Fresh Ink

Kusum Khemani’s 2013 novel Lavanyadevi, follows a traditional aristocratic Bengali family as it transitions into modernity, from British India to the present. Spanning five generations of a zamindar family, Lavanyadevi is a story about women and their search for self, about shared laughter and friendships that endure across generations, beliefs and cultures—between mother and daughter, grandmother and granddaughter, and Marwari and Bengali women. Khemani’s women protagonists are strong, clear-sighted, both worldly and sublime, embodying a larger-than-life idealism while being grounded firmly in the everyday. Lavanyadevi—a compelling woman of perfection, extraordinary vision, qualities, and grace—remains real and credible because she is self-aware, self-critical, open to others, and to change. Chronicling change in women’s lives over two centuries, Lavanyadevi is as valuable today for its questioning of majoritarian perspectives of caste, culture, sexuality, and faith, as for its advocacy of humanitarianism beyond borders.

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A novel true to life. Quiet and thoughtful, it is the first-person story of a young man in Delhi and his family. He is a lecturer at a university and has liberal views. His wife is a doctor and his friends are in civil services and private jobs. This would seem to be a familiar middle-class saga—except that they are all DalitThe main characters are in conflict as they go through experiences of discrimination because of their names and backgrounds, and of liberation because of their education and qualifications.The story is also about a young man’s sexual and romantic experiences, family relationships and social consciousness, where caste does not play a defining role. The novel is certain to make readers explore concepts of caste, class and religion, familial and societal dynamics, as well as friendship, love and loyalty to a person or a cause.

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In an unnamed city in India, violence is erupting between Hindus and Muslims, each side viewing the other with suspicion, rage, and blame. As their identities sharpen, friends and colleagues turn against each other. Hospital beds fill up and classrooms empty out. Curfews are imposed. Residents flee en masse.

Three intellectuals find themselves paralyzed by anxiety and fear. Shruti, a creative writer, spends her time writing and rewriting the same sentence. Hanif is sidelined by his academic department for his own beliefs. And Sharad finds it increasingly difficult to connect with Hanif, his childhood friend. The only one left to bear witness is the novel’s unnamed narrator, who hurries to transcribe everything that’s happening.

Explosive, raw, and uncompromising, Our City That Year unfolds in a time of rising uncertainty and dread, when nothing will go back to being as it was before. Twenty-five years after its original publication in Hindi, Shree’s clarion call to bear witness to the toxic ideology of religious nationalism is timelier than ever, speaking to the growing divisions across global borders.

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Abdus-Salam Kalshekar’s only aspiration was to publish his Dastan-e-Ishq, a seven-volume ‘Saga of Passion’, before his death. While Salam could only complete three volumes, an author sets out to write a novel about Salam, unveiling the fifty-three diaries about the latter’s past amours that consume the saga. It also reveals a certain beloved whom Salam could never bring himself to write about. While Salam’s life unfolds a world that is riddled with patriarchy, caste prejudice, religious intolerance and exploitation in the name of faith, the deeper conflicts of love and abandonment are revealed in this expertly crafted narrative.

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Journalist Kishan Vidrohi has been murdered…or not. There is no witness, no evidence, and no corpse. His bedclothes are
bloodied and arrows stained with blood have been found in his room. With the media playing down the death, his protégé sets out to discover the truth. Through the murder – if it is indeed murder – he learns the history of the city and the country that vanished beneath it. The real estate business, hydropower companies, and transport and urban planners, have descended on virgin land promising development, to a people who find themselves in a place they no longer own and can barely name. Are they doomed to life in this realisation of the mythical Lemuria Islands, or will they regain the land of their ancestors? Playing on myth and magic realism, even while looking at a story that has staged in every part of any developing nation with natural resources on offer, Ranendra forces us to examine the grey shades in the conflict between tribal rights and urbanisation in his A Country Vanishes.

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Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’ was among the maverick writers who shaped modern Hindi literature. In his prose writings—fearless, provocative and startlingly original, much like his poetry—Nirala regards the world with the eyes of a compulsive satirist, committed to laying bare its hypocrisies. A Portrait of Love is an ode to Nirala’s genius, drawing attention to his long-ignored legacy in prose. From his poignant yet humorous sketch of rural India in Billesur Bakriha to the sophisticated urbanity of Lucknow in ‘Portrait of a Lady-Love’; from questioning the ideals of marriage and love in ‘Sukul’s Wife’ to celebrating the nexus between writers and courtesans in colonial Calcutta in ‘What I Saw’; from hailing agency among the oppressed castes in ‘Chaturi Chamar’ to shining a light on an uneasy relationship between education and progress in ‘Jyotirmayee’—this collection sparkles with wit, atmosphere and an unmistakable autobiographical streak, taking readers to the heart of India and introducing them to the colourful cosmos of Hindi literature. (from the publisher’s blurb)

Review: Can a Translation Pay Fitting Tribute to a Linguistic Polymath? by Ashutosh Thakur

Review: A new translation of Nirala by Chittajit Mitra.

Review: A Flag For The Future by Basudhara Roy

To buy: Amazon, Flipkart

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The Hanuman Chalisa is one of the best-loved hymns and poems of all time. Many millions recite it by heart—in times of joy or sorrow, success or distress, and when they are in need of courage. Its words and music are designed to lift the spirits of both the believer and non-believer. Vikram Seth—as acclaimed and popular a poet as he is a novelist—spent some years translating this beloved classic into English, in rhyme and metre. The result is a flawless translation which has the magical incantatory quality of the original Awadhi. Millions can now recite The Hanuman Chalisa in English. This elegant bilingual edition has the original verses in Devanagari and Roman script alongside the English translations. It is a book for a lifetime—to be bought for oneself, and to gift. (from publisher’s note)

To buy: Amazon

Interview of Vikram Seth with BBC India

Review: Hanuman Chalisa to Happy Birthday; Vikram Seth’s new book of suitable rhymes