration described by the author at that time, applies to our current administrative set up too. Even today, globalization is the main focus and the culture, the traditions and the heritage of rural India are still neglected as the administration is dominated by corruption and self fulfilling prophecies. This is a beautifully and intelligently written novel which consists of various aspects. It presents to the readers the realistic trends of Indian administration. It is a novel filled with comedy, satire, paradoxes and reality. Most of Agastya’s experiences are based on the author’s personal experiences as an Indian civil servant. All the major incidents have been written in a sharp, witty, tongue-in-cheek manner. The author gives the world the
5 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it real scenario of the Indian administration and he presents an entirely different perspective of the regular civil servant.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT,FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY REVIEWER: AKANKSHA SRIDHAR, 2 HEPP ‘N’ TEACHER IN-CHARGE: MR XAVIER LOUIS’ D SOUZA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. Most of his work is set in 19th century Russia and he tends to trace human psychology during this troubled social, political and spiritual atmosphere. His work looks at individual’s confronted with hardships and beauty in life. He tends to bring in Christianity in his literary works. His first novel was titled ‘Poor Folk’, and it was published when he was 25. His major works include Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), Demons (1872) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880).
BOOK REVIEW
Fyodor Dostoyevsky takes the reader back to 1860s Russia in his book, Crime and Punishment. Crime and Punishment was published in the year 1867. The book is in the third person narrative and unravels the tale of Rodion Raskolnikov, a former student who is now drowning in the ocean of poverty. The story begins with Raskolnikov struggling to put two rubles together. So, he approaches a wealthy pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna and sells his possessions. He then walks on to the streets to witness nothing but poverty and the thick line that separates the rich from the poor. The overtly frustrated Raskolnikov stumbles upon a group of young men talking about the old pawnbroker and how they think killing her and stealing her wealth would benefit them. This incident put him on the path towards murder. He justifies to himself that if he were to commit a crime that would benefit the society, it would be permissible. So he decides to kill Alyona Ivanovna. He goes to her house pretending to sell a cigarette case and pushes her into the apartment and kills her. He unintentionally kills Lizaveta, Ivanovna’s sister. When he realizes what he has done, he barely manages to escape. He spends the next couple of days in a state of fugue. Then the guilt starts to trouble him. He
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turns into a delusional person. The guilt of murder combined with the other torments of life brings out the worst in him. The story finally ends with Raskolnikov confessing to the crime.
Dostoyevsky gives us a real and vivid image describing the economic conditions of Russia. Russia was in a state of progress in the 1860s under the rule of Alexander II but Dostoyevsky concentrates on the daily life of the then Russian economy. Dostoyevsky describes the state of the streets of St. Petersburg as wretched, ugly and dirty. The unemployment rate in the city is very high even among the educated youth. Most of the characters in the book are described as poor. The pawnbroker is portrayed to be an old, undeserving person whose wealth is too much for one person to possess. The contrastbetween the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’, is brought about skillfully. Most of the characters of the story are poor except for a few such as Luzhin, Svidrigailov, and Alyona Ivanovna. The poverty is seen very clearly. The poor characters don’t have a sufficient amount of money; they live in cramped up places where the landlords are ruthless. The pawnbroker is the main source of easy money to most of the people. Raskolnikov trying to be a savior decides to kill the “wealthy, old pawnbroker”; this shows the level of poverty in the streets of St. Petersburg, where people were willing to do anything for money. Poverty is imprinted in the backbone of the story.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: THE BACHELOR OF ARTS,R.K.NARAYAN REVIEWER: YOGADA SANDEEP JOSHI, 2 HEPP ‘N’ TEACHER IN-CHARGE: MR XAVIER LOUIS’ D SOUZA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The man who gave us Swami and Malgudi Days, R.K. Narayan (10 October 1906 – 13 May 2001) was an Indian author born in Chennai. He is credited for bringing the genre ‘Indian Literature’ to the world. Narayan’s work has been acknowledged by the AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature. He was also the recipient of Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian award. He was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Some of his renowned works are ‘The Guide’-for which he received the ‘Sahitya Akademi Award’, the semi-autobiographical trilogy ‘Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts and The English Teacher’, and of course the short-story collection ‘Malgudi Days’.
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BOOK REVIEW
‘The Bachelor of Arts’ describes four phases in a young man’s life during the pre- independence era in South India. The tale is set in the backdrop of the fictional town of Malgudi, where, resides Chandran, a B.A. student who is in the final year of college. He is a dutiful boy, an avid reader and a diligent student. But life awaits new directions for Chandran when he sees a pretty girl in a fleeting green sari on the banks of Sarayu. A half-planned future and love vanquish Chandran’s rationale. He goes away from Malgudi, his family and friends, only to return and find an opportunity to start life afresh. The book is set in the 1930s; it is greatly built on the grounds of socio-cultural orthodoxy which is invariably due to the economic status of individuals and their families. Chandran’s family was a higher-middle class one. Hence, Chandran was not compelled to apply for a job immediately after college while a few others joined newspaper agencies or became subordinate administrative staff of the union, considering that British administration gave very little scope for Indians to prosper. Due to Chandran’s father’s designation and their higher economic status, Chandran’s to-be bride was expected to give a dowry worth Rs.3000 (a time when a kilo of sugar cost 2 or 3 annas).
Due to his economic background, Chandran didn’t have to battle the challenges many other youngsters faced due to financial inability. Poor working conditions, unemployment and high tax imposition by the British government were just a few. Even in the virtual world of Narayan’s, it is evident that the people affected, were the ones who revolted. They were mainly financially affected youngsters or families living in poverty. People like Chandran didn’t actively participate in the freedom struggle. Upon looking back in time, the participants of the Indian National Movement had a common objective but not necessarily a common intention. For instance, in the 1920s, a group of tribal peasants in the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh revolted against the British as they were denied access to fuel wood, fruits and cattle-grazing in certain parts of the forest. They retaliated in the name of ‘Swaraj’ by using guerilla tactics. The Champaran and Kheda Satyagraha movements were also largely due to economic reasons. When one’s survival is questioned, one awakens to fight.
Another intriguing aspect of the book was coffee. Chandran often went out with his friends to relish the infamous “filter coffee”, the most loved beverage of the working South Indian even today. Coffee culture flourished at the time of the British colonial reign in India. The agriculture of coffee was purely export oriented. Intensive farming of coffee was prevalent in
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Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Due to the easy access and cheaper price, it was highly consumed. Every simple story is driven very subtly on the basis of welfare and economics. Every activity and every motive is driven by this concept. Chandran’s story was just another such example. The Bachelor of Arts is a light read. It is an amalgam of intelligent humor, romance and the realities of adulthood. R.K.Narayan has done complete justice to a reader’s anticipation once again!
TITLE AND AUTHOR: MAKING GLOBALIZATION WORK,JOSEPH STIGLITZ REVIEWER: SANAH JAVED, II HESP ‘M’ TEACHER IN-CHARGE: MR XAVIER LOUIS’ D SOUZA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Stiglitz is a very well-known American economist who was born in the year 1943 in Gary, Indiana. Stiglitz has made many contributions to economics in general and has specialized in the field of microeconomics; he is a Neo-Keynesian economist who believes in a balanced economic system with some interference of the government in the regulations of the market.He became the 17th chair of the president’s council of economic advisors(1995 – 97) and also became a key member of the world bank in 1997, apart from this Stiglitz is a member of the collegiums international and scientific committee of the foundation IDEAS, a Spanish think tank along with which he headed the International Economic Association(IEA) Joseph Stiglitz is the recipient of the Nobel memorial prize in the economic studies 2001, he was also named as one of the 100 most influential people by the ‘Time magazine’ in the year 2011. Joseph Stiglitz has also authored many books; two of which are ‘The Prize of Inequality’ and ‘Freefall’. The latest work of Joseph Stiglitz, ‘The Great Divide: unequal societies and what we can do about it’ has been published in 2015.
BOOK REVIEW
Joseph Stiglitz in his book ‘Making Globalization Work’ talks not only about the existence, functioning and impact of globalization on different parts of the world but also questions if it is equally helpful to all nations. Joseph Stiglitz writes in a manner that is easily understandable, thereby simplifying the complex issue of globalization to the laymen. The first few chapters address the problems and ill effects of globalization and the problems with organizations such as the IMF and World Bank.
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He states that there is inequality between nations; the United States holds dominance over such organizations making trade between countries unfair and especially affecting developing countries such as India and China. In his book Stiglitz also talks about the poor system of helping developing and underdeveloped countries financially. He says that most of the current help is provided through loans and not grants; instead of helping the countries, this further pushes them into a deeper economic crisis. To this, the solutions provided are simple. Stiglitz suggests that equality needs to be brought into the system and all countries must have an equal share in decision making. Also, most countries must be provided help in terms of grants and not loans- eventually helping them develop at a faster rate.Stiglitz writes mainly from the socialistic point of view. He talks about fair trade rather than free trade; a balanced system of trade.
He supports his view by speaking of sustainable development: Taking the environment into consideration in the process of development. In my view even though Joseph Stiglitz provides interesting solutions to important issues pertaining to globalization, most of his solutions seem unrealistic because they require the developed nations to introduce reforms that shift the burden from the developing nations to the developed nations themselves. Hence, until the developed nations recognize the importance of their contribution to globalization, free and fair trade cannot be accomplished.However, Stiglitz’s does make good use of his economic knowledge and experience with the World Bank, IMF and the government of USA. He addresses a wide range of issues of relevance.
If the solutions provided by Stiglitz are implemented, then the international forums will be more democratic and his aim of equality among nations will be accomplished; sustainable development will become a reality.
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TITLE AND AUTHOR: RICH DAD POOR DAD,ROBERT T. KIYOSAKI REVIEWER: PRANAV S KRISHNAN, 2 HESP ‘M’ TEACHER IN-CHARGE: MR XAVIER LOUIS’ D SOUZA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born and raised in Hawaii, Robert is a fourth-generation Japanese-American author. He comes from a prominent family of educators. His father was the head of education for the state of Hawaii. After high school, Robert was educated in New York and upon graduation; he joined the U.S Marine Corps and went to Vietnam as an officer and a helicopter gunship pilot. Returning from the war, Robert’s business career began. In 1977, he founded a company that brought to the market the first Nylon and Vector “surfer” wallets, which grew into a multi-million dollar worldwide product. He and his products were featured in Runner’s World, Gentleman’s Quarterly, Success Magazine, Newsweek and even Playboy. Retiring at the age of 47, he has one solid earth shaking message: Awaken The Financial Genius that lies within you.
BOOK REVIEW
Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a book that teaches people, let’s say - how to become rich. Robert Kiyosaki has explained concepts and taught basics in the most subtle way possible, enabling the common man to understand what he’s trying to say, rather than focusing only on one set of readers. The economic and financial knowledge I have received from this book, I think, will definitely help me a long way in managing finances and building assets. Concepts in the book are not basic, yet not complex, and that’s Robert’s way of explaining it. The book basically talks about how Robert learnt lessons from both his fathers – one of them was rich, and the other one was not so rich. Rich Dad’s lessons have then been modified and put forth in Robert’s own way for us to learn.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad covers a wide range of topics, all related to finance –
• Defines the concept of asset and liability once and for all. In short, assets put money into our pockets, and liabilities take away money from our pockets. Simple graphs accompany each conceptual explanation under assets and liabilities, enabling readers to grasp these concepts better.
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• The book explodes the myth that a high income enables an individual to become rich. The book talks about how assets are vital in the process of becoming rich and liabilities can become assets over a period of time with the right amount of financial planning.
• The book challenges the belief that a house is an asset. Robert tells us that most of us invest in homes thinking that they are an asset, but in turn houses are the biggest liability to an individual.
• Emphasis is laid on the fact that parents cannot rely on the education system to teach their children about money and the planning that comes with it. Schools do not give financial education the way it is supposed to be given to children, and this is why most of us grow into individuals with bad financial planning.
• To prove the above fact, Robert has used various teaching mechanisms in the book to tell parents how to teach their children about finance and economics right from an early age, so that they grow to become rich, both in their pockets and in terms of financial knowledge.“The main reason people struggle financially is because they spent years in schools but learnt nothing about money. The result is, people learn to work for money…but never learn to have money work for them,” says Robert.
The book is brilliantly written, subtle, and very informative. A lot of thought has gone into executing this piece of literature. I spent a lot of time rethinking what Robert has explained in the book and it has enabled me to become more rational in anything related to finance and economics. The book has taught me what to watch out for in the future regarding money, and how to go about the obstacles that come along with money and its management. Rich Dad, Poor Dad according to me must be read by everyone in order to understand what financial planning is all about and how to go about it, so that we become financially mature human beings, which in turn will help us become rich.
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TITLE AND AUTHOR:CHANAKYA’S CHANT, ASHWIN SANGHI REVIEWED BY: SUPREETHA KRISHNA, 14P1749 TEACHER IN-CHARGE: MRS.DOLLY MARTIN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mr. Ashwin Sanghi was not just the author of five gripping novels but also an entrepreneur by profession. Having completed his schooling in Cathedral and John Connon School and his BA graduation in Economics, from St. Xavier’s College, he ventured into his family business in 1993. He has also earned an MBA from the Yale School of Management. He wrote his first novel in 2006 and has then on continued writing as his passion. He has written three acclaimed novels which have grabbed the attention of the audience namely, The Rozabal Line, Chanakya’s Chant and The Krishna Key. Along with James Patterson of the “Private Series” fame, he has co-authored Private India. The Rozabal Line and The Krishna Key are said to be the Indian versions of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol. Another novel he has authored is 13 Steps to Bloody Good Luck.
BOOK REVIEW
Chanakya’s Chant in an economic perspective is a very interesting novel that combines history and present day scenarios. Based on the life of a man who swore revenge against Emperor Dhanananda for the death of his father, and the creator of a great text which teaches many how to manage wealth and grow economically well, this book takes us through a time of Chanakya, otherwise known as Kautilya to some and Vishnugupta to others. It traces the cunning minded teacher who brought Chandragupta Maurya to the throne of the empire of Magadha. The book also takes the readers through present day India where Chanakya had supposedly been re-born, morphed into the body of Pandit Gangasagar Mishra who brought a young girl, educated her and raised her to be the most powerful woman of Indian Society. He sees her on television, being sworn in as the Prime Minister of the country on his death bed.
In my opinion, Chanakya’s Chant has a great deal of economics in it as it revolved around the Arthashastra, one of the greatest Indian texts on the Science and Management of Wealth. The name ‘Arthashastra’ is a Sanskrit term, a mixture of two Sanskrit words namely, “Artha” meaning wealth and “Shastra” which refers to a text of rules. Though the book doesn’t mention much of the text in great detail, the story of Gangasagar Mishra and his strategies of wealth management and fund raising, proper and equitable distribution of wealth are all ideas
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developed from the Arthashastra. I really appreciate the author’s ability to express his economic understanding of a historical text in simple language to the readers of the present generation. Economic concepts are not exactly portrayed but they are practically used in the story. The story of both Acharya Chanakya and Pandit Mishra are shown in parallel, and the theories hidden behind each and every action of the duo are enhanced through the description of how both overthrow their respective governments to bring forth better leaders who think politically and economically for the welfare of their citizens. The Arthashastra which is hidden within the story can be brought out if one understands the story well. In the present world with the Greece economic crisis and the dip in China’s Stock Market, the Arthashastra would be of great help for wealth management.
In conclusion, if India would want to develop and soar to the greatest economic heights, we need many more Chanakyas like the members of the Narasimha Committee of 1991 who framed the New Economic Policy and can actually understand the economic situations and bring in reforms for economic development and many Chandraguptas like our ex- Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to implement them.
TITLE AND AUTHOR:NAKED ECONOMICS – UNDRESSING THE DISMAL SCIENCE, CHARLES WHEELAN REVIEWED BY: NIRMAL BHANSALI, II CAME L TEACHER IN-CHARGE: MRS. DOLLY MARTIN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charles Wheelan is an American economist, speaker, founder of The Centrist Party, the author of Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science. In the special election for the seat vacated by Rahm Emanuel, he was an unsuccessfulDemocratic candidate in the special election for Illinois's 5th congressional district.
BOOK REVIEW
Why do we pay taxes? What makes globalization such a big issue? Why is Bill Gates richer than you?
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If you ever needed answers to these questions then Naked Economics is the book you’re looking for.With a rather funny name for a book about Economics, Charles Weelan makes Economics entertaining, which may be difficult to imagine, but he does and it is well written too.In Naked Economics, Charles Weelan offers a broad overview of economics but does so without a single graph, chart or formula. The book is fairly simple. Weelan talks about the various economic concepts we apply in our daily lives. He explains these concepts with just anecdotes, examples and simple logic. These wry anecdotes and useful explanations of stuff like “Human Capital” or “GDP” makes this book not only humorous but informative too. In the book one finds a lot of pro-capitalist arguments. For example, in a chapter about globalization he writes that sweatshops are actually a good thing because they pump money into a local economy. These jobs are better than what's available locally and they provide skills and training which have spin-offs that ripple wider through society. He cheerfully admits that the workers are exploited compared to workers in Western societies, but that the alternative - by which he means no jobs at all - ultimately keeps people poorer. Essentially he is trying to say that you can’t be anti-capitalist. Regardless of what kind of views the author has, he does a brilliant job of keeping you engrossed in the book and at the same time make economics easier to understand. My favorite thing about this book is that it makes you think. You become more and more aware of what’s happening around you. You become an informed person and begin to take better decisions. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to know about economics and also for people who never had the chance to study economics.
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POLITICAL SCIENCE
CONTENTS
Sl. No. Title and Author Reviewer
Lakshmi 1. 1984, George Orwell Karlekar 2. A Stranger to History, Aastish Taseer Nikita Divekar
Animesh 3. I Am Malala, Malala Yousafzai Bhandarkar
Cario: The Accidental Prime Minister – The Making and Maithili 4. Unmaking of Manmohan Singh, Sanjaya Baru Manoharan
5. Maus, Art Speigelman Ishika Saxena
6. My Name is Abu Salem, S. Hussain Zaidi Shuba S.
Sanyuktaa 7. Determinants of World Politics, Puran Chandra Thakur
8. What Young India Wants, Chetan Bhagat Ashwini Kailas
Amir Sohail 9. My Encounter with Gandhi, RR Diwakar
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TITLE AND AUTHOR: 1984, GEORGE ORWELL REVIEWER: LAKSHMI KARLEKAR, II HEPP N TEACHER IN CHARGE: DR KANISHKA K
“Big brother is Watching You.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Eric Arthur Blair who used the pen name George Orwell was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. He was born on 25 June 1903 in Bengal Presidency, British India. His works give an insight to social justice and portray democratic socialism. He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty Four (1949) and Animal Farm (1945). His works continue to influence popular and political culture and the term Orwellian gives a description of the authoritarian social practices. He died on 21 January 1950 at the age of 46 in Oxfordshire, England, UK. Orwell’s title remains a mystery. The earlier title of the novel was “The Last Man In Europe”.
BOOKREVIEW:
This story is set in Oceania. This place is said to be one of the three inter-continental supper states that divided the world after a global war. Majority of the story is based in London, the “chief city of Airstrip One”; which was earlier called England or Britain. Many posters of the Party leader, Big Brother having the caption “Big Brother is Watching You” areplaced in the city. Just like any other society, the class hierarchy in Oceania had three levels which consisted of the upper-class known as the Inner Party who were the elite ruling minority, and made up 2% of the population, the middle –class known as the Outer arty who made up 13% of the population, the lower-class known as the Proles who represented the uneducated working class and comprised 85% of the population. The Party, like the government, administered the population through four different ministries. It consisted of the Ministry of Peace which dealt with war and defence, the Ministry of Plenty which dealt with economic affairs, the Ministry of Love which dealt with law and order, and the Ministry of Truth which dealt with news, entertainment, education and art.Winston Smith, the main character lived in Airstrip One. This place had the ruins from when England was ravaged by war, civil conflict and revolution. He belonged to middle-class or Outer Party. His living place was an
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apartment in London which just had one room. There were telescreens in every building along with the hidden microphones and camera. This helped the Thought Police to identify people who would cause harm to the party’s regime. Basically, Winston worked at the Ministry of Truth as an editor responsible for historical revisionism.
Here he began writing a journal criticizing the Party and its enigmatic leader, Big Brother. He fell in love with Julia. Later Winston is approached by the Inner party member O’Brien who influences him and also gives him a book called the Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by Emmanuel Goldstein. This book explained the concept of perpetual war and the true meanings of the slogans WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. It also deals with how the regime of the party could be overthrown by means of political awareness. The novel makes a person relate to the circumstances faced during a revolution. The reader is provided with a haunting, descriptive narration of what had happened to the effected people. They had become desperately sick, grappling alone with the demons in the situations they have been thrust into. It gives the reader an insight into the happenings that have been faced along with a description comprising of straight forwardness, honesty and decency. If involved in a relationship as in the case of the author, they narrate the closeness of their friendship. The atmosphere of random terror during war is also discussed. Often families lose their near and dear ones, people lose support and struggle with bonding and raising a family. Winston is finally captured from the rented room atop an antique shop in a proletarian neighborhood of London where he believed he was safe as the room had no telescreens. Just like any revolutionary he is been taken for interrogation to the Ministry of Love. Just like any convict, he is tortured with electric shocks. Any freedom fighter always believes that his only safe haven is his own mind. But very soon he loses control over that as well.
When questioned in Room 101 the most feared room in the Ministry of Love, he confesses to the crimes he did and did not commit. The fear of punishment compels any convict to fall prey, many a time, to the authority and so is the case with Winston. A wire mesh mask is tied to the convict’s head and rats are released to attack his face. This thought made the author tremble with fear. Privately, perhaps, the author relished the overlap between theory and practice. He had always thrived on self- inflicted adversity. The living conditions have also been displayed. For instance, while writing this book the author led a simple, even primitive
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life. There was no electricity either. Often he used Calor gas to cook and to heat water. A battery radio was the only connection with the outside world. The novel exhibits that freedom of expression is not just about freedom of thought but also linguistic freedom. Finally, the author breaks down in disgust and stops fighting. He dies just as another member of the party.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: A STRANGER TO HISTORY, AASTISH TASEER REVIEWER: NIKITA DIVEKAR, II HEPP N TEACHER IN CHARGE: DR KANISHKA K
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
AatishTaseer was born in 1980, the son of an Indian journalist, Tavleen Singh and Pakistani politician SalmaanTaseer. He was born in Delhi and finished his graduation in Political Science and French from Amherst College. His work ‘The Templegoers’ was short listed for the Costa First Novel Award.
BOOKREVIEW:
A Stranger to History: A Son’s Journey through Islamic Lands provides a unique view into the intricacies of the Muslim world.
During his childhood Taseer grew up in the company of his Sikh cousins at his mother’s insistence. This meant he had little or no contact with his father or his father’s religion and culture. Even at a young age he never felt he belonged with the family he grew up with and felt like an outsider at every joint family function.
As he grew up he began to correspond with his father and began to gain glimpses into his world. Soon after he wrote an article that was critical of Islam this caused a sharply worded letter from his father wherein he accused Aatish of speaking of things he did not understand or did not wish to. Another facet of their dispute was the argument over Pakistan. Aatish believed that the crisis in Pakistan was not simply an administrative problem but rather one of existential one. He was also of the opinion that the fundamental ideals upon which Pakistan had been founded had been eroded beyond recognition.
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These disputes, as well as the yearning to understand not only his religion and ancestry but also try and heal the rift between his father and himself, Aastish decided to embark on a journey from Istanbul to Mecca and finally to Pakistan and his father’s home.
This book literally takes you on a round trip, from India to Leeds to Istanbul, Mecca and finally Pakistan. This book also gives us a character sketch of Aastish’s father, SalmaanTaseer, who was an active politician so blinded by his love and faith for his country that he refused to see its real face. SalmaanTaseer was a liberal man and described himself as a ‘cultural Muslim’. Salmaan’s father caused outrage amongst majority of the populous when he opposed the blasphemy law and rose to the defense of Aasia Bibi who was accused of blasphemy. This incident gave rise to a wave of anger and outrage, which ultimately lead to SalmaanTaseer’s assassination by his own bodyguard.
Aatish concentrates on his experiences in Pakistan, especially in the Sindh province. The interaction he decides to lay most importance on is the one with the troubled land owner. His depictions of the homes that were abandoned by their Hindu owners as well as the shrines that were once places of worship where Hindus and Muslims would gather side by side but are now condemned as ruins are especially moving.
I loved this book and felt that it was a real page-turner. AatishTaseer has truly succeeded in shedding some light on sensitive topics. He has provided a critical and logical analysis of theafore mentioned sensitive topics. He also delves into what it was to be Muslim. To conclude, I think that this book is a courageous attempt to not only shed light on Islam and its advent during recent times but also on the different outlooks of a few of its followers and their motivations and beliefs.
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TITLE AND AUTHOR: I AM MALALA, MALALA YOUSAFZAI REVIEWER: ANIMESH BHANDARKAR, II HEPP N TEACHER IN CHARGE: DR KANISHKA K
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Malala Yousafzai is a social reformer; a women’s rights activist who hails from Mingora a small city in the swat valley located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province of Pakistan. She is a recipient of awards from many parts of the world including India, Spain, France and Italy. She has the credit of being the second Pakistani to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and to be the youngest Nobel Laureate in the world. Today, a number of schools in Pakistan are named after her. Pakistan also brought out its first peace prize in her honour. Malala is also credited to have written “I Am Malala” an autobiographical account in which she recalls her life and struggle for education and greater freedom for women in a remote valley called Swat in Pakistan.
BOOKREVIEW:
The book lays great emphasis on the history of the region and Pashtun culture. It vividly describes the lifestyle of the tribes in the mountains, their cuisine and their bravery. The book also highlights the history of Pakistan since its creation as an Islamic State. It glorifies Mohammad Ali Jinnah; founder of Pakistan to be a man of great virtue who wanted equal rights for all communities; men and women alike. The book then sharply contrasts Pakistan’s involvement in the creation of the Taliban and other non-state actors for the presumed purpose of national defence which instead of this being a boon, becomes a bane. It further takes us through the beauty of the valley and the city and portrays the life of people to be peaceful, vibrant, and harmonious and fulfilling where they have access to hotels, shops, market places and schools.
Malala and her family realized very early in life the value of friends and education, the value of peace and harmony in the world. Although Malala’s grandfather was from a well to do family, and a religious cleric and knew the value of modern education, he did not feel it imperative to meet his son’s expenses. Ziauddin had to struggle for education throughout, despite it being his basic right. Hence, Malala’s father; Ziauddin, decided to provide free and quality education to all children irrespective of their gender. He carried out this noble
21 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it cause through an establishment known as the Khushal school which he nurtured as his only dream.
However, with the entry of Taliban and other allied non-state actors in the political arena, it became clear to Malala and her father that they would have to fight for their rights. The Taliban in the mean while was headed by Mullah Fazhullah who believed that Sharia law must be enforced in Pakistan. They systematically banned western secular education, dancing and singing. They slaughtered those who went against the ban. They slowly and steadily destroyed all means of media and communication like radio, television and mobiles. As Malala says, the Taliban neither had a culture of their own nor could they tolerate the presence of culture around them. They destroyed places of worship like churches, mosques, and Buddhist artifacts which were already in ruins.
It therefore became clear to Malala and her father that they needed to raise their voice and stand up against the atrocities of the Taliban. They got in touch with news channels like BBC and Voice of America. They travelled throughout Pakistan creating awareness about the hardships and the grave challenges endured by the people in Swat. By now, Malala had been an anonymous blogger on the BBC Urdu website, a fearless activist advocating women’s rights. The Taliban most certainly disliked it and wanted to silence and eliminate her forever. It is believed that they planned the attack in Afghanistan and preferred to strike at a military check point to prove that they could strike anywhere.
Just as Malala was returning from school by her van, two men entered the van and shot on her forehead. She was rushed to Swat’s Central Hospital, then to Peshawar and Rawalpindi for treatment. Her condition was extremely critical and doctors suggested treatment abroad as the only solution. This led to a huge political outcry throughout the world and due to political pressure, the Pakistan army made sure that she got the best of treatment. It was a part of the plan that she would be sent to UK for treatment rather than the US. She had to undergo a series of reconstructive surgeries of her head and face before she could lead a close to normal life.
The following phrases and quotes by Malala summarise and bring up important political questions. It is because of this book that I have had to dwell into political philosophy to understand the concept of world peace.
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“We Pashtuns love shoes but do not love the cobbler. We love our scarves and blankets but do not respect the weaver.”
Manual labour, art, craft and music were not recognised, not appreciated and not acknowledged and hence young Pashtun men resorted to joining Taliban. The Taliban gave them recognition and a means of livelihood and a presumed place in heaven with God. They also had another avenue to exploit the gullible Pashtuns. Due to negligence on part of government authorities during natural calamities like floods and earthquakes, it gave the Taliban a golden chest to dig. They started reaching out to the affected people and eventually enrolled them in their ranks. To top all this, the Pashtuns being well known for their sense of loyalty and hospitality and keeping to their tradition, they could not refuse and hence had to reciprocate by joining the Taliban.
This book is intertwined with important contemporary events like the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the cold war era where Pakistan was an active participant, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and so on.
“When you start your journey at the end of a snake’s tail, you will end up on its head in an ocean of poison” - a Pashto proverb aptly describes Pakistan’s state of affairs. It means that authorities in Pakistan used the militants initially to wage proxy war against the Soviet Union and India and now were in a mess of their own making.
The book has enlightened me about the true values of Islam as a peace loving religion. Though, Islam stresses on education for all and upholds peace and fraternity, the terrorists’ deliberately misinterpret the Quran, the holy scripture of the Muslims. They indoctrinate people with wrong theories and ideologies about God and a place in Heaven. Along with the main theme embedded in the book is the tussle within various communities like the Pashtuns and the Mahajirs. Malala finds out that in matters of election and unity, the Mahajirs are systematic and united and support one party, the MQM. However, the Pashtuns differ in matters of voting; some vote for the PPP and some the ANP and some the PMNL. Pakistan therefore is home to sub-sects within Islam who most often indulge in human right violations which leads to internal strife and political instability. Malala once remarked that she felt that it would have been better if Pakistan had stayed with India. If Hindus, Christians and Jews were their real enemies like most extremist leaders propagate, why is there fighting between the Muslims of Pakistan; who supposedly unite under the banner of Muslim brotherhood and take great pride in their Islamic republic.
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Malala stressed on free education for every child in the world. She strongly emphasized “One Child, One Teacher, One Book and One Pen can change the world”. This got her a standing ovation from the delegates of the UN General Assembly.
In view of the volatile political scenario prevailing in her county, Malala philosophizes ”Its not just the Taliban killing children; sometimes it is drone attacks; sometimes it is wars; sometimes it is hunger and sometimes it’s their own family.” Peace in every home, every village, every country is my dream she says. Education for every boy and every girl in the world.To sit down on a chair and read my books with all my friends is my right. To see each and every human being with a smile on his face is my wish”.
What really touched my heart were the concluding lines of the book which indicates that she misses her home and longs to go back to her country of birth.
” I am Malala; my world has changed but I have not”.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: CARIO: THE ACCIDENTAL PRIME MINISTER – THE MAKING AND UNMAKING OF MANMOHAN SINGH, SANJAYA BARU REVIEWER: MAITHILI MANOHARAN, II PPES O TEACHER IN CHARGE: DR KANISHKA K
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
SanjayaBaru is an Indian political commentator and policy analyst. He first was a member of Communist Party of India (Marxist) while he was studying at University of Hyderabad. Previously he was an associate editor at The Economic Times and The Times of India. After this, he served as chief editor at Business Standard. He is currently serving as director for geo-economics and strategy at the international institute of strategic studies. Between May 2004 and August 2008, he became Manmohan Singh's media advisor and chief spokesperson. In April 2014, Penguin India published The Accidental Prime Minister, Baru's tell-all memoir about his time at the prime minister's office (PMO).
BOOKREVIEW: The Accidental Prime Minister is a memoir by Indian policy analyst SanjayaBaru, who was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s media advisor from May 2004 till August 2008. The author describes how he was given this important position in the very first chapter - ‘Working
24 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it in a PMO headed by Manmohan Singh, whom I had come to respect as a professional and a human being, was an opportunity not to be missed’.
The book offers valuable insights into the Prime Minister’s mind, his personality, strategies, and his style of working. A reader interested in having an inside view of the Indian political system would find the detailed description of the discussions and decision making processes extremely interesting. It is essentially a combination of personal, subjective and objective accounts of Dr. Singh and the policies and issues he dealt with in India during his term. It suggests that Mr. Singh was in a constant battle for power which was perceived to be in the hands of the President of the Congress Party, Ms. Sonia Gandhi. It gives a view of what it’s like to work in a government that essentially had two centers of power. ‘Handling the delicate equation with Sonia was Dr Singh’s first and biggest political challenge.’ (pg 64)
It goes into details of the nuclear deal that was made with the USA during his tenure, and other events in the UPA1 and UPA2 (United Progressive Alliance) system.
The book also provides an insight into Dr. Manmohan Singh as a person, his leadership qualities, strengths as well as weaknesses. The author depicts Dr. Singh as a good person and a hardworking man - ‘Even while he modestly called himself an ‘accidental prime minister’ he did not doubt that he could do the job, and do it better than the other senior leaders around Sonia’ (pg 8).
The book is divided into 13 key chapters. It begins with how the author, Mr. Baru was invited to join the Prime Minister as his media advisor, how he developed a trusted relationship with him, the problems he faced along the way and the process by which he eventually grew to become his trusted advisor. It is a mixture of an autobiographical account of the author’s experiences at that time, as well as his perspective on the various policies adopted by the Prime Minister. The book also provides an insight into the politics and administration of India today. It is quite educative and has important perspectives on the mismanagement of the economy.
Mr. Baru’s book gives an insight into the working of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). It highlights the PM’s achievements as well as his difficulties and drawbacks. It reveals that Dr. Singh failed to check corruption among his ministers and that he was relatively timid and introverted even within his family. Mr. Baru reveals various other quirks and personality traits of Dr. Singh that could only be obtained from an insider’s perspective. Through his
25 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it writing he tries to put Dr. Singh in a positive light, yet still mentions his shortcomings. It tries to establish that Dr. Singh was not just a puppet but exerted his own will as the Prime Minister of India as opposed to common perception.
From a political science point of view the book provides an insight into the challenges that the Prime Minister had to face while leading a coalition government. This is mainly because Dr. Singh had a background in Economics, and little experience in politics.
The book depicts his first tenure as Prime Minister in very positive manner, but also questions whether or not he should have taken up the second tenure, because of the challenges he faced -‘In August 2004 Yashwant Sinha dubbed him Shikhandi, the man– woman character in the Mahabharata whom Bheeshma refused to fight because it was against his principles to fight a woman. There was a double entendre in that metaphor, implying that the prime minister was controlled by Sonia Gandhi, and it was a damaging allusion. Clearly, my biggest challenge as media adviser was to firmly establish in the minds of ordinary people the credentials and credibility of Dr Singh as PM’(pg 89).
‘Politics is about power and patronage, and ministerial positions are won not just on the basis of competence but also in recognition of a politician’s political clout or loyalty to the leader’ (pg 70). Statements like this and the detailed description of crony capitalism’s entry into politics, provides a student of political science an opportunity to understand the concept through real life events.
The book reveals the principles and world views of Dr. Singh, and how it influenced not only his policies but the political events during his tenure. The Chapter on ‘The Manmohan Singh Doctrine’ gives the reader an opportunity to understand these aspects in much detail.
The book is quite revealing and engaging. However, people hoping to obtain intimate secrets of the Prime Mister’s Office would be disappointed as most of the information put forth by the author was already available to the public. Though Mr. Baru has had to leave out large chunks of classified information due to the Official Secrets Act, it is likely that this is also due to his own solidarity towards the PM. The book although engaging, gives a slightly narcissistic vibe. Nevertheless, it presents many unknown and interesting aspects about Dr. Singh’s journey as the Prime Minister of India. It calls us to evaluate not only Dr. Singh’s role in the growth and progress of India but also the overall drawbacks and corruption faced by the Indian government today. It is a valuable resource for young politicians who are likely
26 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it to take up roles such as these in the future. The Accidental Prime Minister gives a great inside account of Indian political life and an overall view of the Manmohan Singh era. The book, though overly detailed, provides a student of political science a great deal of information about the live action politics during that period in our country’s history.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: MAUS, ART SPEIGELMAN REVIEWER: ISHIKA SAXENA, II PPES O TEACHER IN CHARGE: DR KANISHKA K
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Art Spiegelman is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate. He is best known for his graphic novel Maus. He has been a co-editor for magazines Raw and Arcade. He has also spent a decade as a contributing artist for The New Yorker, where he made several high- profile and sometimes controversial covers.
BOOK REVIEW:
The Jews were righteous, the Nazis were corrupt. Our entire historical view of Germany revolves around this one single 'apparent' truth that has been presented to us. Very few people even consider the possibility of balanced humans, which is ironic and helps us realize that we look at people and sometimes even entire nationalities in a very cinematic style. Maus by Spiegelman has presented a very honest and unbiased view of both sides, through a Jew's perspective. He has shown us a full range of human behavior – pusillanimity and barbarity, certainly, but also intrepidness and integrity.
The Nazi regime was discriminative against the Jews. There were stark differences in discrimination based on gender and age. Children, women, and men were all treated differently by Hitler's regime. Spiegelman has been able to shed light on this and many other lesser known facts of Germany, especially of the concentration camps at Auschwitz- Birkenau and Dachau.
The book provides two biographies- one of Spiegelman himself and the other of Vladek, his father. His father was a Jewish survivor of the holocaust and the Second World War. Art Spiegelman has interviewed Vladek and traced the life of a Jewsish survivor through the
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Holocaust.
The novel juxtaposes two time lines. The first half of the novel is about Vladek’s recollection of Nazi Germany, set in the years leading up to World War II. He recollects his experiences from a European context. The back of the book has a map printed on it, which shows Poland stuck in between two superpowers, Russia and Germany. The map helps the reader understand the true helplessness of the people in Poland. The second setting is 1980 USA where Spiegelman is interviewing his father from Rego Park and the Catskills in New York and later in Florida, during the 1980s.
Maus is a particularly complex and rewarding political narrative because it not just conveys the horror of the Holocaust, but also the ways in which that horror ripples down through generations. The one factor that is more often than not forgotten in history lessons is that the trauma did not end with the war. The stories and tales were told to the children and grandchildren of survivors, and they lived with the horror buried in their hearts. While Art is simply narrating his father’s story, what we learn is that this story is as much Art’s as Vladek’s. Two parallel narratives are seen in the book and this leads to several perspectives and helps capture the true essence of trauma. Through Vladek’s story we get a real perspective of the life of a Jew at the time of the war; in Art’s story, light is thrown upon how the future generations are affected by the war. Each of these parts is important.
The historical narrative is a powerful account of the Holocaust. The stark black-and-white images have the resemblance to that of a documentary and subconsciously guarantee credibility. We see Jews hanging from the gallows, German soldiers bashing children against walls, concentration camp prisoners forced to light other prisoners on fire.
Maus explores how the trauma lives on even after we survive it. Vladek pictures himself as a kind of star. “People always told me I looked just like Rudolph Valentino“. Vladek however is a kind of antagonist in Art’s story. During the war we see how thrifty becomes stingy, determined becomes stubborn, cautious becomes paranoid. We see how survivors often carry these traits and they are inherited by the next generation as well.
“Friends?Your friends? … If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week … then you could see what it is, friends!” This line is used by Vladek when his son runs to him to complain about his friends tripping him. He never really managed to move out of the concentration camps.
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In Maus, the visual images and graphic metaphors are extremely unnerving. The book makes you travel back in time and really understand the thought process of a Jew of that time. The striking portrayal of Jews as mice and Germans as cats adds depth to the narrative. The double perspective of Maus is what makes it a truly brilliant narrative. Looking into just Vladek’s story, it would have been like any other tale of the holocaust. Maus also does not portray cinematic, clichéd heroes and villains. It gives us a very fair and unbiased understanding of the entire situation.
However, Maus has been critiqued. The word comic comes from the Greek word: “κωμικός, kōmikos" that means “pertaining to comedy". To associate this with the Holocaust has been severely looked down upon. Some were also offended by the animal metaphors used. They felt that the Jews were being stripped of their identity once again. Some have said that the use of the animal metaphors has reinstated already prevalent stereotypes. The Poles have found the content extremely disturbing as they are portrayed as pigs. It is a huge insult as pigs are looked as unclean by Jewish culture, and the book was written from a Jewish perspective. He has often said that the Poles helped the Jews for selfish purposes only. Others have said that the book is insensitive, extremely graphic, and disturbing.
As a neutral reader, the book sheds an invigorating light into the life of the people. They are occasionally seen as unaware of what is going on. Their actions resemble those of cattle as they are forced to obey superior authority they know not the details of. They are often clueless of what is going on. The main realization was the fact that despite the Poles helping the Jews, the Jews do not feel entirely grateful toward them.
Maus is a brilliant read for any history enthusiast or anybody wishing to understand Hitler and his government. It is written in an interesting style and can keep anyone glued. It is fast paced as there are constant developments and the story progresses at an appealing speed. Maus explains how a corrupt system changes people and makes them act in ways they would prefer not to. It helps us understand the true working of the Nazi government and makes the reader realize the fact that labelling entire race as ’good ’ or ’bad ’ is inaccurate and ignorant. It shows us that individuals are balanced and each person has both positive and negative qualities. It explains trauma in the truest and most gruesome sense. It helps understand the psychology of a prisoner of war and a survivor of the concentration camps.
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Personally, I would recommend this book to anybody keen on understanding a little more about German history and the politics of the Nazi government.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: MY NAME IS ABU SALEM, S. HUSSAIN ZAIDI REVIEWER: SHUBA S, II PPES O TEACHER IN CHARGE: DR KANISHKA K
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
S. Hussain Zaidi was earlier an investigative journalist and now is an author. He started his career in journalism while working for the newspaper The Asian Age. Zaidi later worked for several other periodicals, including The Indian Express, Mid-Day and Mumbai Mirror. His in-depth research on the Mumbai Mafia has oft been used by several other authors as well.Zaidi was once kidnapped in Iraq.
Dongri to Dubai: Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia is a historical account of the Mumbai mafia. Zaidi conducted an interview with crime boss Dawood Ibrahim, who is a prime suspect in the investigation of the 1991 Mumbai bombings. The book was adapted into a film, Shootout at Wadala by Sanjay Gupta.
BOOK REVIEW:
The book ‘My Name is Abu Salem’ is written by S.Hussain Zaidi and is the third book in the mafia trilogy, after Dongiri to Dubai and Byculla to Bangkok. The book was published by Penguin Books India in the year 2014.
Mumbai, the commercial capital of India is famous for many things such as the dubbawalas, local train system, Bollywood and of course it’s abominable underworld. The main theme of the book is based on crime and workings of the Mafia. While there are many books of fiction and semi fiction that use this theme as a setting, this book is non-fiction in its purest form. The author says he has met Abu Salem himself on several occasions and has conducted research on him for four years. He claims to have solid documentary evidence to substantiate the information. This makes the book all the more interesting which is why I chose this book for the review.
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The story revolves around Abu Salem who is one of the most notorious men in the underground of Mumbai. The mentioning of his very name strikes fear into the minds of people living in Mumbai. Born in Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, it was when he went to Mumbai and started working with his cousin in a tiny stall in a shopping centre that he was first acquainted with the Mumbai underground. Soon he began carrying out illegal activities like smuggling of weapons, gold and extorting money from various celebrities. He worked under Anis Ibrahim (Dawood Ibrahim’s brother) who was part of the D-company. Thus he became familiar with many names in the complex underground network. He greatly admired Dawood Ibrahim who was the leader of the D-company and aspired to become like him.
Dubai is a beautiful country with many sights such as the BurjKhalifa and Palm Jumeirah islands. But on the other hand it’s a safe haven of sorts for criminals and gang lords since India had no Extradition treaty with the UAE at that time. Abu Salem also went to Dubai and got things done through phone calls by ordering his gunmen situated in Mumbai. In this way he acquired an immense amount of money through extortion and bought several bungalows in Dubai.
He was a narcissist and lived a lavish life wherever he went. He had a close connection with Bollywood as he was responsible for threatening and in some cases killing a few well known icons in the industry. It is said that he became a good friend of the well known actor Sanjay Dutt when he made many trips to his house to supply weapons. The book also mentions his unsuccessful married life with SameeraJumani. Salem would organise parties in Dubai where he met most of the famous actors and actresses. During one of these parties, he met the actress Monica Bedi and helped her in her acting career. He did not marry her legally but stayed with her.
He stayed in many places such as Atlanta, New Jersey and Norway and Africa but it was in Lisbon, the Portuguese capital where his whole career took a downfall and he was finally caught and brought back to India. While Sameera was in Atlanta raising Salem’s son, Amir, Monica was sent to jail and was also extradited. Even after getting caught, the confidence in him was not diminished. He wanted to be popular and yearned for recognition regardless of the fact that it was because of the wrong reasons. Salem’s net worth is apparently over one billion dollars (4000 crores approximately). Such is the calibre of gangsters like Abu Salem.
The book does not come under the genre of a ‘thriller’ but the author manages to keep the interest of the readers. Although there is no climax or major cliff hanger, the author
31 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it captivates the readers till the end by taking them through the intricacies of the underground. The author states some incidents and then explains it in detail when the main storyline reaches that point. The author’s vocabulary is brilliant. This makes it an “Unputdownable” book as the back cover of the book suggests.
The Judiciary is one of the main organs of the government. It interprets the law and punishes law breakers. The Indian government was involved largely in Salem’s case because he was growing more powerful by the day, murdering people with a push of a button and forging documents to travel thereby escaping from the hands of the Indian government. Extradition is the official process whereby one country transfers a suspected or convicted criminal to another country. Between countries, extradition is normally regulated by treaties. Lack of the extradition treaty largely affected the Government’s plans to catch Salem.
The concept of terrorism is also dealt with. Preventing terrorism is one of the mandatory duties of the government. The devastating 1993 bomb blasts in Mumbai and how and why it took place is also mentioned in the book. These are some of the main political aspects discussed in the book.
What I liked about the book is that it is well written and informative. The author has worked hard to gather information and finally connect the various accounts and events from his sources to produce this master piece. I would recommend people of the ages 14 and above to read it. Although the story is based on facts, it does not give a feel of a boring biography since Abu Salem’s endeavours were quite unique. The author says in his book that Salem wanted someone to make a movie script and release a movie based on his story. He disliked the idea of publishing a book as he felt that the masses would never read it. This shows that fame meant everything to him. He wanted to be a star that everyone adored.
In conclusion, I would say that this book is definitely a good read. It entertains as well as educates the readers. It gives a bird’s eye view of the nexus between politics and crime. While politicians need to put in a lot of money to win an election, they are tempted to take the help of dubious individuals with hidden agenda. This results in one feeding the other. Since these individuals have helped the politician to win and remain in power, he or she is forced to protect the criminal. This results in decay of the political system over time.
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TITLE AND AUTHOR: DETERMINANTS OF WORLD POLITICS, PURAN CHANDRA REVIEWER: SANYUKTAA, II PPES O TEACHER IN CHARGE: DR KANISHKA K
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Puran Chandra holds his master’s degree in Political Science and Economics. As a voracious researcher he has profusely written on political and social issues.
BOOK REVIEW:
World Politics is nothing but the interaction between sovereign states. The nature of this interaction determines the relation between the sovereign states. War, crisis, friendship, and isolation are all normal forms of interaction between various sovereign states. The book “Determinants of World Politics” by Puran Chandra aims at explaining the factors determining world politics. Political theories like political culture and the concept of nation state give rise to the determinants of world politics. However these factors are subject to change with time.Essentially this book is based on facts and concepts. The author has presented his research in an amoral manner, that is, the content of this book is free from any value-judgement.
The main aim of the book is to educate its readers about the dynamics in world politics which includes the various aspects of interaction between nation states. This knowledge is essential as no sovereign state can exist in isolation and it is important for nations to interact with each other. This interaction can be at many levels ranging from peaceful to hostile.The book also aims at giving an overview of future prospects in world politics.
In this aspect the author has highlighted some very important questions related to the issues of the future.The heavy factual content of this book makes it a very informative read.
This book talks about Political culture as the first and foremost determinant of world politics. The values, norms, beliefs, sentiments and attitudes pertaining to the political system constitute political culture. Culture of the human society is passed on from one generation to another in the same way political culture is passed on from one generation to another. Political culture consists of the emotional and attitudinal environment within which the political system operates.At an individual level, the reaction of citizens towards political
33 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it objects due to their predisposed attitudes, orientations, sentiments and beliefs constitutes political culture.
As the beliefs, attitudes and sentiments of people change with time even political culture changes with time.Political culture of every state differs; this means that conflicts are bound to arise when the states interact with each other thus leading to conflict in world politics. Apart from its direct link to world politics, study of political culture also has the following uses:
The study of political culture goes down to the individual level thus it studies the entire political system without neglecting the individual psychology.
Political culture is the medium through which an individual can view and evaluate the functioning of the political system.
Political culture acts as a set of guide lines for political action. Thus it makes the individuals active and participant in the political process of the country.
Relationship between sovereign states can take many forms. The type of relationship one country shares with another is constantly changing. Since sovereign states are the functional units of world politics, the relations between them play a key role in determining the political system of the entire world at large. The broad categories of interstate relations are:
Hostility or enmity between states arises due to clash of vital interests. Hostility is characterized by open, direct and mutual application of violence. During times of hostility, states are not able to settle the dispute and the only option left to them is to force their opposing states to submit to their wants.
Friendship is characterized by close policy co-operation between nations. States may exhibit friendly relations when they agree upon common policies and they realize that the only way to satisfy their policies is by co-operating with the concerned nation. In between the extremes of hostility and friendship lies Balance. Most nations share a balanced relation with one another. Clash of interest is common but so is some degree of agreement.
International conflict is an inevitable feature of world politics. No state can hope to escape conflict with other states in the accomplishment of even its minimum policy objectives.
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Healthy conflict between sovereign states is essential for the development of every state as it enables them to fulfill their policies.
Violent conflict involves use of physical violence by each participating state as the primary means of accomplishing its objectives. War is the most common form of violet international conflict. War includes use of physical harm by states to secure agreement amongst the other state. War is inevitable and though it is devastating it is the most widely used way of settling conflicts. In reference to recent times use of nuclear weapons is considered the most dangerous means of warfare. Thus countries are signing treaties to limit the use of their nuclear power.
Non-Violent conflict takes place in the absence of any physical violence that endangers the life of people. Non-violent conflict takes place when the object that is being fought for does not call for physical violence or the conflicting states lack the required means to participate in war.
When the internal or external policies of a state clash with those of another state it leads to conflict of policies. In other words, completion of the policies of one state may disturb another state.
Nationalism is the love and loyalty one feels towards his or her nation. Another aspect of Nationalism is hatred towards another state. If this feeling is not curbed and channelized it can lead to bad interstate relations.The cause of this conflict maybe trivial but as these components are deep rooted in our society the impact they have on the masses is larger. Racial, religious and cultural differences are very distinct between nations and so this becomes a cause for friction.
It is an impossible task to precisely predict the future of world politics. However a range of possibilities of the future can be foretold.In a broad sense there are two possibilities if change occurs in world politics, they are: destructive or constructive. The rate of either change maybe rapid, gradual or evolutionary.
Depending on direction and speed the relative probabilities of world politics are : (1)complete and sudden destruction (2)gradual deterioration (3)continuation of present system with no change (4)problems (5)rapid and radical transformation into a better system.
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The most important issue is the issue of war.The author has listed some important questions with regard to war. What can be won by war? Are we willing to pay the price for peace? What alternatives can be employed to avoid war? Answer to these questions might stall any future wars and they may stimulate nation states to think of other effective ways of resolving conflict.
In today’s times living in isolation is impossible. Countries around the world are affected directly or indirectly by world politics. In this closely knit web of nations any string pulled by one nation influences all the other nations in the web. Thus it is important to be informed about certain concepts in world politics. This book is an informative source on such concepts. In order to be good citizens of our country and the world at large we need to be aware of the present conditions and issues related to world politics.
I would rate this book a 7 out of 10. This book is very detailed and hence it helps in the development of the perspective of a young reader. It is both conceptually and factually very rich.However since this book was written some time ago a part of its content is outdated and it has less significance in today’s times.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: WHAT YOUNG INDIA WANTS, CHETAN BHAGAT REVIEWER: ASHWINI KAILAS, II PPES O TEACHER IN CHARGE: DR KANISHKA K
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Chetan Bhagat is an Indian author, columnist, screenwriter, television personality and motivational speaker. He is best known for his English-language about young urban middle- class Indians. His novels are widely popular as the youth is often able to relate to the ideas put forth by him. He is also a writer and columnist for The Times of India and Dainik Bhaskar. The New York Times cited Bhagat as "the biggest selling English language novelist in India’s history".
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BOOK REVIEW:
“What young India wants” is Chetan Bhagat’s first non -fiction book published by Rupa publications in 2012. The book is socio-political in nature. In this book the author poses some difficult and intriguing questions about Indian society and the political system which we all have asked at some point or the other.
The book begins with the author’s personal experiences, then goes on to describe in three parts–our society, politics and youth and ends with two short stories.
In the letter from the author which is the first twenty pages of the book the author tells us about his childhood ,college and his journey from being an engineer to a banker and finally to an author. But most importantly he tells us about his time in Hong Kong as a banker. He tells us that during his stay in Hong Kong, he was exposed to their economy and he began to compare it to the Indian economy and wondered why the former was so developed while the latter so corrupt and for the first time he began to question Indian policies, politicians, people and traditions. This note from him helped me understand the reason Chetan Bhagat- the author of 6 fiction books, who has nothing to do with politics decided to write this book.
The author with catchy chapter names like ‘The silly season’, ‘Don’t let them Divide and Rule’, ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ and in a manner of discussion talks to us about many issues in a very interesting manner. He also tried to determine the root causes of these issues and provide solutions to them.
What struck me is that he did not blame everybody’s favorite punching bags, the politicians for everything but also blamed us for electing them. He feels that it is our fault as most of the people vote on the basis of caste and religion and not actual talent or capability. He speaks about how politicians make false promises to the minorities for votes and after winning the elections they don’t keep their promises and the minorities continue to live with their difficulties and problems. He also compares our society with the western society. He also points out that America which is considered to be materialistic is more law abiding then traditional India. He does not appear to be a huge fan of the Indian billionaires who he thinks have succeeded not because of their talent but because of their connections. The author is a supporter of Anna Hazare. The author feels that we must cut down on are defense budget and invest more in infrastructure, he goes to an extent of saying some pretty controversial things like ‘I want to ask my fellow Indians, how badly do we want Kashmir? At the cost of not
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making colleges for the young generation in the country? At the cost of not doing irrigation projects for are farmers? At the cost of not building roads and power plants? At the cost of living in high inflation for ever’ and ‘We are hiring more security guards outside the house when there isn’t money to put the kids in school’. He also argued in favor of foreign direct investment in retail sector. He feels that just like we don’t restrict corporate sector companies to sell their products exclusively in India, our farmers should also be free to sell their products wherever they get the highest price.
However, some of his solutions are highly impractical and some of the things he says just don’t make sense. He tells us that “money” and “Laxmi” are two different things. Laxmi according to him is money earned by truthful and honest means. While this is a profound thought, he suggests that we should explain to all the corrupt people that they will have money and not Laxmi and that it will never give them true satisfaction. The corrupt people will not be affected by these far-fetched philosophies. Sometimes he just beats around the bush but doesn’t give any solutions to solve the problems. Some of his ideas are very creative but he doesn’t tell focus on their practical implementation. He is a huge fan of USA and suggested that we must outsource some of our border security to USA to save money. USA will definitely want something in return and it will not be cheap, his intentions are great and he probably had something like the US-Japan security alliance in mind when he was suggesting this but he was getting a little carried away.
On the whole I liked the book and recommend it because he touched upon many important topics just in 108 pages and dealt with them in a simple and precise way and wrapped them up well. Unlike most books of this nature it was refreshingly interesting and comprehensible.
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TITLE AND AUTHOR: MY ENCOUNTER WITH GANDHI, R.R. DIWAKAR REVIEWER: AMIR SOHAIL, II HESP M TEACHER IN CHARGE: MR NOEL BORGES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
R R Diwakar is a famous writer at present he is 95 yrs. He was born in 1894. His father Ramachandra Venkatesh was not only a self-made but was a robust patriot and had a strong desire to educate all his children. Though his father lived in the big village, there was no English school. His father educated him how much he can.
BOOK REVIEW:
The author called his book “My Encounter with Gandhi” he has used the word ‘Encounter’ in the special sense of ‘meaningful meeting’ neither as an a adversary nor as a chance visitor. In the course of his public career, especially as a freedom fighter under the unique leadership of Gandhi, he had occasions to meet him and obtain from him lessons in the spirit of trying to understand him, by free conversation and even so to speak Pariprashnena, questioning in order to learn.
Most of the episodes narrated here are about 40-50 yrs old, occurring between 1915 and 1948. All the episodes as well as references to the ‘Swadeshi movement ‘of 1905-6 and his contacts with Tikal are no doubt old by the calendar. Nevertheless they belong to history of our unique struggle for swaraj. No doubt, the revolutionaries who shed their blood made unseen and unknown sacrifices. All honor for their bravery and heroism. Even the Mahayogi, sri Aurobindo, inspired many young Bengalis and hailed Violent action up to 1914 as being good kriya [action].Tilak pointedly warned the rulers that if they did not heed the warning of the patriotic agitators, revolutionaries with bombs were waiting in the wings .It was by his boldness and bravery [as a lion, Kesari] that tilak earned the title ‘lokamanya’ from the people and was held as the ‘Father of Indian Unrest’ by the noted British journalist Valentine Chirol. All these we cannot forget, nor should any Indian forget the events and the people that ultimately brought freedom to India.
It is much more imperative to remember and cherish Gandhi’s role not merely as the architect of India’s freedom but also as the inventor of the new weapon Satyagraha , which relies entirely for its sharpening and use on our inner resources ,our soul , the very spirit of all human beings . So whatever Gandhi said to the author is always fresh and as well as relevant.
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When the bomb burst on Hiroshima in 1945 he exclaimed in prophetic anguish,”Now ahimsa – nonviolence – alone can save mankind “.
Everywhere there is violence which breeds fear, breathes hatred and spits blood and deals death, no doubt; but if humanity has to have a future in its evolutionary march towards perfection, only ahimsa in the pursuit of truth can help in succeeds.
Gandhi was and is relevant not only as a unique fighter for freedom but also as an upholder of justice, a spiritual seeker and a mystic, a yogi, and an activist of extraordinary proportions, in which aspects he has yet to be studied. He walks down this EARTH leaving indelible footprints for mankind to follow.
After reading the book we can get the clear fragment of Gandhian topical perception .It gives the clear out cut of how Gandhi and Diwakar sat together , and how Gandhi’s guidance , which favored Diwakar practical and useful.
If one were to think in terms of isolation and stating the man thrust to his whole life, it would be action and not mere thought. But action with the basic difference and qualification that it has to be founded on truth as arrived at by all the factuality a human being is endowed with from time to time. Epistemologically if one may put it like that.
I came to know how Gandhi had a deep faith in the teachings of Gita though he said that it was an allegory.
This book is quite interesting, and good in reading it throws light on all the concepts and movement and episodes before independence and how Gandhi and Tilak handle this situation. I recommend this book to the youth to read it and to understand how the political leaders have shed their blood to get independence to India.
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HISTORY
CONTENTS
Sl. No. Title and Author Reviewer
Beyond The Last Blue Mountain A Life Of J R D Tata, 1. Anshu Pal Russi M Lala
2. Ignited Minds, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Aakanksha T.
3. The Story Of The Jews, Simon Schama Nishta Sinha
4. Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler Prajwal M.
The Last Thousand Days Of The British Empire, Peter 5. Nikita Divekar Clarke
Dancing To Play Or To Pray :A Comparative Study Of 6. Prahlada Yakshaganam In Kuchipudi And Melattur Talin S. Bhagavata Mela Traditions, Dr.M S Siva Raju
7. The Search For India’s Lost Emperor, Charlles Allen Sheeba Jacintha
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TITLE AND AUTHOR: BEYOND THE LAST BLUE MOUNTAIN A LIFE OF J R D TATA, RUSSI M LALA REVIEWER: ANSHU PAUL, II HESP M TEACHER IN CHARGE: MR B DEENA DAYALAN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Russi M. Lala (1928-2012) was an eminent Indian writer who has been best known as the man who has chronicled the inside story of India’s most venerable industrial family, the Tatas. Passionate about writing and foraying into the journalism scene at age 19, he later gave rise to the first Indian publishing house from London in 1959. Joining the Tata Group in 1974, he retired from it in 2003 as the Director of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. During his nearly three decades with the Tatas, he forged a strong, amiable bond with the family and wrote comprehensive accounts of the Tatas’ philosophy, heritage, working ethics, the history of their entrepreneurship and also major events in their lives and their enterprise. His most recognized works are The Creation of Wealth - The Tatas from the 19th to 21st century, For the Love of India - The Life and Times of Jamsetji and the featured book, Beyond the Last Blue Mountain- A Life of J.R.D. Tata.
BOOK REVIEW:
Beyond the Last Blue Mountain- A Life of J.R.D. Tata, written in 1992 and published by Penguin Books, is a biography of Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhai Tata, one of the scions of the Tata family who pioneered a large scale Indian owned industry and commerce in India, and, himself, one of the driving forces of industrial growth in a young independent India. It paints a complete picture of him, recording his early multicultural and liberal upbringing and then moves on to how he singlehandedly ushered civil aviation in India, expanded the Tata enterprise through healthcare and IT services plus chemical and automobile manufacture notwithstanding severe governmental protectionism, cynicism and ignorance, constructed an economic development plan for independent India even before its independence, made philanthropy practical and far- reaching and even made Air India the world’s best airline at its zenith.
Of course, every biography we see has such details of a person’s life on its sheets. What this biography has, nevertheless, and what others don’t have is a recollection of his exquisite yet charming and immensely motivating nature as well as his professional yet pragmatic, honest,
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patriotic and sympathetic character. It has been done in a highly humanistic and not a very bookish way. His nature is, thus, one that can be inscribed even in our hearts; we feel and shape ourselves in tune with it. Also, the language used by Lala is simple yet elegant, just the kind a reader wants.
Thus, in all fairness, this book is a mind- building and exciting rollercoaster through J.R.D. Tata’s life - one of adventure, ambition, progress and inspiration, which went hand in hand with the journey of an independent India.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: IGNITED MINDS,DR A P J ABDUL KALAM REVIEWER: AAKANSHA T., II HESP M TEACHER IN CHARGE: MR B DEENA DAYALAN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, popularly known as A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, was the 11th President of India. He was originally a scientist and later turned into a politician. He was from Tamil Nadu and studied physics and aerospace engineering. He spent the next four decades as a scientist and science administrator, mainly at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). He is popularly called the Missile Man of India because he was intimately involved in India's civilian space program and military missile development efforts. His work in ballistic missiles and launch vehicle technology is extremely notable.
BOOK REVIEW:
‘Ignited minds’ is a book written by scientist-patriot Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, who was the President of India. The book was first published in 2002, and the full title of the book is Ignited Minds - Unleashing the Power within India. This book consists of many inspirational messages by A P J Abdul Kalam.
The author has dedicated Ignited Minds to an intermediate school child, named Snehal Thakkar, whom he met at a school. While talking to the students, a question came up - "Who is our enemy?" He recalled that many answers were given, but the answer to which all agreed came from her - “Our enemy is poverty". The small book of 205 pages contains original ideas, examines attitudes afflicting the Indians, and present prescriptions for rapid growth of
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India to enable the country to emerge as a developed country. The author has addressed the book to young citizens of India.
I feel that this book is a must read for anyone who wants to know the great potential of our country, the diversity which makes it so rich, the great potential which is hidden in the various corners of the country and how the realization of one’s higher self within, and the faith in our dreams can take us places. With real life experiences described in a very simple language, the author has done a wonderful job in creating thoughts in the minds of the youth, which have been dormant for a while now.
According to me more books like this need to be published and students should be given a chance to read it. I believe that it will be a source of inspiration and play a key role in making India a developed country.
TITLE AND AUTHOR:THE STORY OF THE JEWS, SIMON SCHAMA REVIEWER: NISHTA SINHA, II HESP M TEACHER IN CHARGE: MR B DEENA DAYALAN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Simon Schama is a professor of History and Art History at the Columbia University in the United States of America. He is a Jewish English historian who specializes in Art History, Dutch History and French History. His works have been critically acclaimed by Jurists around the world and few have also been adapted as BBC documentaries- A History of Britain and The Story of the Jews. Schama’s work experience also includes being a lecturer at the Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard Universities.
BOOK REVIEW:
The world witnessed one of the greatest tragedies in history during the 1930s- The Holocaust. As students of history, our knowledge of the Jews begins from how Hitler mercilessly massacred around six million Jews under the Nazi regime and onwards. Yet, we fail to look at what had been of the Jews before the Holocaust. ‘The Story the Jews’ brings to us the unheard legacy of the Jews from a time long before. Rarely, do we come across writers who go into the depth of a topic while still maintaining the simplicity of the writing style. Simon Schama is one such author. Not many historians of this age take up writing about something
44 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it from the beginning of its civilization. Schama has the unique quality of grabbing the attention of his readers starting from his first sentence. This book consists of the accounts starting from 1000BCE to 1420CE. In his foreword, he mentions how this incomplete work of recording Jewish history was passed on to him by another historian- Cecil Roth. In my opinion, Schama has done great work in continuing Roth’s legacy.
In this book, Schama has raised a question that has mystified the minds of scholars and historians since ages- “Where does the story of the Jews begin?” Many would link its origins to the Old Testament. According to the Hebrew Bible, the first major event took place around 1300 BCE, when Moses supposedly led the enslaved Israelites from Egyptian bondage into the Desert Mountains and towards the Holy Land. But, Schama points out that the Bible is not an accurate historical document. A book filled with exciting accounts of Jewish culture and traditions well knitted with all its tales and legends. A beautiful piece of non-fiction by Schama, its target audience is a range of readers who take interest in reading and discovering various cultures and ethnicities. It is followed by another book which continues the journey after 1420CE. All those sharing the human trait of curiosity towards history, culture and civilization will indulge in this book with all their heart and soul and give it the appreciation that it rightly deserves. Continuing the work of a great historian such as Roth himself is no child’s play, yet Schama pulled it off with beautiful literary flair and graceful opinions, thus etching a name for him in the generations to come.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: MEIN KAMPF, ADOLF HITLER REVIEWER: PRAJWAL M, II HEPP N TEACHER IN CHARGE: MR B DEENA DAYALAN
BOOK REVIEW:
Mein Kampf is the only notable work of Adolf Hitler written in two volumes in 1924. Hitler was arrested when he took out a mass demonstration in favor of national unity for the formation of a socialist German state. He was imprisoned for thirteen months where he wrote the First volume of the book. And the Second volume of the book was written after he was released from jail.‘Mein Kampf’ is autobiographical work of Hitler which reflects the struggle and life of suffering that the young Hitler experienced with his father being a regular clerk. He also highlights every moment of his life from the time he was born in ‘Braun–au–
45 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it on–the inn. He writes how the basic fundamentals of politics and society took shape in his mind from his childhood to his youth. He also discusses the history that took place in Germany and the wars with the neighboring countries which played an important role in his life.
The book is all about his beliefs and perspectives towards the German nation that made him choose the political path in his life and further dominate the nation. In the next part of the book, Hitler’s hatred against the Jews is clearly described. He argues that all races other than Aryans are capable of fueling the progress of mankind and that the Jews are working hard to dominate the nation. He says that if Germany wished to reach its destiny, the Jews had to be eliminated from the nation.
The book goes on to show how Hitler joined the Germany Labour Party and lead the youth to awaken the German nation and the people, the building of the NAZI party against the Jews and the Allied Forces. It speaks about the process by which the party became popular under the leadership of Adolf Hitler and the way in which he started dominating the nation and became a great and dangerous dictator all over the world. In this book we can get to know the political ideologies of that time held by the people in Germany and also in the world at large.
When I read the book I felt that the book convinces the readers towards Hitler’s way of thinking. It is written in very straight and direct manner. The writing style is very interesting and easy to understand. It is clear and precise.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: THE LAST THOUSAND DAYS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE, PETER CLARKE REVIEWER:NIKITA DIVEKAR, II HEPP N TEACHER IN CHARGE: MR B DEENA DAYALAN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Peter Clarke is a British author and historian. He holds a BA, MA and PhD from Cambridge University. He has written several other works on British history and politics such as ‘Liberals and Social Democrats’ and ‘Mr. Churchill’s Profession: Statesman, Orator and Writer.‘The Last 1000 Days of the British Empire’ is a historical account that describes the beginning of the end of an Empire which to quote Churchill could last a 1000 years; an
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Empire upon which the sun would never set. This book is set in the time period 1944 to 1947.The author does justice in portraying not only the historical events but also the collective emotions of the British as first the victorious superpowers and later the shell- shocked survivors as an Empire built by their forefathers crumbled around them.
BOOK REVIEW:
Peter Clarke has cast Winston Churchill as the protagonist of his book first as he lead a nation to victory and later as the key figure who was caught in the eye of the storm that came as a result of the cost of the victory. This book also looks at the emergence of the United States of America as a superpower and its evolution into such a role. Another aspect that the author sheds light on is Britain’s economic stability and condition which was further worsened by the debts that were accrued in order to win a war where the ‘victors’ lost just as much as the ‘losers’.
In the later stages of the book Peter Clarke examines the relationship between allies Great Britain and USA; especially the cracks that began to appear in the postwar years. He gives weightage to agreements such as the Lend-Lease, which was useful during the war but lead to complications after the war had run its course. He also describes the various pre-requisites and ultimatums that America put forth to Britain such as leaving India and Palestine in order to continue to receive much needed American aid. This leads to an ironical situation as their closest allies (America) hammer in the final nail on the coffin of the British Empire!
This book looks into the various efforts at reconciliation, compromise and overtures made by the British in their efforts to retain the ‘Jewel of their Empire’. Peter Clarke also succeeds in bringing to the forefront the role of the Indian nationalists lead by Gandhi along with a few illuminating insights on Gandhi’s hand in the movement.
To conclude, I think that this book is a very well written historical account. This book has its fair share of typical British humor, which provides refreshing recesses and succeeds in tempering the serious historical narration. Despite being an engaging read it leaves the reader wanting more as a few aspects were glossed over.
This is a page-turner and book that history aficionados would return to time and again.
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TITLE AND AUTHOR: DANCING TO PLAY OR TO PRAY:A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PRAHLADA YAKSHAGANAM IN KUCHIPUDI AND MELATTUR BHAGAVATA MELA TRADITIONS, DR.M S SIVA RAJU REVIEWER: TALIN S, II HEPP N TEACHER IN CHARGE: MR B DEENA DAYALAN
BOOK REVIEW:
Dancing to play or to pray was a book that was an eye opener for me as student of history and as a Bhagavata Mela artist myself. This book is categorized under Cultural history. This book is a very well written book as it is written in a style of comparison. The book compares both The Kuchipudi Bhagavata Mela tradition and the Melattur Bhagavata Mela Tradition. The book deals with concepts like the origin and kinship of the two art forms, the distinguishing features of the two art forms and the similarities they share.
As a student of history, my inquisitive nature to know more about the art forms was quite valid as I’m an art lover. But, getting to know so much about the art forms was extremely welcome, though it was not on my list of things to learn. As a Bhagavata Mela artist I found the book a very revealing one, for it cleared a lot of doubts.
The book is indeed a beautifully written book with illustrations at the right points. The book specifically concentrates on Pahalada Charitamu; a common play amongst both the Bhagavata Melas. The author has compiled every bit of the play from both the Melas perspectives. He shows how the difference begins the different versions of the same story used in the Melas. He then goes on to illustrate how the Purvangam (the beginning portion of any classical play) differs widely. He also touches upon the most speculated portion of the Melattur Bhagavata, Mela- Possession. The character playing the role of Lord Narasimha is supposed to be possessed by the Lord himself due to the effect of the Holy Mask.
In my opinion, the author should have explained the origin of the two Melas in a simpler and wider manner. He should have been a little more direct rather than confusing the reader with so many opinions and articles by various great columnists and writers. Also, this research would have been enhanced if the writer had included more information on the music and dialogues as they form the backbone of both the traditions.
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To conclude, the author has brought the concept of dancing for a livelihood i.e., dancing to play referring to the Kuchipudi Bhagavata Mela and dancing for a spiritual purpose i.e., dancing to pray referring to the Melattur Bhagavata Mela in a very systematic manner. Such books will definitely be appealing to the younger generation due to their new approach of comparison.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: THE SEARCH FOR INDIA’S LOST EMPEROR, CHARLLES ALLEN REVIEWER: SHEEBA JACINTHA, II HEPP N TEACHER IN CHARGE: MR B DEENA DAYALAN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Charles Allen is the author of a number of bestselling books about India and the colonial experience elsewhere, including Soldier Sahibs, God’s Terrorists, A Mountain in Tibet and Kipling Sahib: India and the Making of Rudyard Kipling. However in recent years his researches have taken him ever deeper into the early history of the subcontinent; in particular, India’s neglected history as the fountainhead of Buddhism. A traveler, historian and master storyteller, he is one of the greatest chroniclers of India.
BOOK REVIEW:
This book takes us on a beautiful journey of India’s most extraordinary and magnificent ruler, Emperor Ashoka. Ashoka is the son of Bindusara and great grandson of Chandragupta Maurya. Ashoka was born to Queen Dharma, a lower ranked queen of Bindusara in 304 BC. Little did anybody realize that this boy would have his name inscribed in history as the most glorious emperor of all times and the effect he would have on the changing face of India. There was one man who had realized the immense potential of this boy; it was none other than Chanakya, the same Brahmin who played a vital role in the uprising of Chandragupta Maurya. He can be called no less than a kingmaker. Ashoka, the king without sorrow, ruled the major part of the Indian subcontinent from 270 BC to 233 BC after eliminating all obstacles in his path, his half brothers. It is interesting to note that King Bindusara did not
49 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it want Ashoka to succeed him instead wanted his eldest son, Prince Sumana (or Sushim) to take over. In 261 BC Ashoka launched his attack on Kalinga, the only significant kingdom within the subcontinent which was unconquered. With Kalinga’s subjugation, Ashoka could now regard himself as ruler of all India, a feat unachieved by his grandfather or father. The Kalinga war is a tipping point that turned Ashoka into a devout Buddhist. From this time onwards Ashoka makes all efforts to tread on the path of Dharma and decided to conquer, not through war but peace this time.
It is a truly enchanting novel. This book busts almost all myths surrounding the life of Ashoka through facts and surviving inscriptions. The exhaustive research done by Charles Allen is truly commendable. Charles Allen in his book meticulously presents these steps of retracing a grand era that had started with the discovery of a few mysterious monuments with inscriptions in an encoded script. Full of illustrative figures, this is a scholarly study of how historians and archaeologists have succeeded in mapping the historical clues to frame the forgotten epic of India's antiquity. If you have watched the Bollywood movie on Ashoka and expect a biography of the Emperor on a similar line, you will be disappointed though. Only a portion of the last chapter focuses on the established biographies of the Mauryan dynasty while the remaining chapters focus on how the history was established. This is an absolute read if you have inclination towards researched nonfiction focusing on this particular era of Indian history. Lovers of History will celebrate this one.
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PSYCHOLOGY
CONTENTS
Sl. No. Title and Author Reviewer
1. Alex Ferguson – My Autobiography Nithin J
2. The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, Neil Gaiman Sujitha P
3. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath Twinkle Sethia
4. The Silence Of The Lambs, Thomas Harris Shreema Upadhyaya
5. The Taming Of The Shrew, William Shakespeare Nidhi Srivatsa
6. Perks Of Being A Wallflower, Stephen Chobsky Nikita F
7. Em And The Big Hoom, Jerry Pinto Shreya R
8. 12 Years A Slave, Solomon Northup Kaustubha Verma
9. The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith Milonee Sanghavi
10. Bhagvad Gita, Sage Ved Vyasa Ishika Saxena
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TITLE AND AUTHOR: ALEX FERGUSON – MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY REVIEWER: NITHIN J, II HEPP N TEACHER IN CHARGE: MS REVA GEORGE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sir Alex Ferguson is a retired football/soccer coach who is regarded by many as the greatest manager to have ever lived. He enjoyed his career coaching one of the greatest clubs in the world, Manchester United. Sir Alex Ferguson coached the Manchester outfit for a stunning twenty-seven years. He had the pleasure of working with some of the world greatest footballers such as Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham and Wayne Rooney.
BOOK REVIEW: ‘Alex Ferguson My Autobiography’ talks about the hardships Alex Ferguson had to face starting from his childhood all the way to the end of his days as a manager. By conducting an assessment of the book from a psychologist’s perspective one realizes how strong willed Ferguson is and how he has surmounted one challenge after another in order to get to the position he is in today. Alex Ferguson was born in Glasgow, Scotland to parents of Scottish decent. As a boy Alex love playing football and went on to play the role of striker for local club Queen’s Park while simultaneously running a bar. He made his name as a manager when he guided Scottish side Aberdeen FC to European glory. It was then that he got the call to manage Manchester United FC and accepted the job in 1986. He also is married to a loving wife named Cathy and has three sons named Darren, Jason and Mark. This book explains about not only Sir Alex’s managerial life but also his personal one.
In order to interpret the psychological terms in the book, we must first understand what ‘Sports Psychology’ is Sport psychology is an interdisciplinary science that draws on knowledge from many fields including biomechanics, physiology, kinesiology and psychology. It involves the study of how psychological factors affect performance and how participation in sport and exercise affect psychological and physical factors. In addition to instruction and training of psychological skills for performance improvement, applied sport psychology may include work with athletes, coaches, and parents regarding injury,
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rehabilitation, communication, team building, and career transitions. Thus, the importance or the purpose of sports psychology is to help athletes cope with problems that they would face in their careers, such as injuries, loss of form, change in training methods or in case of a team sport, change in management. Change in management was one of the main factors that affected Manchester United’s form after Sir Alex’s retirement. This book carries a lot of psychological aspects that really stood out. In fact there is a chapter in the book titled ‘Psychology’. In the book Sir Alex talks about how he would deal with players who were having a bad run of form or a bad game. He specifies that he would shout at the player telling him he played like ‘’rubbish’, but then in order to decrease the pain of the initial blow, would add a few more words in order to pick them up. For example, ‘You played like rubbish….for a player of your ability’. He also recommends that every aspiring manager must learn to present his players with the ‘hard facts’ and tell them truth. He explains that managers or coaches should learn to criticize, but balance out the criticism with encouragement. The above are methods employed by managers even today, now we will look at some of the methods that were employed specifically by Sir Alex.
Every year, when a season was half way through, Sir Alex would convince the media that Manchester United would do better in the second half of the season. These words not only convinced the media but also convinced the players at the club. It gave a huge boost in form to the squad an even at times made the opposition play worse.
Perhaps the most famous of all his mind games was his ‘Watch tapping’ technique. He used this technique towards the end of every match Manchester United played. He believed that it put the feeling of fear in the opposing team and hence there would be a loss in form. It also improved the overall playing style of his squad. This technique worked more often than not. In order to discuss about Sir Alex’s personal life, we must first know a little about his family history. As mentioned earlier, Sir Alex was born in Glasgow, Scotland to parents of Scottish decent. He comes from the ‘Ferguson Clan’ in Scotland. The motto of the clan is ‘Dulcius ex asperis’, which means ‘Sweeter after difficulties’, which was something that he felt was most applicable to his life as a manager. He was brought up in the ship-building district in Glasgow, called ‘Govan’. Some of his personal hobbies are horse-racing and collecting wines. He was also extremely obsessed with the JFK assassination and had a collection of documents that had information on every known detail of the event. Sir Alex owned two race horses named ‘What a Friend’ and ‘Queensland Star’. He now owns shares in around thirty
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horses. He is also a supporter of the ‘Labor Party’ and believes strongly in the socialist or leftist policy.
Sir Alex Ferguson has had to face very few personal issues in his life so far, here are a few. Being a football manager Alex Ferguson was never really close to his children until they reached the age of 14. He left the early years of his children’s lives in the hands of his wife Cathy. When the boys were old enough he introduced them to his world of football, the only thing he could truly relate to them with. His son Darren was a natural at the sport and even played under Sir Alex at Manchester United, but Manchester United being the big club that it is attracted players of much greater talent than Darren and ultimately Sir Alex was faced with the decision of whether or not he should sell his own son. Finally Darren came to him and told him he needed a move. Sir Alex then sold his son to ‘Wolverhampton Wanderers’. His wife Cathy never forgave him for that.Sir Alex also had to go through with a law suit against ‘Coolmore’, an Irish company that owns prize winning race horses. The problem that he had faced with ‘Coolmore’ was over possession of one of Europe’s top race-horses named ‘Rock OF Gibraltar’. Sir Alex was under the impression that he owned a share of the ‘Rock’, whereas ‘Coolmore’ were convinced that all Sir Alex would get was a portion of the ‘Rock’s’ winnings. The matter was settled and was considered as nothing more than just a ‘misunderstanding’.Being a psychology student evaluating this book from a psychological perspective has been quite hard. The book deals with a lot of terms that one would come across while reading a psychology text book. The book shows us the various stages of the mind that a coach of any sports team goes through. It can be easy going and difficult at the same time while most of us feel that being a coach is a job that requires you to just relax and enjoy the ride. Sir Alex Ferguson employs various psychological tactics. The one that really caught my eye was what I felt was a classic example of Ivan Pavlov’s idea of ‘Classical Conditioning’. This can be seen through the ‘watch tapping’ technique used by Sir Alex, where the opposing players have been hypothetically conditioned to expect an increase in Manchester United’s form on Sir Alex’s cue and thus begin to fear the remaining time of the game to come. This was a part of the book that really interested me.
My overall rating of this book is a nine out of ten as I fell that this book really focuses a lot on Sir Alex Ferguson’s mindset and not only his life story. This is a must read for all aspiring Sports Psychologists and Coaches.
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TITLE AND AUTHOR: THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE, NEIL GAIMAN REVIEWER: SUJITHA P, II HEPP N TEACHER IN CHARGE: MS REVA GEORGE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Neil Gaiman is a Hugo award winning British author of short stories, graphic novels, comic books, audio titles and films. Some of his notable works include ‘Stardust’, ‘Neverwhere’, ‘Good Omens’, ‘The Sandman’ series of graphic novels, etc.
‘The Ocean At The End of The Lane’ written by Neil Gaiman, is a book that is spoken through a child’s perspective, of the world around him.
BOOK REVIEW:
The book deals with the unstable emotions that the protagonist, a child goes through that eventually leads to a disconnect between his childhood and adulthood. It talks about loneliness, desperation and confusion that anyone who has no guide to ease them into the world goes through. It also talks greatly about the human mind’s ability to repress the memories that it finds too traumatic to deal with.
The plot starts out simple, an unnamed protagonist attending a funeral in his childhood hometown. He then visits the home that he and his sister grew up in, bringing back memories of a little girl named Lettie Hempstock who lived at the end of the lane, in the Hempstocks’ farmhouse, with her mother and grandmother. Lettie used to claim that the pond behind her house was an ocean. She was his only friend.
The Hempstocks are recurring characters in most of Gaiman’s literature.
The scene then changes to the narrator’s childhood, a lonely one at it. “I lay on the bed and lost myself in stories,” he says, “I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway.”
The main narrative starts as he recalls a time when an opal miner, who was a boarder at the boy's home, steals the boy’s father's car and commits suicide in the back seat, having gambled away his friends' money; this death allows a supernatural being to gain access to our world, leaving money for people in a not so pleasant way. This, as I interpret it, represents the
55 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it boy being exposed to an unpleasant experience which shows him that maybe, things weren’t as unbreakable as they seemed, that life, the world, was a lot more fragile.
The plot then takes us through mystical fields of daisies, dandelions and do-you-like-butter buttercups, through wormholes in the foot and babysitters who are supernatural beings and before you know it, you are smitten with the story of this lonely, little boy who has a not so happy childhood and parents who are too busy building their own careers to see that their kid is drowning in his own, not so little, frightening world. He finds a home with the Hempstocks, he finds people who are willing to explain the big, scary world to the kid that he is and help him ease into this newly acquired, scary knowledge.
“How can you be happy in this world? You have a hole in your heart. You have a gateway inside you to lands beyond the world you know. They will call you, as you grow. I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible,” he says.
The style of writing starts out dull, through the mind of a child whose birthday party no one attends. But, before you know it, you are so into the story that you don’t realize, you see yourself as that little boy, you see the world from inside him, you feel his search for self identity and you feel that raw, naked fear that he feels when he realizes that his life is in no aspect, the way it was a week ago. Gaiman has woven such an amazing tale, a fantastic world, through his writing in this novel that will simply not let you put the book down till you finish it. This book puts all other psychological thrillers to shame.
It is a story of good and evil, of magic and survival so raw that by the end of it, you are strung so tight because you don’t want the adventure to end. I found a connect and attachment with this story that I always search for in the tales I consume, maybe a lot more than I bargained for.
This tale talks of understanding beyond comprehension of a child, yet also of naivety and hope that only a child can express. It talks of a disconnect between childhood and adulthood, speaks of the three sisters of Fate always being near to put us on a path that they have woven for us with their golden thread. If there was ever that one book I would recommend a person to read in their lifetime, it would be this.
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I would like to quote my favorite lines from the book; the lines that speak of a greater knowledge and understanding, the lines that in a very intense tone say what I consider a principle of my life-if knowledge is the engine in the car that is life then words are the drivers.
Neil Gaiman says- “I have dreamed of that song, of the strange words to that simple rhyme- song, and on several occasions I have understood what she was saying, in my dreams. In those dreams I spoke that language too, the first language, and I had dominion over the nature of all that was real. In my dream, it was the tongue of what is, and anything spoken in it becomes real, because nothing said in that language can be a lie. It is the most basic building brick of everything. In my dreams I have used that language to heal the sick and to fly; once I dreamed I kept a perfect little bed-and-breakfast by the seaside, and to everyone who came to stay with me I would say, in that tongue, "Be whole," and they would become whole, not be broken people, not any longer, because I had spoken the language of shaping.”
No doubt, there will be many greater books that exist, but not one will ever spin a greater world than what ‘The Ocean at the End of Lane’ has.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: THE BELL JAR, SYLVIA PLATH REVIEWER: TWINKLE SETHIA, II HEPP N TEACHER IN CHARGE: MS REVA GEORGE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. She was born in Boston,Massachusetts. She pursued her studies at Smith College and Newnham College at the University of Cambridge. This was before she received acclaim as a poet and writer. She married fellow poet Ted Hughes. They lived together in the United States and then England. She was clinically depressed for most of her adult life. She committed suicide in 1963.
BOOK REVIEW:
It is a shocking, realistic and emotional novel about a woman under the grip of insanity. In this enduring and acclaimed masterwork, the readers are brilliantly drawn towards Esther’s
57 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it breakdown with such intensity that the insanity becomes real. The use of imagery, language and tone allows the readers travel into the mind and life of Esther Greenwood. The author is a simple genius when it comes to weaving the storyline. The characters are written extremely well and even the smallest detail is written in a precise manner. It is cleverly plotted so that each new development makesthe reader astound and eager to know what would happen next. While reading this book you feel like you go to bed empty and unfulfilled. You will be totally engrossed in this book from the beginning to the end. The book couldn’t end in a better way than it has. The conclusion to this book makes it a better novel.
The psychological aspect of the book is that the way the bell jar symbolizes stiff and unbreakable case within glass walls. This basically highlights the mind of Esther. She faces inevitable depression which is interrupting her daily life and she does things which she doesn’t want to. She’s suffering from depression as she is imprisoned within her own mind. The two main reasons for her depression is that her childhood main is not fulfilled due to which she has a feeling of hopelessness and the other reason is the traumatic experiences she has suffered and is unable to overcome. She has an underlying pain which she is not able to express. Her main symptoms for depression are sleeplessness, mindlessness and dullness. She has a feeling of rejection and doesn’t interact with people. Her state of mind is visibly seen when she gets rejected by Harvard. She tries to get invisible and be isolated. Later she is treated by psychotherapy, shock therapy and anti-depressants which help her overcome depression. The most important and best part of the novel due to which it was acclaimed is the way the deepest and darkest corners of the human psyche has been presented in this novel.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THOMAS HARRIS REVIEWER: SHREEMA UPADHYAYA, II HEPP N TEACHER IN CHARGE: MS REVA GEORGE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Thomas Harris is an American author who is best known for his series of suspense novel. These novels feature a famous character of his creation, Hannibal Lecter. He was introverted and bookish in grade school. However, he blossomed in high school. He avoids publicity and little is known about his personal life. He has not given an interview since 1976.
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BOOK REVIEW:
Dr. Hannibal Lecter. It is a name that strikes terror in the hearts of both, readers and movie watchers alike. Said to be the most widely feared and awed fictional psychopaths of all times, he is a highly qualified psychiatrist who eats people for the sake of amusement. But even with his cannibalistic nature, the author Thomas Harris does not portray Dr. Lecter as the antagonist of his book, ‘The Silence of the Lambs’. He is more of a middleman, who though imprisoned, hasn’t lost his impeccably polite ways; his mannerisms and sometimes you question whether he is actually ‘crazy’ at all. He makes eating another man’s liver sound as though he were just eating another delicacy from his favorite restaurant. He is a man capable of creating headlines from behind bars.
It is during this time in Lecter’s life that he is approached by Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee with degrees in psychology, who again comes with a set of her own demons that haunt her dreams. She has been sent in by the Behavioral Sciences department to ‘decipher’ the evil genius doctor to help profile other psychopathic serial killers and find them by literally going into their heads and understanding them. Though Hannibal dismisses her questions by saying that he cannot be ‘reduced to a set of influences’, he very discreetly gives her information about an ongoing high-profile investigation, for personal information about Starling in return. His seemingly innocent questions let him draw conclusions about her life that force her to see eye to eye with her demons and not just face them, but also draw courage from them.
Coming to the main plot of the book, the story revolves around the man hunt for a serial killer nick- named ‘Buffalo Bill’, a man who abducts girls of his size, starves them and then skins them in order to make a ‘lady suit’ for himself. He turns out to be a cross dressing transvestite with an extremely troubling childhood and adolescence who literally wanted to get into the skin of a woman, rejecting his actual existing identity. He is quite a mystery to the readers throughout the book, except for a few paragraphs where we learn about his perspective and his thoughts before he murders the girls and flays them. While the antagonist remains unseen, we come to discover his persona from the investigation of the FBI and the various tidbits of knowledge that Dr. Lecter discloses to Starling, or rather what she makes of it and uses it in her own investigation when she stops receiving the support of the authorities when the antagonist decides to kidnap the daughter of a Senator, who will stop at nothing to get her back unharmed. In their desperation, the Senator and her lot make several mistakes, including
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giving into Hannibal Lecter’s demands, which finally leads to his escape and almost for the sake of nothing. The end of the story is thrilling and a fitting conclusion to an amazing book.
For a book with characters that all have elaborate psychological backgrounds, it is simple in its logic and one of the concepts I liked best was of the post-mortem decoration of his victims by ‘Buffalo Bill’ with moths, which he places in their throats. They signify the metamorphosis of his character into that of a woman with each skinning and the death of his older self whom he had grown to hate. His obsession with changing himself provides great insight into what drove him to such madness.
Thomas Harris’s latest introduction to the book featuring in the 25th year edition gives us a glance into the creation of the character of Hannibal Lecter, inspired from a man that he met in a mental institution years earlier. He also further explains how his childhood memories influenced the building of Clarice Starling’s personality.
A book that maintains suspense throughout with two frightening, evil and inhuman villains and a flawed human and yet extremely idealistic female protagonist with the perspective of no one in particular makes it an extremely great read, even for those who have watched the movie and can’t get Anthony Hopkins’ superb portrayal of the mad doctor out of their head. It definitely improved my perception of the human mind and broadened my outlook.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE REVIEWER: NIDHI SRIVATSA, II HEPP N TEACHER IN CHARGE: MS REVA GEORGE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet, and the "Bard of Avon". His work includes approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses. His plays have been translated into every major language. His plays are still often performed; more than those of any other playwright.
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BOOK REVIEW:
The Taming of The Shrew is a well-known comedy play written by Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592.
A young lady named Katherine is considered to be the Shrew, who can never speak anything good or auspicious. The main plot depicts the courtship of Petruchio and Katherine, the headstrong obdurate shrew. Initially Katherine is an unwilling participant in the relationship, but Petruchio tempers her with various Psychological torments- “the taming” – until she becomes an obedient and compliant bride. The subplot of the play revolves around a competition between the suitors of Katherine‘s most desirable sister, Bianca.
The whole idea of the play or the story revolves around the methods by which Petruchio was able to bring about such a drastic change in Kate(Katherine) in such a short period of time .Considering the play psychologically, the fact that the society considered Kate to be a shrew must have been a motivating factor for Petruchio to tame her challengingly .The fact that every society has certain norms or restriction could have been a major factor why Kate tried behaving in a different way altogether , or maybe due to her attention seeking behavior she wanted to be unique in her own way and act according to her whims and fancies(which was not socially accepted) .
This play is very controversial and highly debated upon .The standpoint taken is that of object relations which asserts that not only do relationships exist between 2 personalities and others in the environment but also between internalized objects and self.
In my opinion, the attention seeking behavior is present in both Kate and Petruchio in a phased manner. For instance, considering scene 5 of the play in which Petruchio and Kate are walking together. Petruchio points out the sun at midday and says that ‘the moon was shining so brightly’ while Kate refuses it with her good natured zeal, but sturdy Petruchio wouldn’t give up, and eventually, Kate had to agree. She did not accept defeat instead she also tried testing Petruchio’s patience. Both their attention seeking behavior is justified as Petruchio also wants to be widely recognized as “man who tamed the shrew” and Kate of course wanted to be recognized as the shrew who could never be tamed.
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Shakespeare has beautifully brought out the differences and similarities between them and I liked the way he has included various other characters’ in the play and not just centered the relationship of Katherine and Petruchio; though the readers or viewers mostly consider them to be the center of attention in the play. According to me, inclusion of various other characters’ in the play has turned out the play to be one of the best comedy plays.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER, STEPHEN CHOBSKY REVIEWER: NIKITA F, II PPES O TEACHER IN CHARGE: MRS ASHIKA ALEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Stephen Chbosky is an American novelist, screenwriter, and film director. He is best known for writing the New York Times bestselling novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999). In 1992, Chbosky graduated from the University of Southern California's screenwriting program. In 1994, Chbosky was working on a "very different type of book" than The Perks of Being a Wallflower when he wrote the line, "I guess that's just one of the perks of being a wallflower." Chbosky recalled that somewhere in that sentence was the kid he was really trying to find. After several years of gestation, Chbosky began researching and writing The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The book is semi-autobiographical as Chbosky has said that he relates to Charlie.
BOOK REVIEW:
“He's a wallflower. You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.”
Written by Stephen Chbosky, ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ is a #1 New York Times Bestseller and is said to be the current generation’s version of ‘The Breakfast Club.’ The book was first published in February 1999 by Pocket Books through its MTV Books imprint. Though the book was published in 1999, the main theme still highlights the present day situation of teenagers’ universally and is not confined to any particular social class. Chbosky presents his story in the form of letters that the protagonist Charlie has written to an anonymous person i.e. the readers.
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“Dear friend, I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand,” says the opening line of the book. The plot revolves around Charlie, who is portrayed to as a shy boy in a typical healthy family which once included his late Aunt Helen, whom he loved very much. Charlie is portrayed as an introvert who started writing letters to cope with being lonely and to share his perspective on life. Charlie’s mind goes beyond an average human being. He observes people and understands them without engaging in a conversation with them. At his first day of high school, he meets two seniors, Patrick, the second main protagonist along with Patrick’s sister Sam whom Charlie gradually starts developing feelings for.
The book takes us through the ups and downs of Charlie’s life which includes how he befriends Patrick and Sam, two friends that accept him for who he is: a wallflower. We find out that Patrick is gay and Sam on the other hand, has a history of being with boys that mentally abuse her. The story takes us through the parties, Rocky Horror shows and teenagers trying to cope with life in different ways such as doing drugs, indulging in promiscuous activity, using music to cope with stress and so on. We are introduced to Charlie’s Aunt Helen who was molested when she was younger and ended up indulging in drugs and drinking excessively. “She was an unhappy person most of her life”, said Charlie. We later learn that Charlie was molested by his Aunt Helen at a younger age and therefore exhibits symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder which includes recurring memories, nightmares along with insomnia and persistent distorted blame of self.
In the epilogue, Charlie is found in a catatonic state by his parents. After being admitted in a mental hospital, it is found that Charlie’s love for his Aunt as a child repressed his memories. This psychological damage explains his flashbacks and phases throughout the book. At the end, Charlie is better and has undergone treatment. Patrick and Sam come to visit him and Charlie claims that he feels infinite. He comes to terms with his past: "Even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there". Charlie decides to "participate" in life, and his letter-writing ends.
The author, Chbosky, crafts a brilliant story highlighting the zenith point of many teenagers’ lives. Through the characters of Charlie, Sam and Patrick, each reader finds certain qualities of themselves and they are able to relate. An idiosyncrasy of the book is the music mentioned in it. The specific song mentioned in the chapters almost sets the tone of the chapter if one listens to it. Chbosky appreciates the entertainment during adolescence by
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mentioning cultural references such as “To Kill a Mocking Bird” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” as he conveys that entertainment during our youth has an influence on who we are and what we believe. He addresses a range of themes including love, friendship, suicide, body image, eating disorders and sexual orientation.
Charlie, the main protagonist suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which comes under the 5th axis of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual. Charlie has flashbacks of his Aunt when something upsetting happens such as his sister getting hit by her boyfriend. After being shunned by his friends, he begins to have more flashbacks of his Aunt and his mental health begins to deteriorate rapidly. He experiences alterations in cognition and moods. He is easily influenced, socially awkward; demonstrates anger management problems and portrays passive aggression. His flashbacks, immense guilt, tense feeling, insomnia, marked alterations in arousal and substance abuse disorder are all symptoms of PTSD as stated in the Manual.
The second main protagonist, Sam, is a kind, supportive, non-judgmental person who too, suffered from a past where she was emotionally abused by her ex boyfriends. She then turned her life around and strived to enhance her self-esteem. She is portrayed to be smart, beautiful and bright but suffers from low self-esteem. Through this, Chbosky throws light on the subject of teenagers all over the world who are beautiful in their own way and yet suffer from low self-esteem. This is a reason as to why she surrounded herself with negative relationships in the past. According to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, Self-Esteem is the ranked fourth. Sam suffers internally and therefore proves herself by engaging in drug abuse and partying.Patrick, Sam’s step brother is good natured, humorous and empathetic towards Charlie. He is inferred to be depressed on the inside due to not being able to come clean about his homosexuality. Patrick’s relationship with his boyfriend Brad confused Charlie as Brad treated Patrick badly. Charlie, being observant, notices how unhealthy this secret relationship might be. After a science experiment involving a rodent, an electrical current, and a mouse nip, Charlie learns that "the rat or mouse would put up with a lot more voltage for the pleasure.” Patrick is eluded to be the mouse and Brad, the mouse nip. Patrick is willing to put up with a lot in order to continue seeing Brad. Patrick also deals with bullying, humiliation and discrimination due to his sexual orientation and uses drugs and alcohol to cope with this.In my opinion, the novel is an honest, realistic look on teenage life. It is not sugar coated like most teenage books and is bold in the sense that it highlights problems upfront. As teenagers, we all go through peer pressure, drugs, bullying, lowself-esteem, and
64 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it so on. It is fitting that we understand how different people deal with problems. The novel is a beacon of hope for all those who have suffered a traumatic past, have low self-esteem or even have problems figuring out what they truly want. Although the book might be a little graphic, it serves to bring out the reality of today’s world. The book ends on an optimistic note. As Charlie said, -“Please believe that things are good with me, and even when they're not, they will be soon enough. And I will always believe the same about you.”
TITLE AND AUTHOR: EM AND THE BIG HOOM, JERRY PINTO REVIEWER: SHREYA R, II PPES O TEACHER IN CHARGE: MRS ASHIKA ALEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jerry Pinto is an Indian writer based in Mumbai. He writes poetry, prose and children's fiction in English. He is also a journalist. Jerry Pinto is a Roman Catholic of Goan origin, and grew up in Mahim, Mumbai. He received a liberal arts degree from Elphinstone College, University of Mumbai, and a law degree from Government Law College, Mumbai
BOOK REVIEW:
Imelda, the star of the show, is a daughter, wife and mother though none of these in the traditional sense. Imelda, better known as Em, is an enigma unveiled to us slowly through the haze of her ‘condition’. She is revealed through snippets of letters and snatches of conversation. Throughout the novel, the age of the characters, their appearance and the settings are all very vague. It’s like you’re seeing it all through a tinted lens. A lot of things are open to a reader’s interpretation. Personally, I found this a little frustrating and yet, at the same time, I scrutinized a lot of things much more closely than I would have. Therefore, much like a real person, you only know facets of these characters and the rest you deduce to the best of your ability.
Imelda and her parents were from Rangoon. They came in one of the ships to Goa when Japan attacked Burma.
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Not much is revealed about Em as a child. After finishing school she worked as a teacher at the age of seventeen because her parents couldn’t afford college. Then, she studied to be a stenographer and went to work at ASL, a company in which she met the man she would later marry- Augustine, also referred to as the Big Hoom.
The story of their courtship is mostly revealed through little anecdotes and letters and postcards addressed to each other. Mae, Em’s mother, and Gertrude, her friend help fill up a few blanks. Their love story transpires mostly in a dusty bookstore and the office. It is a quirky one at that. Em is expressive whereas the Big Hoom is silent and stoic. That’s where the stereotype ends, though. Em was never for going the traditional route. In the household, Em does not cook or clean or do any of the things expected of the stereotypical housewife. It is never revealed if this is because of her ‘condition’ or because that’s just who she is. The Big Hoom is the caretaker. He works as well as cooks. Em is a voracious consumer of tea and beedi’s. Even though she smokes like an old steam train, Em is healthy as a horse physically.
Em says it all began when her son was born. Her first child was Susan. The second, a boy, the narrator. It all began when he was born. It was like a dripping tap, she says. A dripping tap without a drain.
In her manic state, Em was a ‘rough, rude, roistering woman’. She spoke without inhibitions and was easily distracted, jumping from topic to topic. She paid no mind to taboos or sensitive issues. She plowed through, speaking her mind and telling little stories.
In her depressive state, Em lived through the ‘long, black night of the mind’. There were times when she lay twitching with a pain no one could see. The only time she slept was when it was induced by drugs. Even that was not a restful sleep. She woke up exhausted.
Every now and then, Em would make statements about how ‘they’ were out to get her. Sometimes, ‘they’ poisoned the food. She would allow no one to eat a bite of food that came from outside the house. Other times ‘they’ were demanding offerings of clocks, watches, kitchen spoons and college books from the dug up road outside. She cleared her bank account on ‘their’ insistence and simply lost the money. And then there were the people in the fan. Sometimes ‘they’ demanded that she ate a sandwich at three in the morning. One time the people in the fan told her that her son was in trouble. So she picked up her son who was around three or four at the time and set out barefoot. A stranger who saw her took her to a hotel and asked her to sit down. By then her son was wailing and people got suspicious. They
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heard the crying baby and saw the barefoot woman. They took Em to a police station and the Big Hoom. It is not quite clear if these are hallucinations or delusions. She hears voices telling her to do certain things but at the same time she also believes that the food is poisoned, that her son is in trouble.
Additionally, Em has attempted to commit suicide twice. Once by jumping in front of a bus and another time by slitting her wrists.
The narrator observes that each time, she opened herself and let the blood flow. He thinks it is maybe because she is trying to find a drain for that dripping tap. Em compared it to the clarity of the world just after a rain. That is how her mind felt after, she says.
The doctors thought at first that it was a nervous problem, which then changed to a nervous breakdown which further changed to schizophrenia for which she was treated and finally, the doctors settled on the diagnosis of manic depressive. Through the course of her life, Em was treated with a plethora of drugs that came and went but never did much. Until Lithium Carbonate. It gave Em a reprieve for a year and a half until her ‘condition’ dragged her down again. All the drugs did was, ‘Mute the paranoia, calm the rage. Raise the endorphins. Underneath, the mysteries continued, unchanged’.
Em was also given Electro-convulsive Therapy- ECT- as part of her treatment. When she came back home, there was an angry red mark on her forehead where the electricity surged into her brain. When she forgot the name of the sweetshop the Big Hoom buys beedis from everyday, everyone is wrong-footed. Em wasn’t her usual self for a long time after that, just a mockery of herself.
Dr Michael was a therapist Em went to. He was the only one who helped her, who made any kind of difference. He did not condescend her or talk to her like she was beneath him. He spoke to her as an equal and this approach worked.
Em, as a person, did not lack in sympathy or empathy. Whenever they were in a hospital, she would ask those in the waiting room how they were and tell them she’d pray for their good health. When she was admitted, she’d feed the old woman in the bed next to hers. When she worked as a teacher, she worried constantly about her students- their slipping grades and their abusive families.
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Em was a prolific writer. She composed each letter with the utmost care; each diary entry was treated as preciously as a rare jewel. She never threw away anything she had written. Through these letters and diary entries, Em’s characterization takes place. Most of her scribbled up notes didn’t make much sense but they were preserved just as meticulously.
Em never used her ’condition’ as an excuse to get away with anything. She thought that negated the concept of fair play.
She had nicknames for her husband, calling him Angel Ears, and Limb of Satan. She called Susan Lao-Tsu for no discernible reason.
This novel is narrated by Em’s son. It’s not just about people with psychological disabilities but also about the people who live with them, care for them and love them.
The narrator, throughout the novel, tries to pinpoint the moment his mother broke. Whenever Em speaks or narrates stories about her life he examines details closely to see if it could have been the stresser that took away his mother. He is forever trying to part the veil of Em’s ‘condition’ and peer at the person she used to be.
Mostly, he is scared about ‘going mad’ himself. ‘Fight your genes’ the Big Hoom tells his children. And that’s what the narrator tries to do. He even schedules an appointment with a therapist who just tells him to wait and watch.
The narrator is hungry for details, for the little things in the stories. He does not look at the picture as a whole, rather he examines every brushstroke.
The narrator knows that his is not the most conventional of families. The other kids made fun of him for having a mother like Em and the narrator was almost in tears. ‘They should understand.’ He said. Even though he understood it, the narrator craved for a normal family. But Em needed constant monitoring and there was nothing normal about her. The narrator was patient and understanding with his mother as far as he could be. He was also hurt and angry at Em because sometimes she had no filter. She belittled him and bewildered him in equal measure.
As a student of psychology, the narrator visited the Thane Mental Hospital. He saw that the patients wore dirty, elephant grey clothes and had shaved heads. As they filed past him, the narrator thought they all looked dehumanized. Here he also witnessed them receiving ECT.
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When asked if they could observe the patients as they were treated with it, the ward said yes without an afterthought. ‘No one asked their permission’ observes the narrator.
The Big Hoom is as stoic as ever through all this. He speaks when he has something of value to say and is the solid rock to which the family clings. The narrator is greatly admiring of his father. He is afraid he will never learn to negotiate the world as well as his father. The Big Hoom is patient and deals with Em with a sort of detached endearment.
‘I am imperfect. The world is imperfect’. In a perfect world, the narrator would have had a normal happy family with a normal happy childhood. But a childhood with Em was neither normal nor happy.
Em was still human, still a person. She was a daughter, a wife and a mother. To each of these roles, she gave her own twist. She drank tea by the gallons and smoked beedi’s by the ton. She was just Em. In the end, Em and her condition became one. They become indistinguishable. They made her an unforgettable person.
The mention of mental illness is followed by a barrage of fear and worry and sympathy. Into this leaps ‘EM and the Big Hoom’. Em is not to be looked at as ‘the patient’ or ‘that crazy lady’. She is human and she has her vices and her virtues.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: 12 YEARS A SLAVE, SOLOMON NORTHUP REVIEWER: KAUSTUBHA VERMA, II PPES O TEACHER IN CHARGE: MRS ASHIKA ALEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Solomon Northup was an American abolitionist. He was a free-born African American from New York. His parents were a freed slave and a free woman of color. A farmer and violinist, Northup owned land in Hebron, New York. In 1841, he was offered a traveling musician's job and went to Washington, D.C. Slavery was legal in Washington; he was kidnapped here and sold as a slave. He remained in slavery until he met a Canadian working on his plantation who helped get word to New York, where state law provided aid to free New York citizens kidnapped into slavery.
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BOOK REVIEW:
“There may be humane masters, as there certainly are inhuman ones - there may be slaves well-clothed, well-fed, and happy, as there surely are those half-clad, half-starved and miserable; nevertheless, the institution that tolerates such wrong and inhumanity as I have witnessed, is a cruel, unjust, and barbarous one.”
12 years a slave is a memoir, in which the author narrates the story of his descent into the cruel world of slavery, and his eventual liberation after 12 long years of suffering. The author, Solomon Northup, begins stating that he was born a freeman, and had been one for more than 30 years, till the year 1853, whence his misery begins. Solomon was fortunate to have an education that far surpassed others of his origin. He worked as a labourer in a farm, and his life was fairly normal and uneventful, until one day he met two gentlemen, who claim to be connected with a circus, and required someone with a proficiency in music to accompany some of their performances before they reached the circus. They offer him a good pay, and so he readily agrees to do so, leaving without informing his family, assuming that he will be returning soon. They perform only once, during the time he is with them, and the proceeds are very meager. They convince him to accompany them to the circus, once again offering him high wages. They suggest that he get papers that proclaim him a free man, as they were entering a ‘slave State’, and later, even give him a certain amount of money, for his service, and several other acts as these only make him trust them more. One night, they persuade him to drink along with them. Later, he feels sick, and dizzy, and passes out. When he comes to, he finds himself stripped and chained to the ground. Thus begins his time of suffering. When the owner of the slave pen walk in, he tells him that he is a free man but is only whipped over and over, until he falls silent, and is forced to accept his new status as a slave. From this time, he is made to work as a slave under various masters, and is subjected to a lot of mental and physical abuse. Until, after 12 years of torment, he is freed by his uncle, to whom he manages to send a message to.
Solomon Northup is shockingly accurate as he retells his tale of misery. He provides a painstakingly detailed account of his period of slavery, which is no doubt ingrained in his memory. He is a virtuous man, and loves his family. He has a high sense of morals, and believes in doing the right thing. Even while he was a slave, he was loyal to his masters, and
70 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it did his work dutifully. In the slave pen, we are introduced to a woman, Eliza, and her two children. She loves them with all her heart, and she is a fine example of the extent of a mother’s love. She is grief stricken when her son is sold, and weeps bitterly, and cannot be consoled. And when she is sold to a master, but her daughter isn’t,she is in such agony at the thought of being separated from her child, that she protests, and pleads the master to buy her daughter too. Her cries of anguish move everybody,including that master, who agrees to buy them both, but the slave owner refuses, and in the end Eliza is forcibly dragged away. Solomon later talks about how Eliza begins to deteriorate afterwards. She would talk to herself as if her children were there, and there was not one day when she was not in pain.Soon, grief overcomes her, and she dies. Solomon’s first master is a kind one, but due to unfortunate circumstances, he is sold to another one, and this master is the opposite. He is never satisfied with the work Solomon does, and no matter what, the latter is whipped for some reason or the other frequently. And one day, he does something that is truly surprising. He fights back, when his master unjustly tries to whip him. He whips his master until his arm aches. This act gives reveals his frustration for the life of subjugation that he is forced to live. He is later sold to another master, Master Epps, who is his last master, and also very violent. Epps would whip slaves for his satisfaction, and was most brutal when drunk. His fellow slaves, working under Master Epps have pitiful lives. The worst hit is a young girl, Patsey. Epps lusts after her, and his wife, black with anger has her whipped inhumanly, for no fault of her own. One day, the master turns so violent as to have her stripped, and her limbs tied to four stakes and he instructs Solomon to whip her. Solomon is forced to whip her despite her pleas of mercy. What’s worse is Epps’ wife, who looks on in heartless gratification. Patsey falls into despair and is never the same again. These incidents are brutal, horrific. The masters are monstrous, and do not even consider their slaves as fellow human beings. In their eyes, it is right for them to treat their slaves in such a way, because they are ‘superior’. However,despite the heinous acts he is subjected to and forced to witness,what is really remarkable is the fact, that throughout the decade of his enslavement, he never once loses hope, and despite the risks, finally manages to send across a message. He is rescued by his uncle, and just before he leaves, Patsey runs to him, weeping, and tells him she is glad he is going to be safe, but adds ‘what’ll become of me?’. Slavery is a barbaric concept. The mental and physical trauma undergone by slaves is heartbreaking. The book has graphic descriptions of the cruelty of the masters, who seem to lack sympathy. Completely unjustified in their acts, the master's whip their slaves as and
71 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it when they want. They are treated like property. The masters seem to forget that the slaves, ‘black’ or not, are human beings. As a slave he has undergone a lot of trauma, be it when he is inhumanly whipped or when he is forced to whip others on the master’s order. Solomon compares the feeling of being whipped to the ‘burning agonies of hell’ . He must have felt a lot worse than the others in terms of the fact that he had a normal life and knew the taste of freedom, but is forced to be subjugated for a little more than a decade.He is deprived of his family, whom he loves and misses dearly. Patsey, is subjected to relentless violence and psychological trauma, and this finally breaks her. She is left with nothing but the dream of liberty. Most slaves are forced to accept their situation and they finally give up on any hope of liberation. Some even go to the extent of justifying the acts of their masters, an indication of the Stockholm Syndrome. Solomon, whose life is drastically altered, shows symptoms of PTSD. In the end, he also mentioned how his enslavement affected his children. His daughters had wept bitterly, when they were shown a picture of a slave in school, since it reminded them of their father, who they perceived to be enduring such barbarity. Although the book ends on a relatively happy note, I was left with a bitter feeling, as I thought about Patsey and the others, who were probably subjected to even more violence and died not knowing the air of freedom. An honest, moving account of the life of a man forced to endure a brief period of torment as a slave, I recommend this book to anyone interested in a lucid memoir that gives us a peek into the harrowing lives of slaves in America.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: THE CUCKOO’S CALLING, ROBERT GALBRAITH REVIEWER: MILONEE SANGHAVI, II PPES O TEACHER IN CHARGE: MRS ASHIKA ALEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Robert Galbraith is the pen-name of highly acclaimed author, Joanne Rowling. She is a British author most known for the Harry Potter series. Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series while on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. Between 1990 and 1997 Rowling faced several personal tragedies, including the death of her mother and a divorce. She famously said that if not for writing, she would have been depressed. She published the first Harry Potter novel in 1997. After the six
72 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it sequels were published, Rowling wrote three books for adult readers. The Casual Vancany in 2012 is one among them. The Cormoran Strike series is a series of detective novels by JK Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The Cuckoo's Calling is a 2013 crime fiction novel and the first novel in this series.
BOOK REVIEW:
The book revolves around the suicide of a famous model Lula Landry. While everyone believes it to be a suicide, her brother refuses to believe so and hires a private detective, also the protagonist of the novel, Coromoron Strike to prove the death of his sister to be a murder in disguise of a suicide. The book is extremely well written and keeps the reader guessing till the end whether it’s actually a murder or just a wild goose chase.
The characters presented in the book are also very interesting and diverse, keeping the reader enraptured till the end. The model Lula Landry, is portrayed to be dark skinned and yet, one of the very best and most popular model in her time. Another major issue addressed in the book is the extent of the interference of the paparazzi in the life of celebrities and how this causes a lot of frustration and stress among them. In the book the model is said to have used her friend’s phone due to the hacking of her own by the paparazzi to gain insight into her private life. She is also shown to have been adopted by her current family so as to compensate the loss of a son, by the same. Towards the end of her life she tries to find her real mother, who turns out to be a drug addict and tries to take advantage of her daughter’s status to gain some money by releasing details to the press. Her step mother also seems to be self-centered and treats her like a toy doll. All this shows how she feels out of place and undergoes major depression and stress in the want of love and affection. She faces a sort of identity crisis, trying to place herself and identify herself both in her personal and professional life. Even her friends are shown to be indifferent and often just accompany her for the popularity received. She doesn’t seem to have good relations with her family either, as they often argue about her money. Her love life too seems quite turbulent, with frequent arguments, break ups and patch ups with her boyfriend. All this gives her a fairly strong motive for suicide. Despite the aforementioned reasons, her step brother, John Bristow, refuses to believe that it’s a suicide even after the police confirm it to be one. Therefore, he hires a detective to prove the murder, desperate enough to pay him double for the job. Coromoran Strike is an ex-veteran who lost his leg during the Afghan war and was now a
73 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it private detective, pretty much out of business. He was majorly indebted and was recently thrown out of the house by his fiancé, due to a fight. He was also the unwanted child of a famous rock star. Strike is shown to be a very indifferent and shrewd person. Strike is initially skeptical, having read extensive media coverage following the case, and is unwilling to reopen such a thoroughly investigated case. As the interviewing process proceeds, he encounters Lula Landry's security guard, personal driver, uncle, friends and designer. Each character recounts their recollections of Lula as Strike comes to realize that the circumstances of her death are more ambiguous than he imagined.
Strike interviews several people, such as Lula and John's maternal uncle Tony Landry, Lula's homeless friend Rochelle, and her boyfriend, Evan Duffield. He is especially intrigued by the statement of Tansy Bestigui, Lula's downstairs neighbour, who said she heard Lula fighting with a man and then falling from her balcony. It is clear she could not have heard it from two floors below, so her statement was initially dismissed. However, in reality, her husband had found her with cocaine and then pushed her out onto the balcony and locked her there, which was how she heard it. She did not reveal her true location when she heard the fighting, because it was ten below zero outside when her husband had pushed her onto the balcony, and her husband had forced her to remain silent, fearful of being arrested for abusing Tansy. Later, Rochelle Onifade is found dead, killed hours after leaving a meeting with Strike. He decides that she must have been in contact with Lula's murderer, though he doubts that she knew the person to be the killer. He conducts the investigation very methodically and patiently, making sure to be one step ahead of his suspects. He interacts with all those involved, without making them too suspicious, while carefully extracting from them the information required. He makes extremely smart moves, proving himself to be efficient and vigilant. He plots his entire plan in such a way that at the end of it, the murderer himself comes to Strike. Strike also portrays great understanding of the way people think, as he successfully manipulates all his suspects into confessing details that they hid from the police. He shows complete efficiency, even though he undergoes a lot of stress and frustration from personal problems. This shows his dedication towards his work. Despite his amputated leg and considerably bad appearance, he shows a lot of confidence in his work. \
John Bristow is described as an ugly, lanky person who first comes in very desperate and nervous. He seems to be an innocent person who is hidden to the cruelty of the world but we find that it’s actually the opposite. Due to his desperation to find his sister’s murderer, it seems that he loves her very much. He also shows extreme love and affection for his mother,
74 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it who doesn’t seem interested in this son of hers and keeps grieving about Lula. All in all, John is invisible to his family. His pretty girlfriend keeps everyone guessing as to how they even ended up together. He works in the family firm run by his uncle, Tony Landry, who has a strong disliking towards him and treats him with indifference, often overloading him with excess work and making him do clerical jobs. All this gives us an insight into how the family is dysfunctional and how the siblings are affected. Lula is said to have visited a rehabilitation center for her excessive depression and emotional problems. She is very insecure and trusts no one and constantly keeps testing everyone’s loyalty towards her.
There she meets Rachel Onifade, who is a fellow dark skinned, orphan. Lula treats her like family due to their similar backgrounds and trusts her the most. Rachel basks in this sunlight, as she gets a glimpse into stardom and often very expensive gifts. Lula took a special interest in investigating her biological roots before her death. Strike discovers that the murder of Lula was for the ten million pounds she possessed. Strike figures out that John is in fact the murderer, hoping to get her money, and that he was also responsible for Charlie's (their lost brother) death years before. He was using Strike in an attempt to frame Lula's biological brother Jonah for her murder, suspecting (correctly) that Lula had made a will leaving her fortune to Jonah. John hoped that if the will, which he had been unable to locate, surfaced, Jonah would be unable to inherit if he had been convicted of Lula's murder. He had hoped that Strike's friendship with Charlie would endear him to him. When Strike presents the truth to John, John attempts to stab him, resulting in a physical altercation. Strike is saved when Robin, his assistant returns to the office. This shows that how John commits murder twice, due to the negligence towards him by his mother, who was first always fond of Charlie and later Lula.
This shows the importance of love in one’s life and the consequences of not receiving the same. Even though his mother never acknowledged him as her son, in the end, when she falls ill, he is the one who is there by her side. Parent’s love plays an extremely vital role in the development of a child both emotionally and cognitively. The absence of love and attention results in deep rooted feelings of hatred and negativity. This may sometimes reach the extent of committing murder or harm to others. Another major issue highlighted is the money mindedness of people. Money is put before family and most of the crimes committed in the modern day are based on the inheritance of property or money. Money has become more than an asset and seems to rule over people’s behaviour and relationships. John was so desperate
75 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it for the money that he waits for hours together in the apartment below his sister’s and while he spends the solitary time, he decides to murder her.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: BHAGVAD GITA, SAGE VED VYASA REVIEWER: ISHIKA SAXENA, II PPES O TEACHER IN CHARGE: MRS ASHIKA ALEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sage Ved Vyasa is a central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions. He is also called Krishna Dvaipāyan which is a reference to his complexion and birthplace. He is the author of the Mahabharata, as well as a character in it. Vyasa is considered to be an avatar, or form, of Lord Vishnu. He is also said to be one of the sevenChiranjivins or immortals. Vyasa lived around the 3rd millennium BCE.The festival of Guru Purnima is dedicated to him. It is known as the day he divided the Vedas, as well as his birthday.
BOOK REVIEW:
"In order to approach a creation as sublime as the Bhagavad-Gita with full understanding it is necessary to attune our soul to it." - Rudolph Steiner.
The Bhagvad Gita is an inherently complex account of spirituality and is said to contain the answers to life. All religions fundamentally aim to solve the existential crisis – which is when an individual questions the basics of their life: meaning, purpose, value, etc. They feel insignificant in the larger scheme of things.
The Gita is an episode of the great epic Mahabharata (6,25-42). It is a narration of the dialogue between Arjuna, just before a major battle, and Lord Krishna. Arjuna is faced with the task of fighting his own family, the Kauravas and he is caught between his professional duties and the social affiliation to them as a family member. He chooses not to fight and to be killed rather than to have his conscience stained by the killing of his relatives. This is when Krishna is said to have appeared before him and recited the Gita, in order to explain to Arjuna his own situation from a transcendental point of view.
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As we see, at this point Arjuna faces an existential crisis. He is confused about which side to pick and what the true essence of his life is supposed to be. The foundation of Hinduism is an attempt of the Lord to solve Arjuna’s existential crisis.
A solution to the existential crisis is not something that will expire with time, as the questions asked by existentialism may change, but the fundamentals to solving them will always be the same. Acceptance is, hence, the foundation of most religions. The rest of this review contains an in depth analysis of certain shlokas which may not be entirely applicable in the present scenario:
‘You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.’ (2,47)
The Lord here is advising Arjuna to fight. He says that action with the aim of result is bondage. He states that such work is inauspicious. To not fight is another side of attachment. Any attachment, positive or negative is a cause for bondage. Inaction is also sinful. Therefore, Arjuna must fight. It is the course of action that will lead him to salvation.
However, when critically looked at, doing work with no care for the result is societally redundant. It would lead to exploitation and a worker would not get his dues, for the dues are but the result of action. We are slaves to money (the result of action). As much as we may wish that we can liberate ourselves, it is impossible to eat, sleep or lead a life with no / not enough money. The Lord also states attachment is a cause for bondage. Ignoring that emotional bondage is preferred by some people, this also is quite astonishing to note. The basic fact remains that absolute detachment is a symptom of apathy and not exactly the healthiest state to be in.
‘A person who neither rejoices upon achieving something pleasant nor laments upon obtaining something unpleasant, who is self-intelligent, who is bewildered, and who knows the science of God is already situated in transcendence.’ (5,21)
There are 3 symptoms of a self-realized person. First; he must not be under an illusion of false identification of the body with his true self. He knows perfectly well that he is a fragmental portion of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The steadiness of mind, in not lamenting and not rejoicing is called sthira-buddhi, or self-intelligence. He is never
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bewildered by mistaking the gross body as permanent and disregards the existence of the soul. This knowledge elevated him to knowing the Absolute Truth.
The fact that the body is said to be a temporary container for something larger and bigger is quite debatable. The soul’s existence has no conclusive proof, however spirituality is always said to be something larger than science. Thinking of this kind can be easily misinterpreted and used as an excuse to misuse and not care for one’s own body. This is not healthy. The former portion speaks of self-intelligence and self-realization, the top of the list in Maslow’s hierarchy. However, it advocates apathy. It states that we must transcend and not feel emotion as they are things of the material world. These teachings are a means to skip the steps in between, and jump from your physiological needs to self-actualization in Maslow’s hierarchy, which is not a very good thing.
‘Engage your mind always thinking of Me, become My devotee, offer obeisance to Me and worship Me. Being completely absorbed in Me, surely you will come to Me.’ (9,34)
Krishna states that consciousness of Him is the only means of being delivered from the material world. Krishna is synonymous with Absolute Truth. One must not think of Krishna as King Kamsa did – with anxiety and fear that he will kill us. We must think of Him with devotional love. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, His body is not material, but is eternal, blissful knowledge. It is with this thought that one must engage in worship. One should lower his head, body, activities, everything. This helps in being completely absorbed in Krishna, without deviation.
From this, we can see that Hinduism is a quest for Absolute Truth. However, truth is a subjective concept with several interpretations and societal standards. Absolute Truth here refers to the quest to find oneself and the meaning of one’s life- which must be Krishna. He speaks of worship practices. These are not blind faith but serve a purpose. When all senses are engaged, thought processes are better focused. This is why he speaks of the inclusion of the head, body, activities in worship. It helps to understand completely, one’s own thought processes, which ultimately leads to Krishna. The narration here seems a little narcissistic and self-fulfilling; however it is a translated version and may not sound the same in Sanskrit. ‘Neither the hosts of demigods nor the great sages know My origin or opulence, for, in every respect, I am the source of the demigods and sages.’ (10, 2)
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Lord Krishna is the Supreme Lord. No one is greater than him. Neither the demigods nor the sages can understand his true meaning, so what is the position of the so-called scholars in this material world? The demigods can speculate to the limits of their imperfect senses, and reach the opposite conclusion of im-personalisation, of something not manifested by the three qualities of material nature, or they can imagine something by speculation, however, Krishna cannot be understood through this speculation.
Although one cannot understand the inconceivable Lord who is personally present, He nonetheless exists. Those who worship Brahma as the creator and the Supreme Lord are foolish and engaged in demigod worship. This is not the true path to salvation. Contamination with material energy causes this illusion and leads to the acceptance of demigods.
Here we see that, although Hinduism is believed to be the worship of several Gods and Goddesses, this extract shows that Hinduism is fundamentally based on the attempt to attain one truth and one God. It also speaks about having a personal God, which means that Krishna- or the ultimate truth is purely subjective. The demigods have been created by us- to simply out worship and to make the process of attaining Krishna easier, however, Krishna can only be attained through true worship and not through illusionary hoaxes.
‘They say that this world is unreal, with no foundation, no God in control. They say it is produced of sex desire and has no cause other than lust.’ (16, 8)
The demonic believe that there is no cause and effect, no controller, no purpose: everything is unreal. They do not believe that the world was created by God for a certain purpose. There is no difference between the spirit and matter to them. Everything is matter; the cosmos is a mass of ignorance. We create several things in a dream that have no meaning when we are awake. Demons say that life is a dream. They enjoy this dream rather than acquiring knowledge. They believe that children are the result of intercourse; this world is born without any soul. It is, to them, simply a combination of living matter. They believe that material nature is the cause of everything. They have no perfect knowledge of creation of the world; every one of them has some particular theory of his own. According to them, one interpretation of scriptures is as good as another, for they do not believe in a standard understanding of the scriptural injunctions.
We see that atheism is ridiculed and seen as ignorance here. It is said that atheists do not understand the world and their theories are fluctuating and wavering. They cannot
79 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it comprehend the soul and Absolute Truth as they are plagued by the earthly things of a material world. However, most atheists largely believe in evolution and the general principles of science which are extremely clear and precise. The Gita, itself speaks of a personal God and gives room for individual meaning to each person’s own life. Yet, it described atheism as ignorance and imagination as a thing of illusion. The fact that children are the result of simple sexual intercourse, evolution, the big bang and other concepts have been ignored.
We can see how there are certain recurring themes in the Gita. One is the concept of Absolute Truth – which is supposed to be Krishna. The Gita speaks about how this is the path to salvation and the must be the ultimate goal of a believer. Atheists are also looked down at, as well as those who choose to believe in demigods. While Hinduism is said to be a very liberal religion, we see that it is only liberal because it is misinterpreted and the Holy Scriptures, hardly read. Another interesting thing is the constant reiteration of apathy as the answer to ridding oneself of material desire and temporary things, including the body. We see that the quest of Absolute Truth is the only focus of the true believer and that ‘living’, ‘feeling’, ‘emotion’, are things to be ignored. This is not the best state of things for an individual’s mental health.
Certain verses (not mentioned above) also speak of vocation. They say that one must fulfill the vocation of the family he is born into – it is the path to salvation. Before studying the newer scriptures, when we look into it, Indian civilisation did not have a caste system and movement between vocations was open and easy. It was after the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Gita that these things came into being. This raises questions about the authenticity of translation. An accurate translation is anyway impossible, as certain concepts in language cannot be expressed in other languages. It is possible that this was a way to create castes and bring about divisions is society. Man is, after all, a political animal.
The question that must be asked is, how did we get here? The Rigveda, speaks of the possibility of the Big Bang in its initial pages. It is a profound book on cosmology. We have arrived from things like that to the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Gita and then to concepts such as ‘do not eat cows’. The Ramayana and Mahabharata are said to have been written by humans during the recent past (in terms of religion and Hinduism). They are supposed to be simpler interpretations of the Vedas. However, the Gita itself says that the path to salvation and ultimate truth is not easy.
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SOCIOLOGY
CONTENTS
Sl. No. Title and Author Reviewer
1. The Help, Karthryn Stockett Nikita F
2. Between Shades of Grey, Ruta Sepetys Meera B
3. The House of Cards, Sudha Murthy Annigeri Aishwarya
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee Deepa Padmar
The Great Indian Family: New Roles, Old 5. Anshu Pal Responsibilitie, Gitanjali Prasad
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TITLE AND AUTHOR: THE HELP, KARTHRYN STOCKETT
REVIEWER: NIKITA F, II PPES O
TEACHER IN CHARGE: MRS ANITHA RAVINDRA KUMAR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kathryn Stockett is an American novelist. Before publishing her first novel, she worked in magazine publishing. The Help was her first novel and it took her five years to complete it.The book was rejected by 60 literary agents before agent Susan Ramer agreed to represent Stockett. It has been published in 42 languages. It has sold over 10 million copies. The novel climbed best seller charts a few months after it was released.
BOOK REVIEW: "'So we're the same. Just a different color', says the little colored girl.” The Help is Kathryn Stockett first novel, published in 2009 by G.P Putman’s Sons 2009. It has spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. The main themes of the book include racial segregation, a male dominated society and social hierarchy. What makes this book a truly scintillating one is the grave humor and imagery used to highlight the condition of Black maids in the 1960’s in America. The book is narrated by three very different women; Minny, a black maid unable to keep a job due to her hot head, Aibileen, another black maid who is raising her 'seventeenth white child', and white Miss Skeeter with her buoyant spirit. Newly graduated from college with a degree in English, Miss Skeeter returns home to her parent’s cotton farm in Mississippi. She is looked down with disapproval as she does not have an engagement ring like most of her friends. However, she couldn’t see herself like most ladies of the town whose only goal in life was to gossip, complain and have babies. When Skeeter learns that her beloved nanny, a black maid who looked after her as a child, wasn’t around anymore, Skeeter decides to uncover the truth about what was really happening in the town. The truth shocks her. She sees her friends raising “political issues” of not allowing the maids to use the toilet in their employer’s house. Skeeter, wanting to be a
82 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it writer and make a difference decides to write a book that brings out the real experiences of the help. She therefore, enlists the help of Aibleen and Minny. Aibleen is a black maid who works effortlessly to keep her employers happy. She is good natured, humorous and wise enough to know that there is a huge disparity between the whites and the blacks of Mississippi. Aibleen’s best friend Minny is sassy and unable to hold a job because of her smart mouth. Skeeter approaches them and pleads them to convince 12 maids to give her their story. Though this is a huge risk, the maids finally agree and Miss Skeeter gets closer to them as time passes. She realizes that though she had been taught as a small child that they black people was different, they were very much like her. Along the way, Skeeter is pressured to get married and become a housewife instead of holding a job. She is further ostracized by society when her friends see her talking to the maids. It is also stated that Skeeter engages in a relationship with her friend’s cousin for a short time. He breaks up with her when he finds out that she is an advocate of freedom for black people.
There is also an introduction of a new comer Celia who is from out of town. Celia is gullible, kind and naïve. She forms a bond with Minny, whom she hires to clean the house. She does not practice racism and is very kind to Minny. She is not accepted into the elite society even though she married a rich husband. However, she evolves into a brave woman and learns that she shouldn’t let society degrade her. Thus continues the story of growth. After Skeeter publishes the book, anonymously, it becomes a big hit and the town is outraged yet intrigued. However, Skeeter and the maids are secretly pleased with themselves. The book becomes a powerful force in giving a voice to the black maids and causes the community of Jackson to reconsider the carefully drawn lines between white and black. In the concluding part of the chapter, Aibleen gets fired from her job as people start to suspect it was her who provided the material of the book. She discovers her own courage and talents, which leads her to leave her job as the help and accept an undetermined path that will lead to more independence. Skeeter too evolves into a brave woman who is independent and has her own mind. She leaves the community and heads to New York to pursue her dream of writing.
All in all, the author Kathryn Stockett paints a picture of the harsh conditions that surrounded black maids in the past. Though violent and gruesome it gives us an honest outlook on racism in the past. Sociologists Noël A. Cazenave and Darlene Alvarez Maddern define racism as "A
83 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it highly organized system of 'race'-based group privilege that operates at every level of society and is held together by a sophisticated ideology of color/'race' supremacy.” Evidence of racism is clearly highlighted in this book. Black maids are paid less, treated like lesser human beings and humiliated. Even the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., seen through African American eyes, goes largely unobserved by the white community in the book. One of Stockett's accomplishments is reproducing African American dialect and racy humor without resorting to pompous dialogues. She delineates the conditions of black maids a century after the Civil War. In my opinion, Miss Skeeter’s character represents the theme of estrangement as she is not like the typical women in her society. She fails to meet the wishes of her mother and creates inconsistencies with her friends when she challenges their views about their racial outlook. She becomes self aware and motivated to make a difference in society and help the maids. She is an epitome of strength, beauty and fierceness. Aibleen and Minny are the books loveliest characters. Aibleen has a big heart and has not let the years of pain and suffering cloud her mood when she’s with children. Minny stands up for herself and is shown to posses more respect for herself that even the white women don’t have. The two principal maid characters leap off the page in warm, three dimensional glory. Their unwavering faith in God is beautifully depicted. As Malinowski, the anthropologist suggests that religion promotes social solidarity and helps cope with stress at times of crisis. Their quiet bravery and the outrageous insults dished out by their vain, racist employers helps them to evolve along with Skeeter, into stronger women. I believe that though the book was brilliant, it failed to give us a perspective of the white people who shunned the black society. However, the strong point was definitely the apt representation of imagery. Kathryn Stockett manages to amalgamate fact and fiction perfectly, exploring different emotions ranging from sadness to joy- sometimes in one paragraph. Stockett has not only written an unforgettable story; but also an informative magnum opus, educating people about life of the help in the segregated society of Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s. What makes this book special is the fact that she has used some of her own personal experiences, of growing up in the south. I’d suggest this book to anyone who wants to read about strong women who stood up for themselves and for a shunned community. A thing or two could definitely be learnt from this book. As Miss Skeeter said, “Wasn’t that the point of the book? For women to realize, we are just two people. Not much separates us. Not nearly as much as I’d thought.”
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TITLE AND AUTHOR: BETWEEN SHADES OF GREY, RUTA SEPETYS REVIEWER: MEERA B, II PPES O TEACHER IN CHARGE: MRS ANITHA RAVINDRAKUMAR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
RutaSepetys is a Lithuanian-American writer of historical fiction. Her most famous novel, Between Shades of Gray, was a New York Times Bestseller and Carnegie Medal finalist. Sepetys is a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow. She was also the first American writer of young adult literature to speak at the European Parliament. Her work is published in over thirty languages, across 40 countries.
BOOK REVIEW:
“Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother’s was worth a pocket watch.”
In this novel, RutaSepetys aimed at giving a voice to survivors of the Genocide of Baltic People during World War II and making their previously hidden stories known to the world; both of which she succeeded at. After the Second World War, there were horrifying recollections of experiences of war in America, surviving labor camps in Germany, and protecting families in Japan and Vietnam, but surprisingly, there were hardly any stories to be heard from the survivors of the oppressive regime of Joseph Stalin in the Baltic region of Soviet-era Russia. RutaSepetys, the daughter of a Lithuanian refugee herself, first got the idea for this story from the time she went to Lithuania, and met survivors of the war. She once asked her family for pictures of her grandfather, but they had none; all the pictures had to be burnt during the war for the safety of the family. It was then that she realized severity of the situation her family, amongst thousands of others, had been in.
The story revolves around a fifteen year old girl, Lina Vilkas, who was a talented young artist living with her family- consisting of her ten year old brother; Jonas, her mother; Elena, and her father- until she was taken from her home one warm night in June. Lina, Jonas, and Elena were huddled into a dirty train compartment. They had no idea where the train was going, and they missed their father terribly- they had no idea where he was- nor did they have any idea
85 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it as to why they were being taken away. Packed to the brim with other passengers, the family spends six sweltering weeks in the train car, making unlikely friends among the way. Lina also meets her father for what she realizes later, to be the very last time before he is sent to a prison camp. They are all sent to a town to live, where Lina and her family struggle to stay alive. Later, they are all sent to a Siberian wasteland, to serve the NKVD (NarodnyyKomissaritVnutrennikh Del- a Soviet era police and law enforcement agency).
On the surface, it may seem like a story of another survivor of the most dreadful war in history. But as one digs deeper and deeper, it is clear that this novel captures the very essence of survival and the struggle to stay alive, together. What surprised me the most was the sheer will to live; the enormous effort put in by the tiny community of prisoners, joint in their hatred for the NKVD and confusion, just to survive every new day. Multiple characters in the book make immense sacrifices to take care of each other. For example, Mrs. Arvydas (the mother of Andrius- Lina’s close friend, who falls in love with her later) accepts the opportunity of working as a prostitute for the NKVD men, in exchange for more food and water. She gladly distributes these amongst the other prisoners, no matter how much she is shamed or ridiculed for her difficult decision. The very concept of sacrifice plays an important role in this story. Mrs. Arvydas sacrifices her humility for the welfare of her friends and family. The Vilkas family sacrifices their freedom for the freedom of their relatives. The Baltic States undergo a traumatic genocidal activity, so that the Americans could be free. Lina herself sacrifices going to a prestigious art institution, to which she had applied months in advance. Jonas sacrificed his entire childhood. And if one thinks about it, every single person was robbed of their innocence, humility, and freedom during World War II.
The title, Between Shades of Grey, signifies the plain fact that no matter how dull and dark the future may seem, there’s always a glimmering ray of hope, in between the chaos that is the present. Another popular interpretation of the title could be that it could refer to Lina’s artwork. Before her imprisonment, Lina was a fine artist; she painted with rich, vibrant colors. But after she was taken, left with no coloring supplies, Lina had to resort to more crude methods of pigmentation; a stub of charcoal, a stolen pen, an old pencil, and even leftover ashes mixed with snow to create a watercolor. All of these drawing materials left grey and black pigments. Lina painted and sketched all her experiences for her father to see- they were all codes. If one read through the lines, they would find clues of Lina’s experiences all across the Baltic States.
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There are clear similarities with Between Shades of Grey and Diary of a Young Girl. Both take place during roughly around the same time frame. Both the authors are young, hopeful, and expressive girls- Lina is an accomplished artist, documenting her work through her art, while Anne Frank expressed her opinions similarly, although through her now famous diary. They are both trapped and their views oppressed. But however, that is where the similarities end. Anne resided in Nazi Germany, with Lina in Soviet Russia. Anne’s family was safe, while Lina’s was scattered and betrayed by their friends.
I strongly recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys historical fiction. Anyone who loved Diary of a Young Girl will surely enjoy this as well. This novel teaches us about ancestors, about family, about sacrifices. It teaches us about perseverance, and the will to not only survive, but to live. It teaches us how flawed and cruel humans are, but at the same time, how pure they can be too. At the very least, it teaches us to be grateful for what we have, and to treasure our moments with family and friends- for you never know what you have until it’s gone.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: THE HOUSE OF CARDS, SUDHA MURTHY REVIEWER: ANNIGERI AISHWARYA, II PPES O TEACHER IN CHARGE: MRS ANITHA RAVINDRAKUMAR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sudha Murthy is an Indian social worker and Kannada and English writer. She began her professional career as a computer scientist and engineer. She is the chairperson of the Infosys Foundation and a member of public health care initiatives of the Gates Foundation. She has not only founded several orphanages but also offered complete support to rural development measures. She aided in the movement to provide all Karnataka government schools with computer and library facilities, and established the 'The Murty Classical Library of India' at Harvard University.
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BOOK REVIEW:
There are a lot of novels out there but very few manage to depict the true reality of life through articulate content and imaginative narratives. “House of Cards” by the famous author Sudha Murthy is one such book that mirrors the values of modern Indian society and the day to day conflicts that take place in every middle class person’s life. The book strays away from the world of glory and sticks to the soothing pleasures of life in little things such as having a family dinner, celebrating festivals together, etc.
The female protagonist Mridula, hails from a very small village named Aladhalli which is known for its serene beauty. The author describes the nature and simplistic background of Mridula by speaking about the village as having not more than ten thousand people and having a shore and beautiful temple. It very clearly reflects the traditional values that Mridula is brought up with. The book tries to bring into today’s world the lost culture and values that Indian society was once known for. The celebration of the full moon occurrence by the whole family with relatives and rituals that followed is an epitome of this. Mridula is very strong headed girl and stays away from glitters of materialistic joys. Mridula loves teaching in her village as well as doing all the chores of her household.
She then marries Sanjay who is even minded like her and has similar ideals and virtues. It is when they move to the city Bangalore that trouble whirls up. Unlike his resolute wife Sanjay succumbs to the evils of the big city life and becomes a well-established doctor through unethical means. The book not only describes the effect that money madness has over human relationships but also shows the changing mindsets of the Indian youth and how the culture and values are no more a part of their life. We come across this fact when Mridula overhears her son speaking to his friend about how engineering is more profitable than medical sciences and that how there are other ways of earning more money. Mridula can’t help but feel disgust at her son’s materialistic outlook of life and how manners and parents’ love doesn’t matter to him.
The book beautifully describes the changing lives of Mridula, Sanjay and Sirshir; their son. It is on one side that Sanjay is engrossed in establishing his own nursing home and his son is busy pursuing his career in London that Mridula slowly understands that nobody cares for her and how her advices are taken as interferences. The author very aptly narrates this period of disrupt in relations, and how people slowly start drifting apart.
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It is only after Mridula’s departure from both Sanjay and Sirshir’s life that they both understand the value of her sacrificing nature and her affection towards them. The book highlights the strong values of Indian women and how she puts her family before her but at the same time it explains the changing ideas of the Indian society. The ending of the story leaves the reader touched when she leaves everything and returns to her village to lead her own life on her own terms. The book depicts today’s women as no longer timid but still sacrificial towards their families. They are strong minded and can make their own choices. It reflects the changing Indian society where women are becoming assertive and yet remain true to their culture and Indian values.
TITLE AND AUTHOR: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, HARPER LEE REVIEWER: DEEPA PADMAR, II PPES O TEACHER IN CHARGE: MRS ANITHA RAVINDRAKUMAR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Nelle Harper Lee is an American novelist most popularly known for her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. It was an instant success, winning the Pulitzer Prize. Ithas become a classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors. It is also based on an incident she observed as a child of 10, near her hometown.The novel focuses on class and race and adult attitudes towards the same. It is looked at from the perspective of two children. Though Lee published only this single book for half a century, she was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature.
BOOK REVIEW:
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee is a social commentary set in the Maycomb county of Alabama in the 1930s. The story touches upon numerous social problems such as racial prejudice, male chauvinism and economic discrimination. The central theme, however, is the ill-treatment mated out to the blacks of America. This novel gives us a fresh perspective to the issue as it is narrated from the point of view of a six year old girl- Jean Louise (Scout). The narration is centeredaround her life in Mayomb with her brother Jem, Father(and Lawyer) Atticus, and maid Copernia.
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The main plot is rather simple. A black man, Tom Robinson, was accused of raping a white girl. Atticus decided to represent this man as instinct told him that Tom was innocent. Atticus received heavy criticism for his decision, by some people of the town whereas the liberals supported him in his venture. However, before the judge could decide on his punishment, Tom was found dead.
The racial prejudice was extremely well brought out by Lee, right from the beginning. The Blacks had a separate church; they were usually slaves or indulged in menial jobs. Especially when Tom is accused, the fact that most were positive that he would lose the case highlights inequality.
Coming to male chauvinism, Jem played a major role in the depiction of male stereotypes. Jem was ashamed of Atticus as he was not exactly the epitome of the modern male. Also, throughout the book, Scout was a type of tomboy, who went against all social norms of feminity.
Finally, the economic discrimination. In Maycomb there were the rich and the poor, like anywhere else in the world. This is depicted through the Cunninghams who were unemployed and depended on odd jobs for a living. Also, education, although available to all, could be made use of only by the privileged as the rest of the children had to work to earn a living
What was unique about this novel was that Scout, as a young girl raised innocent questions about the discriminatory practices in her vicinity. She was extremely puzzled as to whether she should be biased as society dictates or if she should follow a principle of equality like that which her father advocated. This book is significant, universally, for it speaks about bigotry, which can manifest itself in various ways throughout the world.
What I learnt was- as Scout would put it- “I, think there are just one kind of folks. Folks.”
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TITLE AND AUTHOR: THE GREAT INDIAN FAMILY: NEW ROLES, OLD RESPONSIBILITIE, GITANJALI PRASAD REVIEWER: ANSHU PAL, II HESP ‘M’ TEACHER IN CHARGE: MRS ANITHA RAVINDRAKUMAR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Gitanjali Prasad (1956-Present) was a journalist and editor for several major publishing and news firms and is now a freelance writer and columnist for reputed papers and magazines like The Hindu, Cosmopolitan, Femina, and more. A graduate of Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi with an Honors in English and a postgraduate Diploma in Journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, she entered journalism at a very young age and became the creative chief of an advertising agency at age twenty three. She has written on family for over two decades and did research on her subject at Wolfson College, Cambridge University in 1999 as well as in a study supported by the Dorabji Tata Trust in 2002. Also, in many of her articles and other works, she has been instrumental in highlighting women’s issues and the numerous problems working women and housewives encounter in their daily lives and affairs.
BOOK REVIEW:
Her book, The Great Indian Family, published by Penguin Books, is a work offering a microscopic view into what the general urban middle-class Indian family is like in the contemporary era and may turn out to be in the near future. A study of the same, it greatly examines its vastness, complexity, structure and culture as well as the numerous complex changes, contradictions of old responsibilities and new roles as well as the evolution of a new and worrying yet heartening, character and balancing work with family time.
This is a one-of-a kind sociological work; it, though greatly based on sociological methods of study, is a journalist’s adventure through the Indian middle-class family today, an institution which is otherwise not viewed or frequently discussed about by indigenous media from a modern viewpoint. In contrast to a report or a paper that not many can get their hands on or understand due to the highly technical character of the same, this work is a simple collection of experiences, observations, history and interviews with various people presented in a clean, rather informal format, a portable interactive session in other words. Also, it is exceptional by
91 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it opening the eye to a female’s mindset towards a family and its matters while at the same time maintaining a high level of neutrality over conclusions and explanations of a bewildering plethora of related phenomena, also something not frequently done in India. The book’s greatest feat, though, is that it shatters numerous stereotypes and conservatism, invokes a sense of sensible realization and introspection and helps provide solutions to the numerous boulders and avalanches that challenge family life.
Therefore, the book is a beacon for navigating through the most fundamental institution one lives in and a reminder of a family’s priceless value and never-ending contribution in one’s life.
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FOREWARD
An intellectual is a person who can balance his/her world view
between his heart and mind. The only way to find the right balance is
through engaging one’s mind in the pursuit of challenges that life
throws at you. ‘Perspectives’ is a venture which seeks to build a
variety of thought processes that dominate the future intellectual
discourses. It might look like a long shot but thoughts, ideas, and
innovations that guide us today had humble beginnings, almost
categorized as adventures during their time. They have come to guide
human endeavors of today. I hope the book reviews published here are
appreciated for their content and potential to be read and reread over a
period of time.
Xavier Louis D’Souza
Faculty – Department of Social Sciences
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BEST RESEARCH PAPER
An Ideology called Falangism- Its Relevance and Possible Use in the Modern Day World
Anshu Pal 14 P 1835, II HESP ‘M’, Department of Social Sciences, Christ Junior College.
Abstract
Ever since people began to form societies, they have always formed different ideas to satisfy
their needs and aspirations, both economic and political. Over time, as their societies and
relations became more and more complex, they have changed them and even created new
ones. By now, the world has learnt about several sociopolitical ideologies. Some well known
examples are the ubiquitous democracy, socialism, fascism and monarchy. However, another,
less discussed ideology is Falangism, a short-lived ideology that was in force in Spain in the mid-20th century to address the country’s problems at the time.In this study, the history,
growth and effects of Falangism as well as its relevance in and solutions for the
contemporary world shall be analyzed and understood. The study mainly focuses on the
applicability of Falangism in the modern context in the historic and socioeconomic
perspective and so, studies the historical and socioeconomic aspects for its objective.
Keywords: Contemporary world, Falangism, historical modern context, societies,
socioeconomic, Spain
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INTRODUCTION
1.1 Etymology and the Symbol Used The term Falangism comes from the Greek word ‘phalanx’, which, in ancient times, meant a formation made by soldiers where they, while marching, would raise and overlap their spears while making their shields touch each other. The use of the term was inspired from the Fascist movement, where the word ‘fascism’ is derived from the Latin word ‘fasces’, meaning a bundle of rods with an axe attached to it, which was a symbol of Roman power.
Since both movements were meant to use force and violence for supremacy, they used the military devices as their symbols. Consequently, the flag generally used for the Falangist movement depicts spears guarded by shields.
1.2 Background
The Falangist ideology began as a movement in Spain during the 1930s in a similar way the Fascist movement emerged a decade earlier. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Spanish monarchy had severely shriveled in strength and authority as its colonies became independent, military strength dwindled in the Spanish-American War and the economy collapsed. Ultimately, it collapsed in 1931, giving way to a republican, democratic government. The new government based itself on liberal policies and attempted to solve Spain’s problems and improve governance. Some policies were implementing universal suffrage, providing freedom of speech, repealing the special status of the elite, severely curtailing the Roman Catholic Church’s power over the government and attempting to properly redistribute wealth. However, problems such as high unemployment, large rural poverty, high monetary inflation and frequent labor strikes plagued its working. Conflict was frequent between the Left- Wing and the Right-Wing forces, both of which plunged into a power struggle, often resulting in violent clashes.
During this era, a party emerged called the Falange. Founded in 1933 and led by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, this organization tried to emerge as a ‘third position’ power and likewise, heavily condemned the Left, the Right and capitalists. It followed a policy of
95 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it republicanism and modernism, and was heavily based on the Fascist movement in Italy-its uniforms, use of violence for power and philosophy matched those of the Fascist Party. Also, it incorporated Spanish nationalism to a high degree in its actions and thinking, fiercely supported the Roman Catholic Church and wanted to powerfully assert Catholic ideals. At the same time, it was opposed to both capitalist and communist economic systems, favoring syndicates made by cooperating laborers and their employers to jointly run firms, industry and the economy as a whole and government arbitration over credit and wages while respecting private property. However, it received little support in the early years.
1.3 Rise and the Role of Francisco Franco
The organization came into the limelight with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, the result of a coup attempt by the Nationalists to gain power after defeat in the national elections. Involved in the coup, it sided with the Nationalists and, with the military support of Nazi Germany, Italy and Portugal, helped the Nationalists win the war over the Republican government by 1939. Thereafter, Francisco Franco, the commander of the Nationalist forces, made himself the dictator of Spain, incorporating many Falangist values and using them to rule the country till his death in 1975.
Over time, however, he also modified and diluted many of the ideology’s principles and values for convenience in administration, turning Spain into more of a dictatorship with a flavor of Falangism under him than a state fully heeding Falangism. In other words, the ideology became a tool instead of a rule. This became more evident as the country, during the 1950s and 1960s, experienced a great socioeconomic boom which was driven by technocratic, more capitalist thinking, something despised earlier. Also, through greater contact with the rest of the western world from the late 1950s, changes in public attitudes and thinking weakened the ideology’s stance and relevance in Spanish society.
1.4 The Policy and Spain under Franco’s Rule
When started as a movement by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the Falangist ideology was based on twenty seven principles, called the ‘twenty seven points’, which formed the basic policy. The major principles announced were (Sills and Merton,1968):
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1. Political unity of Spain and elimination of regional separatism. 2. Abolition of political parties. 3. Establishment of a nationalist dictatorship led by the party. 4. Use of violence in regenerating Spain. 5. Development of Spanish imperial power. 6. Expansion and strengthening of the armed forces. 7. Recognition and support of Catholicism as the official religion of Spain but rejection of any clerical influence in government. 8. A sweeping economic reform, referred to as “revolution,” which emphasized the following:
(a) Establishment of a complete system of national syndicates, embracing employers and employees, to organize, coordinate, and represent all of Spain’s economic activity.
(b) Sweeping agrarian reform, reclaiming wasteland, improving techniques, concentrating scattered holdings and reorganizing the great latifundia (estates owned by the aristocracy).
(c) Stimulation of industrial expansion.
(d) Basic respect for private property, but nationalization of all credit facilities to eliminate capitalist usury.
In addition, it adopted a conservative mindset in social terms, most notably discouraging the adoption of women’s rights and declaring that a woman’s only job was to be a loving mother and a submissive wife. Also, it supported intolerance for worker strikes and agitations while using force to curb them.
At the time, as mentioned earlier, the economy of Spain had collapsed largely due to high inflation, lack of employment of a large rural population and the dwindling of its cash reserves as a result of the Spanish-American War and the independence of Cuba and the Philippines. Also, due to a large amount of control of rural property by a large portion of the aristocracy as well as the latter’s refusal to compromise, rural poverty remained high. In addition, Rivera’s father, General Miguel Primo de Rivera, had ruled Spain as an autocrat within the monarchy from 1923 to 1930 and was responsible for greatly improving the country’s infrastructure, eliminating most of the unemployment prevailing for the time being
97 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it and expanding foreign trade and industry in an attempt to revive the economy. He had also helped improve the functioning of enterprises by enabling proper worker-employer cooperation.
Thus, in the midst of all this, the failure of the Republican government to properly solve the problems, despite its many liberal and modern approaches, anguished most of the population and so, Falangists met little opposition when they captured power.
1.5 Effects and Changes in the Ideology
Many of the principles were unchanged. Franco’s regime used violence to suppress any form of dissent and made the existence of other political parties illegal. Frequently, emphasis was laid on traditional, conservative aspects of Catholic ideology and women’s rights were very limited. Even in the 1960s, a woman could not create her own bank account or travel outside of her town or area of residence without her husband’s, brother’s or father’s permission. The regime sought to create a cultural and economic alliance of Hispanic or Spanish-speaking nations, which ultimately did not materialize. Also, democracy and communism were constantly subject to harsh criticism by the regime through the state controlled media and other means of spreading propaganda.
This did not mean, though, that it inhibited social change- it was actually responsible for a lot of it. Worker-employer syndicates were established for running the economy, as per Falangist principles, and though different social classes existed, little distinction was made between them and as propounded by traditional Falangists, general harmony and cooperation between them prevailed. Rural lands, especially the latifundia, were more equitably distributed and at the same time, the modernization of farming techniques as well as the construction and maintenance of irrigation projects was done, helping to increase rural incomes and living standards, make agriculture more productive and reduce land related conflict.
However, some changes were made in the ideology so as to establish Francisco Franco’s dictatorship’s legitimacy and strength in addition to suit changing political and economic needs during his rule. As World War II tilted towards favoring the Allied Powers in 1943, he ceased to express or endorse imperialistic views on Spain such as retaking Portugal (as it did in the 16th century) and instead began to be more neutral and reduced the army’s
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strength. The United States and other western countries’ policy of rapprochement with Franco due to Spain’s strategic geographical position in the Cold War during the 1950s necessitated changes in the bureaucracy and the regime’s approach to foreign relations, which Franco allowed to happen. Gradually, he reduced anti-capitalist rhetoric, heavily promoted and expanded foreign trade and began to allow capitalist enterprises to be created and operate in the country, sometimes even supporting them. By the 1970s, near the end of Franco’s rule, these factors made Spain assume a more covert capitalist and a gradually more liberal character, where a diverse consumer market began to flourish, social mobility became freer and even women began to be employed due to economic changes, something unimagined three decades earlier.
Eventually, Franco ruled Spain as a dictator following a heavily altered form of Falangism until his death in 1975. Thereafter, Spain once again became a democratic country with a constitutional monarchy- the royal family had been allowed to usurp Franco after his death by Franco himself and it helped reinstate democracy. Likewise, Falangism, even in its altered form, disappeared from mainstream Spanish politics. Today, there are two somewhat Falangist parties in the country which play a miniscule role.
1.5 Falangism in Other Parts of the World
Throughout the early and mid-20th century, a number of Falangist organizations emerged, mostly in Latin America, where most countries, being former Spanish colonies, shared relatively strong cultural links with it and their rulers sharing good relations with Francoist Spain. However, they never established themselves as major political forces and most are now either defunct or operate at the fringes of politics. At best, they are minor forces of Latin American politics operating within small spheres. A few were also created in the U.S.A., Poland, France and the Philippines, all of which are now defunct.
However, a Falangist-inspired organization was created in Lebanon which has survived and retained a lot of its political relevance in the country, the Lebanese Phalanges Party or, in Arabic, the Kataeb Party and Phalanges Libanaises in French. This organization was created in 1936 with inspiration fromNazism and Falangism, initially to curtail the then expanding pan-Arab influence in the country, which, according to the party, was set to threaten Lebanon’s independent identity and culture. Also, it was meant to safeguard the interests of the minority Maronite Christian community in the country as well as promote and
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protect basic human rights and freedom in Lebanon. Added to this, it wanted to maintain Lebanon as a unique nation in the Middle East, different from its Arab neighbors and with a distinct ‘Phoenician’ identity of its own and not an Arab identity. Even today, most of these goals have been maintained by it. Playing a major role in the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s and 1980s, its military force was engaged in heavy conflict with Syrian forces wanting to occupy Lebanon. Thereafter, its importance declined but from the 2000s, it has once again been a major political force, often in conflict with the militant organization Hezbollah and even having some of its members appointed to the Lebanese parliament and the ministry.
Review of Literature
The main sources of reference used are informational websites and documentaries related to Falangism and Franco’s regime, which have been critically observed and analyzed for the study.
First, the page Falangism on the website Wikipedia is a brief description of the policy of Falangism. It gives a neutral explanation of how Falangism originated, grew in strength and what its core principles originally were. It also explains how it gradually reworked to suit Francisco Franco’s regime in later years. From it, it has been understood that Falangism was an ideology that promoted autocratic rule in- by the standards of the time- an unconventional manner, blending different aspects of varied ideologies while focusing on autocracy to achieve its objectives. Also, though the ideology was positioned as a ‘third front’ or wing with the intention of being distinct from and greatly antagonizing Leftist and Rightist politics, it has today been considered to be a mostly Rightist ideology as it places an extreme form of nationalism as its base. The page Falangism on the website Encyclopedia.com does the same as well using
The page Francisco Franco, also on Wikipedia, gives a well- detailed account of the person himself. It extensively explains Franco’s life, explaining his roots in the military, his intentions of coming into power and his rule over Spain. It also explains the policies he pursued, the achievements made and atrocities committed by him and the aftermath of his rule. What can be understood from his biography on the page is that he primarily supported conservative policies and philosophy and so, after coming into power, made strong attempts throughout his rule to preserve traditional social values and doctrines. In addition, and contrary to what he tried to portray of his regime, he basically governed not solely on the
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basis of the ideology but also on the basis of changing social, economic and geopolitical trends of the time.
On the website YouTube, the video The Spanish Civil War: The Falange, which is an excerpt of the BBC documentary The Spanish Civil War, shows former Falangist leaders, along with Rivera in a recording, state that the ideology was created to oppose the existing social doctrines in Spain and uphold spiritual values. Also, in his speech, Rivera, justifying the assumption of power by the Falangists, states that Spain had declined due to regional separatism, the presence of a number of political parties and a ‘class struggle’ in the society. This thus, highlights the turbulent political and social condition of Spain on the eve of Franco’s assumption of power, which has been explained earlier in the report.
The documentary The Many Faces of Spain by the erstwhile Westinghouse Network, though incorrectly titled as ‘The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War- 1936-1939’ on YouTube, is on the tremendous socioeconomic changes in Spain by 1961 during Franco’s rule through changes in Falangism. It comprehensively shows how foreign trade, domestic industrial production, foreign investment and agricultural growth and development burgeoned already by that time through the stability autocratic rule offered as well as technocratic reforms the regime made. Also, it shows the increase in Spanish women’s independence of living as well as their greater involvement in the workforce, rapid urbanization by rural inhabitants for better work and life and an expanding middle class, highlighting the disintegration of traditional social doctrines and barriers to at least a notable extent. Not to mention, it shows the preservation of traditional customs and the still strong spiritual connection the people had with the church at the time in the midst of all the changes occurring around them.
Results of Discussion
The main intention of the report is to understand the relevance of Falangism today and see some plausible solutions it can provide for present-day issues. This shall be understood as the result of the research conducted.
In the contemporary era, there are numerous issues and matters in the developing world that countries within it are working to solve for a long time but have not been able to do so completely or effective. Keeping in mind the fact that most countries in the developing
101 | Page Perspectives - One World, Many Paradigms t he way we see it world are democracies at least functionally and espouse liberal values, Falangism cannot be completely applied since it disagrees with the same in its fundamental principles. However, some of its principles can be applied for some of their biggest social and economic challenges, which are:
1. Controversies and inequity in land ownership and usage. 2. Conflict or tensions between different social classes. 3. Differences between governments and private players over handling varied socioeconomic matters. 4. Labor disputes and the misuse of political power by trade unions. 5. Regional separatism, especially in culturally or linguistically diverse regions.
As seen earlier, Spain had been profoundly affected by these problems when Falangism began to emerge, which were later solved by it. Its policy of promoting class cooperation instead of conflict, through which both the whole of society and different social classes should benefit, is a key reason. Through syndicalism, which facilitates different social classes to work for common goals that help them achieve a win-win solution as well as personal goals, where the goals are mainly related to economic and social aspects, the chances of increased productivity, increased social mobility and peaceful solutions to disputes such as labor disputes can be higher. Another form of syndicalism, where both governments and private players cooperate to achieve common goals in the form of policies or projects related to various fields such as finance, infrastructure, social welfare and security measures, environmental conservation and more, can help reduce disagreements and lack of synchronization and instead increase economic and human development while achieving targets of projects or policies more punctually, an urgent need in developing countries. In addition, its policy of strongly opposing regional separatism and even using force if necessary can be useful for mitigating conflicts related to the same in many countries though necessary modifications must be made to suit them regarding their nature.
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Summary and Conclusion
Falangism as an ideology was short-lived and, unlike democracy, socialism or monarchy, did not have a wide influence in the global geopolitical or socioeconomic scenario. It was confined to Spain’s internal affairs on the whole and was mainly tailored to respond to the economic, political and social problems Spain when formulated, focusing mainly on rebuilding the country from the period of general turmoil it experienced from these problems. Also, a totalitarian form of government was advocated by it, which contradicted the general trend of democratization in world politics.
The present day global scenario offers a different scope for its use, however, even in the democratic structure. In developing countries following democracy, governments have, through legislation, policymaking, developmental programs and schemes and even assistance from other countries and international bodies, worked to improve their countries’ socioeconomic conditions and situations to the optimum level. The presence of several loopholes in their efforts, though, have led to mixed successes and failures, that is, incomplete or disproportionate levels of achievement. These loopholes have generally emerged from the inability to address structural problems in the societies, economies and politics in the countries. Thus, the socioeconomic welfare-based policies and ideals of Falangism may be adopted and executed by them to remove the loopholes as explained earlier and so, socioeconomic progress can be made much faster, more comprehensive and more successful.
The real effect of these Falangist policies can be properly observed and understood only when they are actually implemented with the modifications required for implementation in a democratic setup. Nevertheless, based on their implementation in the past, possibilities for their successful implementation exist in the current conditions within the developing world. The possibilities are high and the current conditions of the developing world are increasingly becoming relevant to reintroduce it in a new form in tune with democracy.
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References
• Biography.com Editors. Francisco Franco Biography. Retrieved August 2, 2015 from
Biography.com: http://www.biography.com/people/francisco-franco-9300766.
• DOCUMENTARY TUBE. The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939.
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEHrWCzk_Ow.
• "Falangism." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 1968. Retrieved
August 17, 2015 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-
3045000390.html.
• Francisco Franco. Retrieved August 2, 2015 from the University of Michigan- The
Spanish Case: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/spanishcase/francisco_franco.
• Spanishspeakingworld/ Franco; The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Retrieved August
2, 2015 from spanishspeakingworld: https://spanishspeakingworld-
12b.wikispaces.com/Franco%3B+The+Good,+the+Bad+and+the+Ugly.
• thewolf32. Francisco Franco speech - Subtitled to English. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX_-faiNTVU.
• Wikipedia/Falangism. Retrieved August 2, 2015 from the Wikipedia Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falangism.
• Wikipedia/Francisco Franco. Retrieved September 17, 2015 from the Wikipedia
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Franco.
• xHerrAmn. Spanish Civil War: The Falange. Retrieved from
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_2XyoxK-uE.
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