Eating God
Ed. by Arundhathi Subramaniam | Penguin | Rs 599
There is no better way to introduce this anthology of Bhakti poetry than to hear the editor, Arundhathi Subramaniam, brief us about it, “Bhakti poems offer sanctuary, companionship, illumination – signposts on what often is turbulent and uncertain journey. They are reminders of the human struggle to give utterance to that strange hunger for something that we seem perennially on the verge of apprehending – the mystery that…is totally foreign to us, but [with which] we are completely at home.” You’ll find many voices here – geographical, social, linguistic, psychological and historical. Each one sings a song.
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Sardarji & Other Stories
Khwaja Ahmad Abbas | Om Books | Rs 295
“The strength of your short stories my dear Abbas, lies in the fact that you have grasped the weakness of your characters amid their strengths,” wrote Mulk Raj Anand, the late doyen of Indian fiction in English, in the introduction to one of Abbas’ short story collections. Writer, journalist & screenwriter Khwaja Ahamd Abbas (1914-1987) is best remembered for his story, “Sardarji” and film scripts that include Naya Sansar, Jagte Raho, Neecha Nagar, Awara and Bobby to name a few. His short stories are being re-discovered now. This slim volume will entrance and move you.
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Powers of Two
Joshua Wolf Shenk | John Murray & Hachette India | Rs 499
Joshua Wolf Shenk, an essayist, author and curator based in Los Angeles, USA, makes a persuasive argument that most creative individuals work in pairs. The idea of solitary genius or locating creativity in networks, he says is only one part of the story. The other less discussed and accepted reality is that John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Picasso and Matisse and many others worked or engaged as pairs to create the world most memorable, life altering and incredible things. There is power in collaborations. Time we acknowledged this.
(The above reviews appeared in Sunday edition of the Mail Today, New Delhi, dated 23 November 2014.)
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