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Volume 2 Issue 7
www.justbooksclc.com
blog.justbooksclc.com          CONNECT                                                                               September 2011
                                                                                                              For limited circulation
                                                                                                            A JustBooks Publication




                   When In Doubt                                                                   Pg 10
                                                                                                    Quiz




                                                                                                                         Pg 14
                                                                                                                         Just
                                                                                                                         Kids




                                                                                                   Pg 15
                                                                                                   Author
Anindita Sengupta                               with this brand of clear, refreshing free-         Profile
                                                dom. Neither are Dalits.
                                                  The difficulty of this is not that some-
A recent interview of Amitav Ghosh              body, just anybody, has made the state-
contains what many consider gaffes              ment but that the person is one of our
on the writer's part. Perhaps the               finest writers and intellectuals. His words   person who wrote The Shadow Lines, a
fault lies in interview overdose says,          carry weight. People who don't know bet-      deeply affecting saga which examined
Anindita Sengupta.                              ter may, on reading this, think cheerily      among other things, the identity issues of
                                                that India is indeed a place of amazing       Bangladeshi refugees. Why is he spouting


I
    ndia offers untrammeled freedom. I'm        liberty or liberation.                        clichés that sit better in the mouths of
    not certain about this but writer             As blunders go, this one gains prickli-     India-shining political campaigners?
    Amitav Ghosh seems to be. "That's one       ness because it's also a reminder of the        More importantly, this makes me think
of the wonderfully liberating things about      accusation that Indians writing in English    of the writer as celebrity, and the perils of
India; it lets you be exactly who you want to   often face. Elitism.                          this. Writers have always been expected
be," he said in a recent interview with Lila      Ensconced in privilege, out of touch        to be articulate and thoughtful, intellectu-
Azam Zanganeh for Guernica magazine.            with reality and unable to write about        al (and moral) beacons.
Predictably, this roused some rants, espe-      universes outside their own—these are           Whether this expectation is fair or not is
cially on Facebook where it was hotly dis-      the charges. Some of Ghosh's statements       another debate. Many of us look to writ-
cussed in some circles.                         in this interview help the perception.        ers for that rare and strange quality, wis-
  Being 'exactly who you want to be' can be     (Elsewhere, he talks about how "almost        dom. Frequently, they provide this not
thorny in India unless you are upper            everyone" he knows "constantly" travels       just in the books they write but also via
class, upper caste and male. Women              between continents and nation-states.)        articles, essays and interviews. With
across most classes are not acquainted          I'm pained in a personal way. This is the                              contd on pg 2...
2                                                                                                JustBooks Connect - September 2011
                                           contd from pg 1...
     From the Editor’s                     Internet magazines mushrooming
          Desk                             like a bad case of acne, opportunities
                                           have multiplied.
                                             Celebrity writers are barraged by



    H
                                           requests from small and big journals
             ow many times you have        and what was once driven by an
             wanted to write and you       urgent need to say something has
             did write but felt the        devolved into a weekly task to be
    thoughts that were so clear in your    ticked off the to-do list.
    mind, you have not been able to          We can agree solemnly over chai
    capture them in words.                 that writers should know better than
       Then you chided yourself that       to air their views when tired, drunk,
    everyone cannot be a writer. How       sleepy, brain-dead, zoned, distracted
    does one become a writer? Should       or numb. But publicity is tempting.
    one be born with the writing talent    Email interviews make things even
    or can one acquire it?                 easier. Shout into the void and some-
       Similar questions come up when      one will reply. If the shout's not
    one talks about reading as a habit.    always lucid, it will hopefully be
    What makes one a reader? How           buried under twenty other inter-
    can we encourage reading and           views.
    help people acquire this habit?          It's impossible for anyone to be wise
       In our quest to find answers to     on tap, all the time. The answer, it
    such questions, we at JustBooks                                                          Royal Geographical Society. And I don't
                                           would seem, is to say no more often.
    came to a conclusion that perhaps                                                        mean horse. Women writers, he said, had
                                           When in doubt, shut up.
    if we can bring out the various                                                          a "narrow view of the world" and were too
                                             Reclusiveness may be considered a psy-
    facets of our literary, publishing                                                       "sentimental". This is because a woman
                                           chological negative, a symptom of anxi-
    and printing industry and people                                                         was "not a complete master of a house, so that
                                           ety, fear or paranoia, but in this case it's in
    involved in them, in form of inter-                                                      comes over in her writing too".
                                           order.
    esting stories, feature articles,                                                          Journalist and critic Nilanjana Roy
                                              J.M. Coetzee didn't show to collect his
    interviews, etc. and put them                                                            points out that this should not shock any-
                                           Nobel prize and sent a recorded accept-
    together in a magazine format, it                                                        one because "a list of Sir Vidia's targets
                                           ance speech instead.
    might inspire people to take up a                                                        over the decades includes Africans, Muslim
                                             More recently at the Jaipur Literary
    book.                                                                                    invaders in India, infies (inferior people) of all
                                           Festival, he refused to talk before read-
       We have been working on such a                                                        colours and races, Indian women writers, his
                                           ing, letting the words in his book suffice.
    literary magazine and will share                                                         wives, his lovers, his friends, his editors,
                                           This may be an extreme-and let's face it,
    more details with you soon. So                                                           including the nonagenarian Diana Athill, the
                                           we readers love our celebrities just as
    watch out for this space!                                                                issuers of worthless degrees (Oxbridge), fool-
                                           much as Hollywood junkies love theirs-
       Now coming to this edition, our                                                       ish people, people who do not serve him his
                                           but restraint can be sexy.
    lead article focuses on why famous                                                       vegetables in separate dishes…".
                                             We have the opposite of that in Sir
    and well-established writers,                                                              His arrogance is certainly apparent. On
                                           Vidia who unfailingly entertains us year
    whom we believe to represent our                                                         any women writer being equal to him, Sir
                                           after year. Lately, he made an equine ani-
    intelligentsia, make statements                                                          Vidia said: "I read a piece of writing and
                                           mal of himself while speaking at the
    that not just create controversy but                                                                within a paragraph or two I know
    changes our opinion about them.                                                                     whether it is by a woman or not. I
       Sometimes the statements are                                                                     think [it is] unequal to me."
    misconstrued or said in haste but                                                                     From all hearsay and based
    sometimes they are meant to be                                                                      on the couple of times I've met
    what they are!                                                                                      him in person, Ghosh is not
       We also have an interview with                                                                   anything like Sir Vidia.
    three promising multi faceted per-                                                                  Perhaps, he didn't quite mean
    sonalities, who share their journey                                                                 what he said. Or didn't mean it
    as a writer with us. Some of the                                                                    like that. Or something. Maybe
    questions raised at the beginning                                                                   I'm off the mark by miles.
    of this column will have an answer                                                                  Maybe he meant every word.
    in their reply.                                                                                     Let's hope not.
       We hope that reading about
    these writers will prompt our                                                                                  Source Credits:
    members to start writing and
    sending in their contributions to                                                                      http://www.guernicamag.com
                                                                                                        /interviews/2674/ghosh_5_15_11/
    us.
       As usual, do tell us what you                                                                      http://akhondofswat.blogspot.
    think of this edition and send us                                                                   com/2011/06/speaking-volumes-
    your feedback to editor@just-                                                                       some-notes-on-sir.html
    booksclc.com.                     
                                                                                                          http://www.thehindu.com/arts
                                                                                                          /books/article2071298 .ece 
JustBooks Connect - September 2011                                                                                                      3

Freedom                                                                Deliverance
Jonathan Franzen                                                       Gauri Deshpande, Translated by Shashi Deshpande
4th Series Press                                                       Women Unlimited


Anindita Sengupta                                                       Dr. Rajeshwari Ghose



               F                                                                        T
                     irst, the Berglunds. Patty and Walter are                                 his novella was originally written in
                     ideal neighbours, loving parents and                                      1987 in Marathi and recently translated
                     upstanding members of American subur-                                     into English by Shashi Deshpande.
                bia.                                                                       The fact that it was written in a regional
                  Patty is humble to the point to self deprecation,                      Indian language and that too well over two
                remembers people's birthdays and knows where                             decades ago has a special significance. Certain
                to recycle batteries.                                                    subjects were not openly discussed then and
                  Walter is well-meaning and gentle. But there                           we, in India, had a number of 'sacred cows'
                are several chinks in this middle class bliss: Patty                     that we did not address in an open forum. The
loves their younger child Joey too much, at least one neighbour                          Indian notion of motherhood was one such
finds her condescending and men find her too charming. More            sacrosanct image. Gauri Deshpande clinically examines a
surprising is the fact that Joey is having sex at 12 with his 13-      mother-daughter relationship, a family dynamic that is volatile
year-old neighbour and soon decides to move in next door.             and full of its own unresolved issues.                         


Evening is the Whole Day                                               Burnt Shadows
Preeta Samarasan                                                       Kamila Shamsie
HarperCollins                                                          Picador



Anindita Sengupta                                                       Anindita Sengupta




                 S                                                                       B
                      et in post-independence Malaysia, Preeta                                  urnt Shadows treads ambitiously across
                      Samarasan's impressive debut novel                                        a lot of terrain-cities and language, tur-
                      explores how the coils of family can bind                                 moil, loss, survival, and love-and in
                and strangle. The British have left and Malaysia                          doing so, manages to move, bruise and heal.
                is a tumultuous land heaving with the strug-                                The story begins with a prologue: a man in a
                gles and competitions of its three primary                                prison cell wonders "How did it come to this".
                races. In the midst of political turmoil, a                                 In four separate, intricately drawn sections
                Tamilian family manages their equally tumul-                              about Nagasaki, Delhi, Karachi and New York,
tuous (though less obviously bloody) relationships, and tries to       Shamsie unravels the answer to that question. Knowing the trajec-
remain sane. For the most part, Samarasan exercises consider-          tory, one might imagine that the rest is predictable but it's not
able control over her prose, unleashing torrential description         really. There is enough unexpectedness and nuance to carry the
when required and switching to a sparer register at moments of         story beyond the severity of war polemic. And yet, the larger his-
keen tension or menace. There is quite a bit of humour here as         tories that inform and affect these individual lives are always
well. Samarasan has crafted a novel that is dark and honest, and       there, barely hidden away like the bird-shaped burns on Hiroko's
one that holds much meaning to ponder.                                back.                                                             

Crucial Confrontations: Tools for resolving bro-                       The Big Questions
ken promises, violated expectations and bad behav-                     Steven E. Landsburg
                                                                       Pocket Books
ior
Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler
Tata McGraw-Hill                                                        Dr. Rajagopalan
Manjula Sundharam



                 C                                                                       T
                       rucial Confrontations talks about how                             he big philosophical questions are
                       we can express our disappointments and                            grouped into four categories by
                       expectations.                                                     Landsburg: What is reality? What is the
                  The authors teach us with relevant examples,                     nature of our beliefs? How do we gain knowl-
                what we need to do before, during and after                        edge? What is right and wrong? Ideas and
                holding a crucial confrontation.                                   methods of mathematics, physics and eco-
                  The book provides useful strategies for corpo-                   nomics are used to understand these big ques-
                rate executives to hold people accountable for                     tions more rigorously.
                their non performance.                              Landsburg, who earlier gave us The Armchair Economist
  Though there are no guarantees that confrontation would         and More Sex is Safer Sex, has done it again: provoking us
magically transform people around us, the authors offer many with big questions, novel explanations and leaving us to wres-
easy to understand strategies for leaders to act as facilitators, tle with more questions. Over all this is a fantastic travel-read:
enablers and supporters.                                        short, witty and important.                                      
                                        For detailed reviews check out justbooksclc.com
4                                                                                                     JustBooks Connect - September 2011

In the hills

                                            A Paean to Love
                                                 of hill dwellers. There is Charu, Maya's
The Folded Earth                                 student who is still unable to read or
                                                                                                “Though I cannot know precisely
                                                 write despite Maya's best efforts. She         when it happened, a time had
Anuradha Roy                                     falls in love with a half Nepali waiter        come when I had become a hill-
                                                 and Maya is a sort of intermediary and
MacLehose Press
                                                 spectator of their blossoming love story.
                                                                                                person who was only at peace
                                                    Finally there is Veer, Diwan Sahib's        where the earth rose and fell in
                                                 nephew. Maya is guiltily drawn to him          waves like the sea."
Geetanjali Singh Chanda                          but he is a mysterious character who has
                                                 his own secrets to hide and discover.
                                                                                                 young Charu, for example, compelled by
                                                     Each character has their particular
                                                                                                 the necessity of a distant love learns final-
                                                 story and yet together they form the rich
                                                                                                 ly to read and write. And more astonish-


A
                                                 tapestry of Maya's world.
        nuradha Roy's second novel The                                                           ingly she, who has never even ventured
                                                   Ranikhet, Diwan Sahib and his crum-
        Folded Earth is a deeply evoca-                                                          to the next village, recklessly heads off to
                                                 bling old house referred to as the Light
        tive and compassionate love                                                              Delhi by bus on her own to find her love
                                                 House provide Maya a refuge and a lov-
story. Love is an overused word that has                                                         Kundan Singh. The thought of what
                                                 ing space for healing. And together they
been reduced to banality and yet there is                                                        could and almost did happen to her is
                                                 succeed in seducing a plains-dwelling
no other word that so aptly conveys the                                                          chilling. Sheer innocence and guts though
                                                 Maya into becoming a hill-
essence of this book.                                                                            have a chance of being rewarded - at least
                                                 person.
  This multi layered and complex story                                                            in fiction.
explores love in the very real                                                                      Roy's prose is sheer poetry. It is ele-
and deep sense of the word.                                                                        gant, lyrical, chiseled and polished to
It is not only about the love                                                                      perfection. The images are imaginative
between people but every                                                                            and           unforgettable.        Charu's
character, the flora and fauna                                                                      Grandmother, known to all as 'Ama'
and the place itself are                                                                             for instance is described thus, "Her eyes
imbued with love.                                                                                     had a quiverful of lines at their corners."
  Ranikhet particularly is gen-                                                                       But aside from this particularly strik-
tly drawn more as character                                                                            ing image we also know her by her
than a place where the story                                                                            loud voice "that could carry across sev-
unfolds. At one level the novel                                                                          eral valleys." though not all the char-
could be read as an elegy for                                                                            acters are hill people. There are also
both Ranikhet (and other such                                                                             cameo appearances by well known
hill stations) and for Diwan                                                                              urban        scholars     such       as
Sahib. Diwan Sahib, the gently                                                                             Ramachandra Guha - "a tall dis-
ageing, ex-finance minister of the                                                                         tracted-looking man in glasses" who
Nawab of Surajgarh is a central                                                                             comes to visit Diwan Sahib to cull
figure and the grand old man of                                                                             out information about the Nehru-
Ranikhet.                                                                                                    Edwina letters that he is sup-
  The story unfolds in Ranikhet                                                                              posed to possess. The single
where a young widow Maya has                                                                                  damning fact about Guha in
been living and working at Saint                                                                              Diwan Sahib's book is that "he
Hilda's school. Maya's marriage to a                                                                           didn't have a single drink." It is
young Christian Michael Secuira so                                                                             these insightful and precise
outraged her father that he disowns                                                                             details that form vivid word
and refuses to see her again. A few                                                                          portraits that bring alive both
short years after their marriage though                                                          major and minor characters.
                                                                                She notes the
Michael is tragically killed at 1500-feet                                                           The Folded Earth is not just a pastoral
                                                          moment of her transformation,
during a trekking expedition.                                                                    or hill romance. Roy's concern for the
                                                 "Though I cannot know precisely when it hap-
  Maya flees Hyderabad for Ranikhet to                                                           environment, the destruction of the hill-
                                                 pened, a time had come when I had become a
be closer, at least in spirit, to Michael. She                                                   side by a rampaging and heedless urban-
                                                 hill-person who was only at peace where the
joins St. Hilda's school as a teacher and                                                        ization, consumerism, the manipulation
                                                 earth rose and fell in waves like the sea."
creates an alternate family.                                                                     of people by cynical politicians and the
                                                   The novel also follows the standard and
  There is Diwan Sahib —her landlord —                                                           inroads made by strident fundamen-
                                                 more usual love stories, although each is
an irascible old man who loves his drink,                                                        talisms simmer just below the surface.
                                                 unique. The elusive love letters between
is fabled to have the secret letters of                                                             Although this is a quiet novel it is
                                                 the last Vicerine Edwina Mountbatten
Edwina Mountbatten and Jawaharlal                                                                deeply centered and grounded in a core
                                                 and India's first Prime Minister
Nehru and has been working on a biogra-                                                          philosophic conception of the meaning of
                                                 Jawaharlal Nehru frame and permeate
phy of Jim Corbett for the past many                                                             an ethical life that is in harmony with
                                                 the other stories with a mix of desperate
years.                                                                                           nature and people.                            
                                                 longing and a melancholic nostalgia. The
  He initiates Maya into the life and ways
JustBooks Connect - September 2011                                                                                                        5

Building blocks


                             Last Man Standing
                                               and Masterji, who starts by refusing in        'surprise' for a construction worker's fam-
Last Man in Tower                              solidarity with his friends and then on        ily on a site visit.

Aravind Adiga
Fourth Estate
                                               principle.
                                                 If the premise of the book is a tad pre-
                                               dictable — a simple man challenging a
                                                                                              M      asterji is morally upright and true
                                                                                                     to his belief to the end but also
                                                                                              comes across as a tight-fisted man unable
                                               more powerful one — what saves it from         to empathise with anyone else's plight.
                                               being so is Adiga's approach towards             Adiga's brilliant writing ensures that
                                               each character.                                we shift our sympathies from character to
Reshmi Chakraborty                               He spares no effort in meticulously          character as we read along.
                                               drawing out each one of them and                 We empathise with Masterji, the old
                                               plumbing hidden depths. The disgrun-           man who has lost his daughter to a freak


A
         ravind Adiga's Last Man in            tled yet hopeful Mrs. Puri dreams of a         accident, wife to old age and ailment and
         Tower is a quick paced, entertain-    better life with her son Ramu, who suf-        is somewhat estranged from his only son.
         ing read about the battle for real    fers from Down's Syndrome; the 'battle-        But we also understand Mrs. Puri and her
estate in Mumbai, told from the perspec-       ship' Mrs. Rego constantly tries to trump      desire to have a better house and a bit
tives of various protagonists, the                                                              more money so that she doesn't have to
main being Yogesh Murthy or                                                                     spend her life washing her son's bot-
Masterji.                                                                                       tom.
   The residents of Vishram                                                                        Adiga is excellent in creating this
Society, Tower A, know they live                                                                dilemma. For most part, our sympa-
on the wrong side of the tracks, in                                                             thies lie with Masterji, especially as his
Vakola. It is in fact a neighbour-                                                              once kindly neighbours take turns in
hood so questionable that many                                                                  making him feel like an outsider and
of them, like 'Communist Aunty'                                                                 his own son turns his back on him.
Mrs. Rego, whose sister lives in                                                                   You appreciate him for staying true to
Bandra (West), are not quite sure                                                               his cause but also wonder what is the
how to pronounce it -- 'Va-KHO-                                                                 true reason behind his refusal to sign on
la or VAA-k'-la?'                                                                               the dotted line when the building, as
   In the Mumbai of shiny high-                                                                 the author doesn't fail to remind us, is
rises with foreign names and                                                                    almost crumbling anyway? Is it simply
increasing slums, Vishram is a                                                                  to save the place where he has the max-
rundown, could-crumble-any-                                                                     imum memories or a stubborn ego mas-
time mansion that was estab-                                                                    sage?
lished in 1959 as an example of                                                                    Adiga remains ambiguous, giving us
'good housing for good Indians'.                                                                something to be frustrated about and
   You need to climb up the dingy                                                               mull on.
stairwell, though 'an Otis lift                                                                    His Masterji is a wonderful character-
exists, but unreliably so'. The build-                                                          isation, peppered with comic and seri-
ing itself, once pink in colour, is                                                             ous notes, from his idealistic beliefs to
now 'a rainwater-stained, fungus-                                                               his refusal to ever step on a scrap of the
licked grey,' says Adiga, describ-                                                              Times of India because an ex-student of
ing Mumbai's scores of decrepit                                                                 his writes for the paper. An ex-student
housing societies in one very visual sen-      her sister who has so far trumped her in       who doesn't bother to answer his letters
tence. Last Man in Tower is full of            marriage and area of residence; the inef-      later in the book. Adiga extends the
descriptions like these, of Vishram and its    fectual secretary Kothari longs to see the     comic tone to most of the characters, giv-
residents, of Vakola and its slums and of      pink flamingos of his African youth and        ing the sinister turn of events in the book
Mumbai, the ultimate mix of muck,              the blind Mrs. Pinto who finds her way         a lighter touch.
money and middle class ambition.               by instinct through the dingy stairwells         Ultimately, this is a 'Bombay' book that
   Into this mire steps real estate develop-   of Vishram and cannot think of moving          anyone who has ever battled the local
er Dharmen Shah, who makes the resi-           anywhere else.                                 train crowds or waded through knee
dents an offer of redevelopment they can-
not refuse. Most of them don't, as the         W     hile retired schoolteacher Yogesh
                                                     Murthy or Masterji remains the
                                               central character, he isn't exactly the hero
                                                                                              deep dirty water during the incessant
                                                                                              monsoon or set their times by the tap
                                                                                              would be able to identify with. It is also a
offer spells the chance to move to a better
apartment in a better location.                either. His rival Dharmen Shah has all the     reflection of the city itself, indeed of most
   In other words, an overall better life.     characteristics of the unscrupulous            cities across the country, where rampant
Few people refuse. The social worker           builder (bribery, coercion, mistress half      construction is pushing lesser privileged
Mrs. Rego, who has a deep distrust of          his age) but is also a self-made man who       citizens to a corner of no choice and
builders and an abiding attachment to          never quite forgets his struggles and          where it seems corruption can conquer
any cause, the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Pinto      leaves behind a twenty rupee note as a         anything.                                  
6                                                                                                 JustBooks Connect - September 2011

In conversation


                       A tete-e-tete on writing
Pushpa Achanta                                 respected journal from Aligarh fea-
                                               tured my essay on sustainable ener-
                                               gy that one of my teachers sent to
                                               them, unknown to me. My first
How many times have you won-                   novel (or novella, published in
dered- I wish I could write. The ones          2000), outrageously titled Of
who can write are wondering who                Seminal Fluids rebelled against
will publish my work and those you             myself, my friends and the publish-
get published are worried about who            ing world's norms. After my short
will read their writing!                       stories appeared in Webzines, I
                                               took them seriously.
  Pushpa Achanta tried to find
answers to these questions from                   CW: Year 2000 heralded my first
some established and some emerging             poetry     collection      Squatting
writers.                                       Quietly        from        Firstfruits
  She talked to Zafar Anjum (ZA),              Publications - an earnest book fruc-
who is a journalist, poet, novelist,           tified through my desire to write
film maker; Cyril Wong (CW) a poet,            differently into a literary scene that
author, journal editor, arts centre            felt monotonous and repressed.
manager and to M. C. Raj (MCR),                The self is highly neutered in our
                                               local literature; and my poetry
who is a rights campaigner, commu-
                                               highlights the nudity of a self living
nity leader, and an author.                    through intense feelings (god for-
  Here they share their stories on             bid deep feelings or individualism
what got them to start writing, how            in Singapore).
they published their first work and
the disappointments and accolades                MCR: My first published book                             Zafar Anjum
they received in their writing jour-           was in 1997 about Foucault's analysis of
                                                                                             Hearteningly, some Bangalore colleges
ney.                                           the dominant society. I disagreed with his
                                                                                             organized seminars on my first work.
                                               conclusion that problematizing is
How and when did you start writing?            enough. A writer must also express what
                                                                                               My next book Dalitology, released
                                               he or she thinks as strategies to address
                                                                                             before 6,000 people (from across India) in
  ZA: I began penning Urdu essays, early       problems. Critical acclaim for my book
                                                                                             Bangalore sold 2,000 copies quickly.
on. Prizes in school and college competi-      From Periphery to Centre - An Analysis
                                                                                             Being recognized as Dalitology's author
tions encouraged me. Essays distilled my       of the Paradigms of Globalization,
                                                                                             thrills me. Disappointingly, some friends
thoughts on specific topics; cogent pres-      Casteism and Dalitism encouraged me to
                                                                                             disassociated with me after Dalitology. I
entation was an art. I dabbled in poetry       write more.
                                                                                             like Rajiv Malhotra's critical analysis of
too-I never attempted short stories origi-                                                   Dalitology. I want to know if readers
nally. I'm not into poetry nowadays.           What was the response to your initial
                                                                                             shatter my views with their understand-
                                               writing? Did any specific recognition,
                                                                                             ing.
  CW: With authenticity and artistic com-      appreciation, criticism affect you?
mitment, I started writing during univer-
sity. Many suppressed emotions and               ZA: My initial fiction work's criticism
                                                                                             What makes you write now? Which are
ideas about growing up, school and             taught me much. I won a short story con-
                                                                                             your favourite themes?
national service experiences figured in        test to represent India at a SAARC
my poems.                                      Writers Conference in Colombo in 2002.
                                                                                               ZA: Underdogs, injustice and systemic
                                               Little Magazine publishing and choosing
                                                                                             coercion move me. Perhaps, I seek world-
  MCR: I began writing in 1984. When my        my short story as a finalist for a new
                                                                                             ly moral balance through my writings.
wife Jyothi and I initiated work among         writer award in 2006 was honourable and
                                                                                             Apparently, my stories explore the
Tumkur's rural poor, I authored an             unexpected.
                                                                                             pathology of modernity.
unpublished book called Tumkur At a
Glance. After two years, I collated our          CW: Terrible. Media and some readers
                                                                                               I've no favourite themes but unjust acts
experiences and successes into another         loved the book. But many older folks in
                                                                                             always provoke me. And love and human
unpublished     work      named     The        the "establishment" disapproved my non-
                                                                                             relationships. Nowadays, I am interested
Beginnings.                                    social, too-personal poetry. That only
                                                                                             in chronicling lives of people touched by
                                               made me to continue writing.
                                                                                             the global financial meltdown.

Which was your first published work              MCR: Launching a series on Dalit liter-
                                                                                                CW: Favourite themes-love; our con-
and when? How did that occur?                  ature, Sage Books said that my book
                                                                                             flicted relationships to the hole at the cen-
                                               would be the first. But despite appreciat-
                                                                                             tre of all our lives.
    ZA: My first publication: in class VI, a   ing it, they could not publish it. Shocked,
                                               I started publishing my books myself.
JustBooks Connect - September 2011                                                                                                       7

                                                                                             past lovers often inspire my poems. The
                                                                CW: Read more than           pain and the heartache.
                                                               you write.
                                                                                               MCR: Frequently, I discuss my writings
                                                                  MCR: I avoid advis-        with my family for their reflection.
                                                               ing. I want to be a but-        I validate my fiction with my children
                                                               terfly attaining absolute     as they know the taste of modern youth. I
                                                               freedom when mature.          value my family's support.
                                                               Harming none, butter-
                                                               flies drinks nature's nec-    Do you enjoy or dislike reading any par-
                                                               tar and die unnoticed.        ticular authors, poets and genres?
                                                               People can be butterflies
                                                               maturing in their own           ZA: I won't read someone because he or
                                                               space and time.               she is a bestseller. Writers can barely cap-
                                                                                             tivate me for 300 pages.
                                                               Have your family mem-           I enjoy my favourite Urdu poets' verses
                                                               bers or friends con-          and different genres except horror. I love
                                                               tributed to your writ-        biographies, letters and diaries of great
                                                               ing?                          writers and thinkers.

                                                                 ZA: My family and             CW: I hate any poem that does not
                                                               friends support me,           reflect the soul (or anything defined as
                                                               though I don't show           "soul"). Many male poets are painful to
                                                               them my work. My              read (or women trying to imitate men)
                                                               wife's backing keeps me       because they probably prioritize accom-
                                                               going.                        plishments over great emotional urgency.
                                                                                             I find novels tedious. I love everything
                M. C. Raj                                       CW: My family and            else.

                                                                                                    MCR: I love deep philosophy.
  MCR: Writing is my habit. I write at                                                            Habermas, Foucault, Chomsky and
night. Recently, I began penning fiction.                                                         Radhakrishnan were my favourites.
This year I have two published novels                                                               I like Faranz Fannon. I dislike light
(Raachi and Yokiana) and some non-fic-                                                            topics and rhetoric.
tion works. My third novel is ready - I'm
intensively authoring another.                                                                    Would you like to add anything?
  My favourite theme is philosophy. But
I also write on Psychology and                                                                      ZA: I don't take my writing seri-
Spirituality. Lately, I've entered love,                                                          ously. I wonder if my writing is
sexuality and relationship through fic-                                                           worth anything. The talent and pre-
tion.                                                                                             cocity of the masters is awe inspir-
                                                                                                  ing. I've a long way to go.
Any advice for new and emerging writ-
ers?                                                                                                CW: Nah.

  ZA: Fundamentally, understand your                                                                MCR: Having extremely poor,
reason for writing. You are probably                                                              unlettered parents, I'm content at ris-
wasting your time if you write for                                                                ing from burning ashes. I'm rebel-
money or fame. Read and write much                                                                lious, enjoy oratory and solitude.
without hope and despair.                                                                           My books are apparently tough to
  Be very critical about your work.                                                               understand. I load my words with
Interact and learn from other writers.                                                            meaning. I've tried writing lucidly.
And when sure of writing, continue;                                                               Perhaps, after my death many will
although realizing your dream might                                                               read my writing.                     
                                                             Cyril wong
take decades.

              Zafar Anjum                                  Cyril Wong                                       M. C. Raj

 Zafar is a cineaste, an avid blogger       Wong is called Singapore's first confes-        Based in Tumkur, Karnataka, Raj is a
 (dreamink.blogspot.com) and editor         sional poet. He is an author of nine vol-       community leader, novelist, non-fiction
 of Kitaab.org and Writersconnect.org,      umes of poetry. He is also the poetry jour-     writer and campaigner for electoral
 websites dedicated to Asian writing        nal editor (www.softblow.org) and an            reforms in India. He has more than 15
 in English.                                operations manager at The Substation,           published books to his name. He writes
 He is an award-winning journalist          Singapore’s first independent arts centre.      on philosophy, psychology, spirituality,
 and fiction writer. An Indian who          A featured poet of several Literary and         politics etc. He generally writes on Dalit
 now lives in Singapore, Zafar consid-      Writers Festival, Wong recently completed       issues and is an international opinion
 ers himself a film maker too.              his doctoral degree in English literature.      leader. He leads a powerful Dalit
                                                                                            Movement in Karnataka.
8                                                                                     JustBooks Connect - September 2011


        Reader’s                           Reader’s contribution

                                                                                        Healthy milk from the farm
         Voice                              Kushii H                                      So delicious and nice.

                                                                                           Fruits so delicious
                                              Khushii has a farm house on           Yummy apples, bananas and man-


I
   have been a member of JustBooks for      Kanakapura Road, which she often                   goes too
   the past 10 months. At first, I had      visits.                                  Till my tummy is full of fruits.
   thought it was a shop for books. I         There they have animals like
asked my friend if he knew anything
                                            cows, dog, sheep and lot of hens.            And there are animals
about it. He said that he was a member
and that it was a library which had all
                                            Coconut, Guava and Chikoo trees             Cats, cows and horses too
the books that had been released in         and some vegetables too. A care-           Which keep you on your toes.
India and also some other foreign books.    taker family stays there (farmer).
I kept pestering my parents until they        Khushii wrote this poem in her        Farmer Penny and the whole gang
got me a membership there.                  school's creative writing book and         Pond you see looks so nice
  When I got my membership, there           the topic was given by her teacher.      And you can make paper boats
were so many books to choose from.          She wants to share this with other                   and
There were many books that I borrowed       JustBooks' members.                          Leave it on the water.
from JustBooks, mostly from the 'Alex
Rider' series by Anthony Horowitz and
the 'Eragon' series by Christopher
                                                         THE FARM                      Do you want to go to a farm?
Paolini.                                                                                 To jump, yell and shriek
  Reading is a lot of fun. I think many         Do you want to go to a farm?               The whole day long
more people should take JustBooks                                                       With loads of fun for all!
membership.                                    So green, so beautiful and nice

    Syamanthak Srikrishnan, 13 years
    JP Nagar - Dollar's Colony
    Bangalore                        




                                             Khushii is a very talkative and energetic 7-year old girl, who was born
                                             on 6th May, which happens to be the birthday of poet Rabindranath
                                             Tagore too! She loves drawing and colouring, colouring rangoli, reading
                                             comics like Amar Chitra Katha, Chandmama and Tinkle. Khushii also
                                             loves elderly people a lot. Presently she is studying at National Hill
                                             View Public School at RR Nagar.                                         
JustBooks Connect - September 2011                                                                                                   9

Readers’s contribution


                                When in Rome..
The First Man in Rome                        Julia, a girl of powerful political lineage,   fight to push back the Germanic hordes.
                                             whose illustrious family, though aristo-       Ms. McCullough's maps are of great help
Colleen McCullough                           cratic, has fallen on relatively hard times.   in bringing out the dimensions of the
Avon                                         It suits Gaius Julius Caesar, the father, to   events.
                                             marry his daughter to a rich ambitious            I particularly liked the maps showing
                                             man as he has high hopes for his sons'         Rome's idea of the world and map of the
                                             futures that can only be fulfilled if he       town of Rome. Also included are some
                                             acquires financial clout. Marius gains         interesting illustrations from the busts of
Gita Subramanian                             the family connection required to set him      prominent people of the period.
                                             off on his path to achieve his dream.            Scenes of domestic life, conversations
                                             Caesar's younger daughter is married to        that bring out the mores of the time,
                                             Sulla.                                         their election processes and so on are all


T
       his book was first pub-                                                                             seamlessly woven into the
       lished in 1990 and though                                                                           story without turning them
       historical fiction is close to                                                                      into history lessons.
my heart, I could never pick up                                                                              Did you know, for exam-
this dauntingly long (nearly 900                                                                           ple, that there were large
pages) book and start reading it.                                                                          several-storied apartment
Recently I did. And I am glad I                                                                            blocks in Rome at that
did it, for Colleen McCullough's                                                                           time? Also that women
painstaking scholarship and eye                                                                            rarely drank and had to sit
for details have really brought to                                                                         in straight chairs to dine
life the characters and the histori-                                                                       while the men lounged in
cal events of the period.                                                                                  couches.
   The year is 110 B.C. The story                                                                            Colleen McCullough's
is set around two men, Gaius                                                                               scholarship is evident but
Marius, a rich ambitious man,                                                                              does not intrude. She has
who does not have the rights of                                                                            appended about a hundred
birth to political position in the                                                                         pages of glossary explain-
Republic and Lucius Cornelius                                                                              ing the Latin terms, the
Sulla, a poor aristocrat with                                                                              social context and some
ambition who has till the start of                                                                         explanation as to her
the novel led an indolent, hedo-                                                                           sources.
nistic amoral existence.                                                                                     As she herself says in her
   Gaius Marius is seen at the                                                                             note at the end of the
start as an 'Italian hayseed with no                                                                       novel, it would have been
Greek'.                                                                                                    impossible to include a full
   Not being Roman-born was a                                                                              bibliography given the
big deficiency in the class-con-                                                                           extensive nature of her
scious Rome of that time and                                                                               research.
Greek was the language that                                                                                  I would fault the book
every aristocrat was supposed to                                                                           only for its intimidating
speak fluently. Fortune seeks                                                                              length; perhaps she could
them out and a series of circum-                                                                           have published this in two
stances propel Marius to the                                                                               volumes instead of one.
position of First Man in Rome and Sulla        Though this is not based on historic         This one is very difficult to lift and read
is also well on his way to the political     evidence, in her Author's Note                 in bed!
prominence which he achieves in the          McCullough cites her reasons quite con-
second book of the series.                   vincingly for presuming this. This             Gita Subramanian worked for many
    Around them is a whole plethora of       brings the two men together and they
                                                                                            years in International schools in
characters from various walks of life that   become close allies.
draws the reader into a world as real as       The absorbing story of the rise of these     Hong Kong, where she also ran a
the one we live in. There are political      two protagonists is set against a back-        book club. She is an avid reader and
intrigues, there is massive corruption       ground of magnificent scenes of epic           a published writer as well. She has
including vote-buying, tall election         magnitude - the Jugurthine War, the            translated three Tamil novels and
promises and so on. Does that not            invasion of the Germanic tribes and a          won an award in 2010 for one of
sound like today's India rather than         grain crisis leading to a revolt that is       them for best translation from Tamil
Rome at the end of the second century        crushed just in time. The battle scenes        to English. She is a member of
B.C.?                                        are vividly graphic and there are
                                                                                            JustBooks, JP Nagar.                
   Marius's rise begins when he marries      detailed accounts of Marius's plans in his
JustBooks Connect - September 2011                                                                                                 10
                             1. “An idiot child screaming in a   4. Who said, "Everything’s wrong on Wikipedia."
                             hospital.”                          V.S. Naipaul
                             H. G. Wells on George Bernard      Gore Vidal
                             Shaw                                Taslima Nasrin
                             Lord Byron on John Keats
                             Martin Amis on Miguel              5. “He has never been known to use a
                             Cervantes                           word that might send a reader to the
                                                                 dictionary.”
                                                                 William Faulkner on Ernest
 2. “There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to       Hemingway
 dislike it, the other is to read Pope.”                         Vladimir Nabokov on Ernest Hemingway
 John Keats on Alexander Pope                                   Dylan Thomas on Rudyard
 Lord Byron on on Alexander Pope                                Kipling
 Oscar Wilde on Alexander Pope

 3."The eyes of others our prisons; their
 thoughts our cages."
 Salman Rushdie
 Virginia Woolf
 Rohinton Mistry
 Hemingway
 H. G. Wells on George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde on Alexander Pope, Virginia Woolf, Gore Vidal, William Faulkner on Ernest



   JUSTBOOKS                                                     Hindustan ke Shaan
      TOP 5
                                                          O
                                                                  ur new JustBooks Powai branch continues to be featured in
                                                                  the news media.

                                                             The Hindustan Times, Mumbai Edition, carries an article titled
 N EW A RRIVALS                                           'Community based libraries open in City'
 1. Leela’s Book by Alice                                    "Book aficionados now have another reason to cheer. In yet another
 Albinia                                                  attempt to boost and encourage the reading habit among Mumbaikars, a
 2. One Summer by David                                   Bangalore-based venture is opening community-based reading libraries
 Baldacci                                                 titled JustBooks CLC across the city."
 3. The Secret Of The                                        Our plans for Mumbai continue unabated. In this context, they say,
 Nagas by Amish Tripathi                                     "The venture also plans to open more outlets along the city's Western
 4. Does He Know A                                        Railway route by the year-end.
 Mother’s Heart? by Arun Shourie                             "We have a community-centric model with a physical shop that offers
 5. 24 Akbar Road by Rasheed                              members access to books that they can rent, read and return," says D Ravi
 Kidwai                                                   Kumar, Senior Manager - Franchise Development, JustBooks CLC.
                                                             He, however, adds that they want to focus on offline activities that
 R ECOMMENDED                                             encourage people to visit the library rather than simply choosing the books
 1. The Shadow Of The                                     from the e-catalogue.”
 Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
 2. Her Fearful Symmetry by
 Audrey Niffenegger
 3. Tamarind Mem by Anita
 Rau Badami
 4. The Lost River by Michel
 Danino
 5. The Master Switch by Timothy
 Wu

 R ENTALS
 1. Only Time Will Tell by
 Jeffery Archer
 2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Book
 2) by Jeff Kinney
 3. Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Book
 4, 5 and 1) by Jeff Kinney
 4. 2 States: The Story Of My
 Marriage by Chetan Bhagat
 5. The Secret Of The Nagas by Amish
 Tripathi                                                From JustBooks blog - http://blog.justbooksclc.com                         
JustBooks Connect - September 2011                                                                                                    11

Food on the road

                    Not a lot on their plate
Highway On My Plate - The                     Rajasthan, or the unique Egg
                                              Factory and drink-serving, arty
Indian Guide To Roadside                      crowd at Koshy's in Bangalore.
Eating                                          While you simply cannot dis-
                                              miss a 300 page food guide, the
Rocky Singh & Mayur Sharma                    book seems to lack something.
                                              The strapline on the cover calls
Random House India                            the book: The Indian Guide To
                                              Roadside Eating; but what it covers
                                              mostly are the restaurants and
Aradhana Janga                                hotels in the cities. An extended
                                              Lonely Planet at best is what the



O
                                              book turns out to be. The duo of
         n a road trip? Wondering what        Rocky and Mayur miss to discov-
         to eat and where? Like to try dif-
         ferent authentic cuisines
                                                                                           fets with the choicest of dishes! Udupi
but not really sure where to find
                                                                                           food boasts of unique dishes made from
them? On a stringent budget or
                                                                                           jackfruit, as well as the local buns and
feel like splurging on good food?
                                                                                           'Neer' dosas.
Highway on My Plate by Rocky
                                                                                             And talking about street food, surely
Singh and Mayur Sharma might
                                                                                           the food stalls around Sajjan Rao circle
just be the answer to all your gas-
                                                                                           in Bangalore deserve a mention for their
tronomic questions. Rocky and
                                                                                           steaming hot idlis, dosas and Badam
Mayur are well known for their
                                                                                           (almond) milk served every evening to
food show on NDTV Good Times,
                                                                                           its big fan-following that enjoys and
where they take viewers on food
                                                                                           comes back for more.
journeys across the length and
                                                                                             Food is more than a basic need; it is a
breadth of India.
                                                                                           way of life, it is part of tradition, culture,
  The book covers 25 states and
                                                                                           economics and natural environment.
on an average about 3-5 places in
                                                                                           There is a reason why South Indian
each state. With about 3-5 food
                                                                                           states are mostly rice-eating ones while
joints in each of these places, the
                                                                                           North Indian ones are wheat-eating, just
book is a good collection for your
                                                                                           like there is there is a very good reason
travel library! Every eatery comes
                                                                                           why coastal regions use a lot of coconut
with a detailed description of the
                                                                                           in their food preparation than the rest of
setting, food specialty, contact
                                                                                           the country.
information, price range and a
                                                                                             A brief history of food of a state might
rating on taste, ambience, service,
                                                                                           have made Highway on My Plate more
and value for money.
                                                                                           interesting.
  For a traveler, it is of interest to
                                                                                             And though it might be interesting to
know the Punjabi dhaba and the
                                                                                           find different cuisines in the most
idli-dosa joint in the middle of
                                                                                           unlikely of places, for a real foodie,
                                                                                           authentic food is probably of more inter-
                                              er the biryani haven in Tamil Nadu -         est than a pasta and pizza joint in the
                                              Ambur which is literally on the              middle of South India! 'Gatte ki Sabji' in
                                              Bangalore-Chennai highway and sup-           Rajasthan and Ragi dishes in Karnataka
                                              plies thousands of biryani packets daily     are as local as one can get, but Rocky
                                              to Chennai.                                  and Mayur miss out on these delights.
                                                 Or the North Karnataka cuisine (corn      While Chinese food might be popular in
                                              rotis with brinjal and lentil curries made   Kolkata, wouldn't a tourist be interested
                                              with their unusual blend of spices),         in typical Bengali food at 6 Ballygunge
                                              which is so unique that one cannot find      Place or Bhojohori Manna or the biryani
                                              any similarities between that and the        at Arsalan? And it's disappointing to
                                              Bangalore or the coastal (better known       note that 'Saravana Bhavan', a local
                                              as Udupi) cuisine.                           favourite does not feature at all in the
                                                They also skipped the Kamat                Chennai listing.
                                              Lokaruchi on the busy Bangalore-               For someone who is clueless about
                                              Mysore highway that causes quite a traf-     Indian food, this book will be helpful,
                                              fic snarl with its multitude of customers.   but if you are out sleuthing for authen-
                                              Some drive all the way just to eat the       tic, traditional food, you are better off
                                              special South and North Karnataka            doing your bit of detective work and
                                              thalis and all-you-can-eat breakfast buf-    asking the locals.                          
12                                                                                                JustBooks Connect - September 2011

Musings

     Reading in an Age of Distraction
Ram Mohan Susarla                                                                                         always read the eBooks on
                                                                                                          your PC (during breaks at
                                                                                                          work). Mind you, I do not
                                                                                                          have anything against


W
             e are living in times where                                                                  eBooks (I like my Kindle
             digital ubiquity is the order of                                                             very much!). The point that I
             the day and most of us are                                                                   am trying to convey is that I
constantly switching between checking                                                                     have personally experienced
email, surfing the web for the latest                                                                     the "shortened" attention
headlines and sports updates, answer-                                                                     spans when I read stuff on
ing the telephone and attending to the                                                                    electronic devices. There is
mobile calls (and SMSes).                                                                                 nothing to beat the joy of
   In fact, there are some among us who                                                                   reading a printed book.
have the omnipotent Blackberry's and
IPhone's to keep us busy. With all this
electronic "chatter" drowning out the
                                                                                                         R     eading in this electronic
                                                                                                               age is not only about
                                                                                                          reading the "right" books
voice of reflection, we hardly have time                                                                  (personally, I don't think
to take a book and read it from cover to                                                                  there are any "right" books.
cover. Indeed, the "Age of Distraction"                                                                   All books are books, period.),
where the attention spans are in minutes                                                                  but also about reading just
and seconds means that we hardly have                                                                     for the "heck" of it. The objec-
time to breathe, let alone read.                                                                          tive should be to embark on
   There are many authors like Nicholas                                                                   a journey with the book as
Carr who have pointed to the "shallows"                                                                   the companion and discover
that inhabit our minds in this electronic                                                                 the sights and sounds of
age. There are others who have drawn                                                                      delight in the process. Many
attention to the "fragmentation" of our                                                                   of us take books along with
selves because of so much digital "noise"                                                                 us on journeys.
that assaults us from all directions.                                                                       Why not read a book sit-
Studies done in recent years have shown                                                                   ting at home and transport
that the average time spent on a task has                                                                 ourselves into the world of
come down to 11 minutes and the need                                                                      the characters of the book
for constant switching back and forth                                                                     and experience their stories
between tasks means that our "e-person-                                                                   in the same way we reflect
alities" might take over our "offline"                                                                    on our other experiences.
selves and there can be a morphing of                                                                       Reading a book is the per-
both. Increasingly, many behavioural                                                                      fect antidote to the lack of
experts are calling upon people to medi-                                                                  focus and concentration for
tate or sit still in contemplation if we do                                                               extended durations that
not want this to happen.                                                                                  seems to be the malaise
    So, what better way to "logout" from                                                                  afflicting many of us.
the e-world than to pick a book and read                                                                    The pleasures of reading
it at leisure?                                                                                            are such that once you start
   Of course, there are many who would                                                                    reading; the rest follows
willingly give up the TV remote or put          quiet beauty that reading offers as a
                                                                                             much like a musician finds the right
their mobiles on discreet to sit down and       reward. And those moments of quietude
                                                                                             notes after the initial prelude.
read. But for those who find it hard to         and reflection are well worth the time
                                                                                               Finally, reading as a habit for children
tear themselves away from their gadg-           and effort spent in reading the book.
                                                                                             should be taken seriously by parents if
ets, there is some advice coming your
way. Reading a book is like sipping             I f you are wondering, "Why not read an
                                                  eBook on a Kindle or a Nook?" The
                                                answer is that while reading eBooks is
                                                                                             they want their kids to discover a world
                                                                                             other than TV and Video games and
wine and it grows on you. Hence, the                                                         there are titles galore on all subjects that
best thing to do when you get the time is       certainly catching on, nothing can beat
                                                                                             interest kids. There cannot be a better
to sit down and reach for that book that        the pleasure of plonking oneself on the
                                                                                             way to ensure that your kid does not
you have always wanted and get going.           favourite armchair and reading a print-
                                                                                             grow up on gadgets alone if you initiate
    Never mind the incessant buzz of the        ed book. There are many reasons for
                                                                                             them to the wonders of reading.
messages or the temptation to check the         doing so. For starters, an eBook is again
movements of shares and the urge to             a book that is read on a gadget, when
                                                                                               Writer's Note: There are many books on
scroll through the updates on the inter-        the objective clearly is to "disconnect"
                                                                                             the topic that I have written about and in
net. A book is worth reading not only           from the virtual world. Next, not many
                                                                                             fact, the topic was inspired by the recent
for the pleasure that the joy of reading        books are available in the electronic for-
                                                                                             publication of a book, from which I have bor-
gives us but also for the moments of            mat (as of now) even though their popu-
                                                                                             rowed the title.                           
                                                larity is increasing. Finally, you can
JustBooks Connect - September 2011                                                                                                      13

Venturing out

                     Friends with a franchise
Sapana Rawat

Meet Mr. Vinod Shankar, one of the
partners of Trupti Ventures that runs
JustBooks Malleshwaram franchise.
Vinod also leads Strata Retail's
Marketing department.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and
your partners.
  I am a typical Bengaluru boy, who
recently married a typical Bengaluru girl.
I was born here and have lived all my life
here. Travel and food interests me a lot,
and if the place is breathtaking and food
is great I dabble with my camera to cap-
ture the best of both.
  Trupti Ventures has four partners:
Rahul (a software engineer), Shajin Serine
(a financial analyst), Sabari (a chemical
engineer) and myself. We all have been
friends for years, right from our school          There were a lot of other ideas that we     ends, some days I spend my evenings
and college days.                               had considered — express car wash, trav-      interacting with our members.
                                                el & holidays or a millet-only restaurant.      Every member has a unique taste in
What were you doing before joining              I had become a member of JustBooks,           books, and the satisfaction of helping
JustBooks as an employee?                       Whitefield and around the same time           them find a particular book is immense.
  In my previous avatar I worked for            Sabari and I were attending start-up            The members come from varied back-
four years as a Digital Signal Processing       event at IIMB, where we came across           grounds, there are dancers, techies and
engineer in a large communication com-          JustBooks as a possible opportunity to        homemakers and not to forget ever bub-
pany. I still find technology interesting       start our entrepreneurial journey.            bling energetic kids! Interacting with
for it simplifies tasks in everyday life like                                                 kids, knowing that they are reading has
issue and return of books at JustBooks.         How has been the customer response to         been insightful.
                                                JustBooks as a concept & your library, in
How has your experience been on work-           particular?                                   What kind of books do you read person-
ing full time and taking care of the fran-        The customers are delighted to have a       ally? Who are your favourite authors?
chise?                                          library like JustBooks at Malleshwaram,         I love autobiography and biographies
  Working at JustBooks has been fun and         which is one of the oldest areas of           along with books related to Indian
a learning experience. The best part is         Bengaluru.                                    medieval history though I used to read
you get to meet varied and interesting            The use of technology for issue and         Sidney Sheldon, Dan Brown, Paulo Coelo
people every day.                               return, the vast collection of books and      and likes in my college days.
  Being a part of organization that's mov-      universal access across branches has             I like Indian writers like Ramachandra
ing from start-up to its growth phase is        enabled kids and seniors citizens alike to    Guha and Subroto Bagchi.
valuable. I always wanted to learn and          appreciate JustBooks as a noble concept.
experience how organization are built                                                         What is your advice to book lovers who
and scaled up.                                  What do you think will be a great addi-       would like to turn entrepreneurs through
  JustBooks has provided this wonderful         tion in terms of value to your existing       JustBooks?
opportunity to me, and I get paid to do         members?                                        If you are a book lover looking for a
what I love to do. After joining JustBooks        Through JustBooks we provide a serv-        simple business, with decent returns on
the time spent at the outlet has reduced to     ice that means a lot to our members. To       your investment, then JustBooks is the
some extent, though I hope to make up           enrich it further, we are looking into pro-   place for you.
for that soon.                                  viding literary consultants once a week to      Along with the profits, the satisfaction
                                                help our members choose books and             that you get by setting up a JustBooks
Why and how did this franchise option           organize creative events for children.        franchise in your community adds intan-
happen?                                                                                       gible value to your own life.
  I always wanted to start something on         How much of your time do you spend at           With presence across five cities, it's only
my own as the entrepreneurial bug had           the JustBooks outlet personally? How          a matter of time before JustBooks makes
bit me. It was only matter of time before       rewarding is the experience of interacting    its presence across India and becomes a
we four friends started something.              with your members?                            synonym for Library.                       
                                                  I'm there at the outlet over the week-
JustBooks Connect - September 2011 newsletter
JustBooks Connect - September 2011 newsletter
JustBooks Connect - September 2011 newsletter

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JustBooks Connect - September 2011 newsletter

  • 1. Volume 2 Issue 7 www.justbooksclc.com blog.justbooksclc.com CONNECT September 2011 For limited circulation A JustBooks Publication When In Doubt Pg 10 Quiz Pg 14 Just Kids Pg 15 Author Anindita Sengupta with this brand of clear, refreshing free- Profile dom. Neither are Dalits. The difficulty of this is not that some- A recent interview of Amitav Ghosh body, just anybody, has made the state- contains what many consider gaffes ment but that the person is one of our on the writer's part. Perhaps the finest writers and intellectuals. His words person who wrote The Shadow Lines, a fault lies in interview overdose says, carry weight. People who don't know bet- deeply affecting saga which examined Anindita Sengupta. ter may, on reading this, think cheerily among other things, the identity issues of that India is indeed a place of amazing Bangladeshi refugees. Why is he spouting I ndia offers untrammeled freedom. I'm liberty or liberation. clichés that sit better in the mouths of not certain about this but writer As blunders go, this one gains prickli- India-shining political campaigners? Amitav Ghosh seems to be. "That's one ness because it's also a reminder of the More importantly, this makes me think of the wonderfully liberating things about accusation that Indians writing in English of the writer as celebrity, and the perils of India; it lets you be exactly who you want to often face. Elitism. this. Writers have always been expected be," he said in a recent interview with Lila Ensconced in privilege, out of touch to be articulate and thoughtful, intellectu- Azam Zanganeh for Guernica magazine. with reality and unable to write about al (and moral) beacons. Predictably, this roused some rants, espe- universes outside their own—these are Whether this expectation is fair or not is cially on Facebook where it was hotly dis- the charges. Some of Ghosh's statements another debate. Many of us look to writ- cussed in some circles. in this interview help the perception. ers for that rare and strange quality, wis- Being 'exactly who you want to be' can be (Elsewhere, he talks about how "almost dom. Frequently, they provide this not thorny in India unless you are upper everyone" he knows "constantly" travels just in the books they write but also via class, upper caste and male. Women between continents and nation-states.) articles, essays and interviews. With across most classes are not acquainted I'm pained in a personal way. This is the contd on pg 2...
  • 2. 2 JustBooks Connect - September 2011 contd from pg 1... From the Editor’s Internet magazines mushrooming Desk like a bad case of acne, opportunities have multiplied. Celebrity writers are barraged by H requests from small and big journals ow many times you have and what was once driven by an wanted to write and you urgent need to say something has did write but felt the devolved into a weekly task to be thoughts that were so clear in your ticked off the to-do list. mind, you have not been able to We can agree solemnly over chai capture them in words. that writers should know better than Then you chided yourself that to air their views when tired, drunk, everyone cannot be a writer. How sleepy, brain-dead, zoned, distracted does one become a writer? Should or numb. But publicity is tempting. one be born with the writing talent Email interviews make things even or can one acquire it? easier. Shout into the void and some- Similar questions come up when one will reply. If the shout's not one talks about reading as a habit. always lucid, it will hopefully be What makes one a reader? How buried under twenty other inter- can we encourage reading and views. help people acquire this habit? It's impossible for anyone to be wise In our quest to find answers to on tap, all the time. The answer, it such questions, we at JustBooks Royal Geographical Society. And I don't would seem, is to say no more often. came to a conclusion that perhaps mean horse. Women writers, he said, had When in doubt, shut up. if we can bring out the various a "narrow view of the world" and were too Reclusiveness may be considered a psy- facets of our literary, publishing "sentimental". This is because a woman chological negative, a symptom of anxi- and printing industry and people was "not a complete master of a house, so that ety, fear or paranoia, but in this case it's in involved in them, in form of inter- comes over in her writing too". order. esting stories, feature articles, Journalist and critic Nilanjana Roy J.M. Coetzee didn't show to collect his interviews, etc. and put them points out that this should not shock any- Nobel prize and sent a recorded accept- together in a magazine format, it one because "a list of Sir Vidia's targets ance speech instead. might inspire people to take up a over the decades includes Africans, Muslim More recently at the Jaipur Literary book. invaders in India, infies (inferior people) of all Festival, he refused to talk before read- We have been working on such a colours and races, Indian women writers, his ing, letting the words in his book suffice. literary magazine and will share wives, his lovers, his friends, his editors, This may be an extreme-and let's face it, more details with you soon. So including the nonagenarian Diana Athill, the we readers love our celebrities just as watch out for this space! issuers of worthless degrees (Oxbridge), fool- much as Hollywood junkies love theirs- Now coming to this edition, our ish people, people who do not serve him his but restraint can be sexy. lead article focuses on why famous vegetables in separate dishes…". We have the opposite of that in Sir and well-established writers, His arrogance is certainly apparent. On Vidia who unfailingly entertains us year whom we believe to represent our any women writer being equal to him, Sir after year. Lately, he made an equine ani- intelligentsia, make statements Vidia said: "I read a piece of writing and mal of himself while speaking at the that not just create controversy but within a paragraph or two I know changes our opinion about them. whether it is by a woman or not. I Sometimes the statements are think [it is] unequal to me." misconstrued or said in haste but From all hearsay and based sometimes they are meant to be on the couple of times I've met what they are! him in person, Ghosh is not We also have an interview with anything like Sir Vidia. three promising multi faceted per- Perhaps, he didn't quite mean sonalities, who share their journey what he said. Or didn't mean it as a writer with us. Some of the like that. Or something. Maybe questions raised at the beginning I'm off the mark by miles. of this column will have an answer Maybe he meant every word. in their reply. Let's hope not. We hope that reading about these writers will prompt our Source Credits: members to start writing and sending in their contributions to http://www.guernicamag.com /interviews/2674/ghosh_5_15_11/ us. As usual, do tell us what you http://akhondofswat.blogspot. think of this edition and send us com/2011/06/speaking-volumes- your feedback to editor@just- some-notes-on-sir.html booksclc.com.  http://www.thehindu.com/arts /books/article2071298 .ece 
  • 3. JustBooks Connect - September 2011 3 Freedom Deliverance Jonathan Franzen Gauri Deshpande, Translated by Shashi Deshpande 4th Series Press Women Unlimited Anindita Sengupta Dr. Rajeshwari Ghose F T irst, the Berglunds. Patty and Walter are his novella was originally written in ideal neighbours, loving parents and 1987 in Marathi and recently translated upstanding members of American subur- into English by Shashi Deshpande. bia. The fact that it was written in a regional Patty is humble to the point to self deprecation, Indian language and that too well over two remembers people's birthdays and knows where decades ago has a special significance. Certain to recycle batteries. subjects were not openly discussed then and Walter is well-meaning and gentle. But there we, in India, had a number of 'sacred cows' are several chinks in this middle class bliss: Patty that we did not address in an open forum. The loves their younger child Joey too much, at least one neighbour Indian notion of motherhood was one such finds her condescending and men find her too charming. More sacrosanct image. Gauri Deshpande clinically examines a surprising is the fact that Joey is having sex at 12 with his 13- mother-daughter relationship, a family dynamic that is volatile year-old neighbour and soon decides to move in next door.  and full of its own unresolved issues.  Evening is the Whole Day Burnt Shadows Preeta Samarasan Kamila Shamsie HarperCollins Picador Anindita Sengupta Anindita Sengupta S B et in post-independence Malaysia, Preeta urnt Shadows treads ambitiously across Samarasan's impressive debut novel a lot of terrain-cities and language, tur- explores how the coils of family can bind moil, loss, survival, and love-and in and strangle. The British have left and Malaysia doing so, manages to move, bruise and heal. is a tumultuous land heaving with the strug- The story begins with a prologue: a man in a gles and competitions of its three primary prison cell wonders "How did it come to this". races. In the midst of political turmoil, a In four separate, intricately drawn sections Tamilian family manages their equally tumul- about Nagasaki, Delhi, Karachi and New York, tuous (though less obviously bloody) relationships, and tries to Shamsie unravels the answer to that question. Knowing the trajec- remain sane. For the most part, Samarasan exercises consider- tory, one might imagine that the rest is predictable but it's not able control over her prose, unleashing torrential description really. There is enough unexpectedness and nuance to carry the when required and switching to a sparer register at moments of story beyond the severity of war polemic. And yet, the larger his- keen tension or menace. There is quite a bit of humour here as tories that inform and affect these individual lives are always well. Samarasan has crafted a novel that is dark and honest, and there, barely hidden away like the bird-shaped burns on Hiroko's one that holds much meaning to ponder.  back.  Crucial Confrontations: Tools for resolving bro- The Big Questions ken promises, violated expectations and bad behav- Steven E. Landsburg Pocket Books ior Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler Tata McGraw-Hill Dr. Rajagopalan Manjula Sundharam C T rucial Confrontations talks about how he big philosophical questions are we can express our disappointments and grouped into four categories by expectations. Landsburg: What is reality? What is the The authors teach us with relevant examples, nature of our beliefs? How do we gain knowl- what we need to do before, during and after edge? What is right and wrong? Ideas and holding a crucial confrontation. methods of mathematics, physics and eco- The book provides useful strategies for corpo- nomics are used to understand these big ques- rate executives to hold people accountable for tions more rigorously. their non performance. Landsburg, who earlier gave us The Armchair Economist Though there are no guarantees that confrontation would and More Sex is Safer Sex, has done it again: provoking us magically transform people around us, the authors offer many with big questions, novel explanations and leaving us to wres- easy to understand strategies for leaders to act as facilitators, tle with more questions. Over all this is a fantastic travel-read: enablers and supporters.  short, witty and important.  For detailed reviews check out justbooksclc.com
  • 4. 4 JustBooks Connect - September 2011 In the hills A Paean to Love of hill dwellers. There is Charu, Maya's The Folded Earth student who is still unable to read or “Though I cannot know precisely write despite Maya's best efforts. She when it happened, a time had Anuradha Roy falls in love with a half Nepali waiter come when I had become a hill- and Maya is a sort of intermediary and MacLehose Press spectator of their blossoming love story. person who was only at peace Finally there is Veer, Diwan Sahib's where the earth rose and fell in nephew. Maya is guiltily drawn to him waves like the sea." Geetanjali Singh Chanda but he is a mysterious character who has his own secrets to hide and discover. young Charu, for example, compelled by Each character has their particular the necessity of a distant love learns final- story and yet together they form the rich ly to read and write. And more astonish- A tapestry of Maya's world. nuradha Roy's second novel The ingly she, who has never even ventured Ranikhet, Diwan Sahib and his crum- Folded Earth is a deeply evoca- to the next village, recklessly heads off to bling old house referred to as the Light tive and compassionate love Delhi by bus on her own to find her love House provide Maya a refuge and a lov- story. Love is an overused word that has Kundan Singh. The thought of what ing space for healing. And together they been reduced to banality and yet there is could and almost did happen to her is succeed in seducing a plains-dwelling no other word that so aptly conveys the chilling. Sheer innocence and guts though Maya into becoming a hill- essence of this book. have a chance of being rewarded - at least person. This multi layered and complex story in fiction. explores love in the very real Roy's prose is sheer poetry. It is ele- and deep sense of the word. gant, lyrical, chiseled and polished to It is not only about the love perfection. The images are imaginative between people but every and unforgettable. Charu's character, the flora and fauna Grandmother, known to all as 'Ama' and the place itself are for instance is described thus, "Her eyes imbued with love. had a quiverful of lines at their corners." Ranikhet particularly is gen- But aside from this particularly strik- tly drawn more as character ing image we also know her by her than a place where the story loud voice "that could carry across sev- unfolds. At one level the novel eral valleys." though not all the char- could be read as an elegy for acters are hill people. There are also both Ranikhet (and other such cameo appearances by well known hill stations) and for Diwan urban scholars such as Sahib. Diwan Sahib, the gently Ramachandra Guha - "a tall dis- ageing, ex-finance minister of the tracted-looking man in glasses" who Nawab of Surajgarh is a central comes to visit Diwan Sahib to cull figure and the grand old man of out information about the Nehru- Ranikhet. Edwina letters that he is sup- The story unfolds in Ranikhet posed to possess. The single where a young widow Maya has damning fact about Guha in been living and working at Saint Diwan Sahib's book is that "he Hilda's school. Maya's marriage to a didn't have a single drink." It is young Christian Michael Secuira so these insightful and precise outraged her father that he disowns details that form vivid word and refuses to see her again. A few portraits that bring alive both short years after their marriage though major and minor characters. She notes the Michael is tragically killed at 1500-feet The Folded Earth is not just a pastoral moment of her transformation, during a trekking expedition. or hill romance. Roy's concern for the "Though I cannot know precisely when it hap- Maya flees Hyderabad for Ranikhet to environment, the destruction of the hill- pened, a time had come when I had become a be closer, at least in spirit, to Michael. She side by a rampaging and heedless urban- hill-person who was only at peace where the joins St. Hilda's school as a teacher and ization, consumerism, the manipulation earth rose and fell in waves like the sea." creates an alternate family. of people by cynical politicians and the The novel also follows the standard and There is Diwan Sahib —her landlord — inroads made by strident fundamen- more usual love stories, although each is an irascible old man who loves his drink, talisms simmer just below the surface. unique. The elusive love letters between is fabled to have the secret letters of Although this is a quiet novel it is the last Vicerine Edwina Mountbatten Edwina Mountbatten and Jawaharlal deeply centered and grounded in a core and India's first Prime Minister Nehru and has been working on a biogra- philosophic conception of the meaning of Jawaharlal Nehru frame and permeate phy of Jim Corbett for the past many an ethical life that is in harmony with the other stories with a mix of desperate years. nature and people.  longing and a melancholic nostalgia. The He initiates Maya into the life and ways
  • 5. JustBooks Connect - September 2011 5 Building blocks Last Man Standing and Masterji, who starts by refusing in 'surprise' for a construction worker's fam- Last Man in Tower solidarity with his friends and then on ily on a site visit. Aravind Adiga Fourth Estate principle. If the premise of the book is a tad pre- dictable — a simple man challenging a M asterji is morally upright and true to his belief to the end but also comes across as a tight-fisted man unable more powerful one — what saves it from to empathise with anyone else's plight. being so is Adiga's approach towards Adiga's brilliant writing ensures that each character. we shift our sympathies from character to Reshmi Chakraborty He spares no effort in meticulously character as we read along. drawing out each one of them and We empathise with Masterji, the old plumbing hidden depths. The disgrun- man who has lost his daughter to a freak A ravind Adiga's Last Man in tled yet hopeful Mrs. Puri dreams of a accident, wife to old age and ailment and Tower is a quick paced, entertain- better life with her son Ramu, who suf- is somewhat estranged from his only son. ing read about the battle for real fers from Down's Syndrome; the 'battle- But we also understand Mrs. Puri and her estate in Mumbai, told from the perspec- ship' Mrs. Rego constantly tries to trump desire to have a better house and a bit tives of various protagonists, the more money so that she doesn't have to main being Yogesh Murthy or spend her life washing her son's bot- Masterji. tom. The residents of Vishram Adiga is excellent in creating this Society, Tower A, know they live dilemma. For most part, our sympa- on the wrong side of the tracks, in thies lie with Masterji, especially as his Vakola. It is in fact a neighbour- once kindly neighbours take turns in hood so questionable that many making him feel like an outsider and of them, like 'Communist Aunty' his own son turns his back on him. Mrs. Rego, whose sister lives in You appreciate him for staying true to Bandra (West), are not quite sure his cause but also wonder what is the how to pronounce it -- 'Va-KHO- true reason behind his refusal to sign on la or VAA-k'-la?' the dotted line when the building, as In the Mumbai of shiny high- the author doesn't fail to remind us, is rises with foreign names and almost crumbling anyway? Is it simply increasing slums, Vishram is a to save the place where he has the max- rundown, could-crumble-any- imum memories or a stubborn ego mas- time mansion that was estab- sage? lished in 1959 as an example of Adiga remains ambiguous, giving us 'good housing for good Indians'. something to be frustrated about and You need to climb up the dingy mull on. stairwell, though 'an Otis lift His Masterji is a wonderful character- exists, but unreliably so'. The build- isation, peppered with comic and seri- ing itself, once pink in colour, is ous notes, from his idealistic beliefs to now 'a rainwater-stained, fungus- his refusal to ever step on a scrap of the licked grey,' says Adiga, describ- Times of India because an ex-student of ing Mumbai's scores of decrepit his writes for the paper. An ex-student housing societies in one very visual sen- her sister who has so far trumped her in who doesn't bother to answer his letters tence. Last Man in Tower is full of marriage and area of residence; the inef- later in the book. Adiga extends the descriptions like these, of Vishram and its fectual secretary Kothari longs to see the comic tone to most of the characters, giv- residents, of Vakola and its slums and of pink flamingos of his African youth and ing the sinister turn of events in the book Mumbai, the ultimate mix of muck, the blind Mrs. Pinto who finds her way a lighter touch. money and middle class ambition. by instinct through the dingy stairwells Ultimately, this is a 'Bombay' book that Into this mire steps real estate develop- of Vishram and cannot think of moving anyone who has ever battled the local er Dharmen Shah, who makes the resi- anywhere else. train crowds or waded through knee dents an offer of redevelopment they can- not refuse. Most of them don't, as the W hile retired schoolteacher Yogesh Murthy or Masterji remains the central character, he isn't exactly the hero deep dirty water during the incessant monsoon or set their times by the tap would be able to identify with. It is also a offer spells the chance to move to a better apartment in a better location. either. His rival Dharmen Shah has all the reflection of the city itself, indeed of most In other words, an overall better life. characteristics of the unscrupulous cities across the country, where rampant Few people refuse. The social worker builder (bribery, coercion, mistress half construction is pushing lesser privileged Mrs. Rego, who has a deep distrust of his age) but is also a self-made man who citizens to a corner of no choice and builders and an abiding attachment to never quite forgets his struggles and where it seems corruption can conquer any cause, the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Pinto leaves behind a twenty rupee note as a anything. 
  • 6. 6 JustBooks Connect - September 2011 In conversation A tete-e-tete on writing Pushpa Achanta respected journal from Aligarh fea- tured my essay on sustainable ener- gy that one of my teachers sent to them, unknown to me. My first How many times have you won- novel (or novella, published in dered- I wish I could write. The ones 2000), outrageously titled Of who can write are wondering who Seminal Fluids rebelled against will publish my work and those you myself, my friends and the publish- get published are worried about who ing world's norms. After my short will read their writing! stories appeared in Webzines, I took them seriously. Pushpa Achanta tried to find answers to these questions from CW: Year 2000 heralded my first some established and some emerging poetry collection Squatting writers. Quietly from Firstfruits She talked to Zafar Anjum (ZA), Publications - an earnest book fruc- who is a journalist, poet, novelist, tified through my desire to write film maker; Cyril Wong (CW) a poet, differently into a literary scene that author, journal editor, arts centre felt monotonous and repressed. manager and to M. C. Raj (MCR), The self is highly neutered in our local literature; and my poetry who is a rights campaigner, commu- highlights the nudity of a self living nity leader, and an author. through intense feelings (god for- Here they share their stories on bid deep feelings or individualism what got them to start writing, how in Singapore). they published their first work and the disappointments and accolades MCR: My first published book Zafar Anjum they received in their writing jour- was in 1997 about Foucault's analysis of Hearteningly, some Bangalore colleges ney. the dominant society. I disagreed with his organized seminars on my first work. conclusion that problematizing is How and when did you start writing? enough. A writer must also express what My next book Dalitology, released he or she thinks as strategies to address before 6,000 people (from across India) in ZA: I began penning Urdu essays, early problems. Critical acclaim for my book Bangalore sold 2,000 copies quickly. on. Prizes in school and college competi- From Periphery to Centre - An Analysis Being recognized as Dalitology's author tions encouraged me. Essays distilled my of the Paradigms of Globalization, thrills me. Disappointingly, some friends thoughts on specific topics; cogent pres- Casteism and Dalitism encouraged me to disassociated with me after Dalitology. I entation was an art. I dabbled in poetry write more. like Rajiv Malhotra's critical analysis of too-I never attempted short stories origi- Dalitology. I want to know if readers nally. I'm not into poetry nowadays. What was the response to your initial shatter my views with their understand- writing? Did any specific recognition, ing. CW: With authenticity and artistic com- appreciation, criticism affect you? mitment, I started writing during univer- sity. Many suppressed emotions and ZA: My initial fiction work's criticism What makes you write now? Which are ideas about growing up, school and taught me much. I won a short story con- your favourite themes? national service experiences figured in test to represent India at a SAARC my poems. Writers Conference in Colombo in 2002. ZA: Underdogs, injustice and systemic Little Magazine publishing and choosing coercion move me. Perhaps, I seek world- MCR: I began writing in 1984. When my my short story as a finalist for a new ly moral balance through my writings. wife Jyothi and I initiated work among writer award in 2006 was honourable and Apparently, my stories explore the Tumkur's rural poor, I authored an unexpected. pathology of modernity. unpublished book called Tumkur At a Glance. After two years, I collated our CW: Terrible. Media and some readers I've no favourite themes but unjust acts experiences and successes into another loved the book. But many older folks in always provoke me. And love and human unpublished work named The the "establishment" disapproved my non- relationships. Nowadays, I am interested Beginnings. social, too-personal poetry. That only in chronicling lives of people touched by made me to continue writing. the global financial meltdown. Which was your first published work MCR: Launching a series on Dalit liter- CW: Favourite themes-love; our con- and when? How did that occur? ature, Sage Books said that my book flicted relationships to the hole at the cen- would be the first. But despite appreciat- tre of all our lives. ZA: My first publication: in class VI, a ing it, they could not publish it. Shocked, I started publishing my books myself.
  • 7. JustBooks Connect - September 2011 7 past lovers often inspire my poems. The CW: Read more than pain and the heartache. you write. MCR: Frequently, I discuss my writings MCR: I avoid advis- with my family for their reflection. ing. I want to be a but- I validate my fiction with my children terfly attaining absolute as they know the taste of modern youth. I freedom when mature. value my family's support. Harming none, butter- flies drinks nature's nec- Do you enjoy or dislike reading any par- tar and die unnoticed. ticular authors, poets and genres? People can be butterflies maturing in their own ZA: I won't read someone because he or space and time. she is a bestseller. Writers can barely cap- tivate me for 300 pages. Have your family mem- I enjoy my favourite Urdu poets' verses bers or friends con- and different genres except horror. I love tributed to your writ- biographies, letters and diaries of great ing? writers and thinkers. ZA: My family and CW: I hate any poem that does not friends support me, reflect the soul (or anything defined as though I don't show "soul"). Many male poets are painful to them my work. My read (or women trying to imitate men) wife's backing keeps me because they probably prioritize accom- going. plishments over great emotional urgency. I find novels tedious. I love everything M. C. Raj CW: My family and else. MCR: I love deep philosophy. MCR: Writing is my habit. I write at Habermas, Foucault, Chomsky and night. Recently, I began penning fiction. Radhakrishnan were my favourites. This year I have two published novels I like Faranz Fannon. I dislike light (Raachi and Yokiana) and some non-fic- topics and rhetoric. tion works. My third novel is ready - I'm intensively authoring another. Would you like to add anything? My favourite theme is philosophy. But I also write on Psychology and ZA: I don't take my writing seri- Spirituality. Lately, I've entered love, ously. I wonder if my writing is sexuality and relationship through fic- worth anything. The talent and pre- tion. cocity of the masters is awe inspir- ing. I've a long way to go. Any advice for new and emerging writ- ers? CW: Nah. ZA: Fundamentally, understand your MCR: Having extremely poor, reason for writing. You are probably unlettered parents, I'm content at ris- wasting your time if you write for ing from burning ashes. I'm rebel- money or fame. Read and write much lious, enjoy oratory and solitude. without hope and despair. My books are apparently tough to Be very critical about your work. understand. I load my words with Interact and learn from other writers. meaning. I've tried writing lucidly. And when sure of writing, continue; Perhaps, after my death many will although realizing your dream might read my writing.  Cyril wong take decades. Zafar Anjum Cyril Wong M. C. Raj Zafar is a cineaste, an avid blogger Wong is called Singapore's first confes- Based in Tumkur, Karnataka, Raj is a (dreamink.blogspot.com) and editor sional poet. He is an author of nine vol- community leader, novelist, non-fiction of Kitaab.org and Writersconnect.org, umes of poetry. He is also the poetry jour- writer and campaigner for electoral websites dedicated to Asian writing nal editor (www.softblow.org) and an reforms in India. He has more than 15 in English. operations manager at The Substation, published books to his name. He writes He is an award-winning journalist Singapore’s first independent arts centre. on philosophy, psychology, spirituality, and fiction writer. An Indian who A featured poet of several Literary and politics etc. He generally writes on Dalit now lives in Singapore, Zafar consid- Writers Festival, Wong recently completed issues and is an international opinion ers himself a film maker too. his doctoral degree in English literature. leader. He leads a powerful Dalit Movement in Karnataka.
  • 8. 8 JustBooks Connect - September 2011 Reader’s Reader’s contribution Healthy milk from the farm Voice Kushii H So delicious and nice. Fruits so delicious Khushii has a farm house on Yummy apples, bananas and man- I have been a member of JustBooks for Kanakapura Road, which she often goes too the past 10 months. At first, I had visits. Till my tummy is full of fruits. thought it was a shop for books. I There they have animals like asked my friend if he knew anything cows, dog, sheep and lot of hens. And there are animals about it. He said that he was a member and that it was a library which had all Coconut, Guava and Chikoo trees Cats, cows and horses too the books that had been released in and some vegetables too. A care- Which keep you on your toes. India and also some other foreign books. taker family stays there (farmer). I kept pestering my parents until they Khushii wrote this poem in her Farmer Penny and the whole gang got me a membership there. school's creative writing book and Pond you see looks so nice When I got my membership, there the topic was given by her teacher. And you can make paper boats were so many books to choose from. She wants to share this with other and There were many books that I borrowed JustBooks' members. Leave it on the water. from JustBooks, mostly from the 'Alex Rider' series by Anthony Horowitz and the 'Eragon' series by Christopher THE FARM Do you want to go to a farm? Paolini. To jump, yell and shriek Reading is a lot of fun. I think many Do you want to go to a farm? The whole day long more people should take JustBooks With loads of fun for all! membership. So green, so beautiful and nice Syamanthak Srikrishnan, 13 years JP Nagar - Dollar's Colony Bangalore  Khushii is a very talkative and energetic 7-year old girl, who was born on 6th May, which happens to be the birthday of poet Rabindranath Tagore too! She loves drawing and colouring, colouring rangoli, reading comics like Amar Chitra Katha, Chandmama and Tinkle. Khushii also loves elderly people a lot. Presently she is studying at National Hill View Public School at RR Nagar. 
  • 9. JustBooks Connect - September 2011 9 Readers’s contribution When in Rome.. The First Man in Rome Julia, a girl of powerful political lineage, fight to push back the Germanic hordes. whose illustrious family, though aristo- Ms. McCullough's maps are of great help Colleen McCullough cratic, has fallen on relatively hard times. in bringing out the dimensions of the Avon It suits Gaius Julius Caesar, the father, to events. marry his daughter to a rich ambitious I particularly liked the maps showing man as he has high hopes for his sons' Rome's idea of the world and map of the futures that can only be fulfilled if he town of Rome. Also included are some acquires financial clout. Marius gains interesting illustrations from the busts of Gita Subramanian the family connection required to set him prominent people of the period. off on his path to achieve his dream. Scenes of domestic life, conversations Caesar's younger daughter is married to that bring out the mores of the time, Sulla. their election processes and so on are all T his book was first pub- seamlessly woven into the lished in 1990 and though story without turning them historical fiction is close to into history lessons. my heart, I could never pick up Did you know, for exam- this dauntingly long (nearly 900 ple, that there were large pages) book and start reading it. several-storied apartment Recently I did. And I am glad I blocks in Rome at that did it, for Colleen McCullough's time? Also that women painstaking scholarship and eye rarely drank and had to sit for details have really brought to in straight chairs to dine life the characters and the histori- while the men lounged in cal events of the period. couches. The year is 110 B.C. The story Colleen McCullough's is set around two men, Gaius scholarship is evident but Marius, a rich ambitious man, does not intrude. She has who does not have the rights of appended about a hundred birth to political position in the pages of glossary explain- Republic and Lucius Cornelius ing the Latin terms, the Sulla, a poor aristocrat with social context and some ambition who has till the start of explanation as to her the novel led an indolent, hedo- sources. nistic amoral existence. As she herself says in her Gaius Marius is seen at the note at the end of the start as an 'Italian hayseed with no novel, it would have been Greek'. impossible to include a full Not being Roman-born was a bibliography given the big deficiency in the class-con- extensive nature of her scious Rome of that time and research. Greek was the language that I would fault the book every aristocrat was supposed to only for its intimidating speak fluently. Fortune seeks length; perhaps she could them out and a series of circum- have published this in two stances propel Marius to the volumes instead of one. position of First Man in Rome and Sulla Though this is not based on historic This one is very difficult to lift and read is also well on his way to the political evidence, in her Author's Note in bed! prominence which he achieves in the McCullough cites her reasons quite con- second book of the series. vincingly for presuming this. This Gita Subramanian worked for many Around them is a whole plethora of brings the two men together and they years in International schools in characters from various walks of life that become close allies. draws the reader into a world as real as The absorbing story of the rise of these Hong Kong, where she also ran a the one we live in. There are political two protagonists is set against a back- book club. She is an avid reader and intrigues, there is massive corruption ground of magnificent scenes of epic a published writer as well. She has including vote-buying, tall election magnitude - the Jugurthine War, the translated three Tamil novels and promises and so on. Does that not invasion of the Germanic tribes and a won an award in 2010 for one of sound like today's India rather than grain crisis leading to a revolt that is them for best translation from Tamil Rome at the end of the second century crushed just in time. The battle scenes to English. She is a member of B.C.? are vividly graphic and there are JustBooks, JP Nagar.  Marius's rise begins when he marries detailed accounts of Marius's plans in his
  • 10. JustBooks Connect - September 2011 10 1. “An idiot child screaming in a 4. Who said, "Everything’s wrong on Wikipedia." hospital.” V.S. Naipaul H. G. Wells on George Bernard Gore Vidal Shaw Taslima Nasrin Lord Byron on John Keats Martin Amis on Miguel 5. “He has never been known to use a Cervantes word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” William Faulkner on Ernest 2. “There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to Hemingway dislike it, the other is to read Pope.” Vladimir Nabokov on Ernest Hemingway John Keats on Alexander Pope Dylan Thomas on Rudyard Lord Byron on on Alexander Pope Kipling Oscar Wilde on Alexander Pope 3."The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages." Salman Rushdie Virginia Woolf Rohinton Mistry Hemingway H. G. Wells on George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde on Alexander Pope, Virginia Woolf, Gore Vidal, William Faulkner on Ernest JUSTBOOKS Hindustan ke Shaan TOP 5 O ur new JustBooks Powai branch continues to be featured in the news media. The Hindustan Times, Mumbai Edition, carries an article titled N EW A RRIVALS 'Community based libraries open in City' 1. Leela’s Book by Alice "Book aficionados now have another reason to cheer. In yet another Albinia attempt to boost and encourage the reading habit among Mumbaikars, a 2. One Summer by David Bangalore-based venture is opening community-based reading libraries Baldacci titled JustBooks CLC across the city." 3. The Secret Of The Our plans for Mumbai continue unabated. In this context, they say, Nagas by Amish Tripathi "The venture also plans to open more outlets along the city's Western 4. Does He Know A Railway route by the year-end. Mother’s Heart? by Arun Shourie "We have a community-centric model with a physical shop that offers 5. 24 Akbar Road by Rasheed members access to books that they can rent, read and return," says D Ravi Kidwai Kumar, Senior Manager - Franchise Development, JustBooks CLC. He, however, adds that they want to focus on offline activities that R ECOMMENDED encourage people to visit the library rather than simply choosing the books 1. The Shadow Of The from the e-catalogue.” Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon 2. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger 3. Tamarind Mem by Anita Rau Badami 4. The Lost River by Michel Danino 5. The Master Switch by Timothy Wu R ENTALS 1. Only Time Will Tell by Jeffery Archer 2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Book 2) by Jeff Kinney 3. Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Book 4, 5 and 1) by Jeff Kinney 4. 2 States: The Story Of My Marriage by Chetan Bhagat 5. The Secret Of The Nagas by Amish Tripathi From JustBooks blog - http://blog.justbooksclc.com 
  • 11. JustBooks Connect - September 2011 11 Food on the road Not a lot on their plate Highway On My Plate - The Rajasthan, or the unique Egg Factory and drink-serving, arty Indian Guide To Roadside crowd at Koshy's in Bangalore. Eating While you simply cannot dis- miss a 300 page food guide, the Rocky Singh & Mayur Sharma book seems to lack something. The strapline on the cover calls Random House India the book: The Indian Guide To Roadside Eating; but what it covers mostly are the restaurants and Aradhana Janga hotels in the cities. An extended Lonely Planet at best is what the O book turns out to be. The duo of n a road trip? Wondering what Rocky and Mayur miss to discov- to eat and where? Like to try dif- ferent authentic cuisines fets with the choicest of dishes! Udupi but not really sure where to find food boasts of unique dishes made from them? On a stringent budget or jackfruit, as well as the local buns and feel like splurging on good food? 'Neer' dosas. Highway on My Plate by Rocky And talking about street food, surely Singh and Mayur Sharma might the food stalls around Sajjan Rao circle just be the answer to all your gas- in Bangalore deserve a mention for their tronomic questions. Rocky and steaming hot idlis, dosas and Badam Mayur are well known for their (almond) milk served every evening to food show on NDTV Good Times, its big fan-following that enjoys and where they take viewers on food comes back for more. journeys across the length and Food is more than a basic need; it is a breadth of India. way of life, it is part of tradition, culture, The book covers 25 states and economics and natural environment. on an average about 3-5 places in There is a reason why South Indian each state. With about 3-5 food states are mostly rice-eating ones while joints in each of these places, the North Indian ones are wheat-eating, just book is a good collection for your like there is there is a very good reason travel library! Every eatery comes why coastal regions use a lot of coconut with a detailed description of the in their food preparation than the rest of setting, food specialty, contact the country. information, price range and a A brief history of food of a state might rating on taste, ambience, service, have made Highway on My Plate more and value for money. interesting. For a traveler, it is of interest to And though it might be interesting to know the Punjabi dhaba and the find different cuisines in the most idli-dosa joint in the middle of unlikely of places, for a real foodie, authentic food is probably of more inter- er the biryani haven in Tamil Nadu - est than a pasta and pizza joint in the Ambur which is literally on the middle of South India! 'Gatte ki Sabji' in Bangalore-Chennai highway and sup- Rajasthan and Ragi dishes in Karnataka plies thousands of biryani packets daily are as local as one can get, but Rocky to Chennai. and Mayur miss out on these delights. Or the North Karnataka cuisine (corn While Chinese food might be popular in rotis with brinjal and lentil curries made Kolkata, wouldn't a tourist be interested with their unusual blend of spices), in typical Bengali food at 6 Ballygunge which is so unique that one cannot find Place or Bhojohori Manna or the biryani any similarities between that and the at Arsalan? And it's disappointing to Bangalore or the coastal (better known note that 'Saravana Bhavan', a local as Udupi) cuisine. favourite does not feature at all in the They also skipped the Kamat Chennai listing. Lokaruchi on the busy Bangalore- For someone who is clueless about Mysore highway that causes quite a traf- Indian food, this book will be helpful, fic snarl with its multitude of customers. but if you are out sleuthing for authen- Some drive all the way just to eat the tic, traditional food, you are better off special South and North Karnataka doing your bit of detective work and thalis and all-you-can-eat breakfast buf- asking the locals. 
  • 12. 12 JustBooks Connect - September 2011 Musings Reading in an Age of Distraction Ram Mohan Susarla always read the eBooks on your PC (during breaks at work). Mind you, I do not have anything against W e are living in times where eBooks (I like my Kindle digital ubiquity is the order of very much!). The point that I the day and most of us are am trying to convey is that I constantly switching between checking have personally experienced email, surfing the web for the latest the "shortened" attention headlines and sports updates, answer- spans when I read stuff on ing the telephone and attending to the electronic devices. There is mobile calls (and SMSes). nothing to beat the joy of In fact, there are some among us who reading a printed book. have the omnipotent Blackberry's and IPhone's to keep us busy. With all this electronic "chatter" drowning out the R eading in this electronic age is not only about reading the "right" books voice of reflection, we hardly have time (personally, I don't think to take a book and read it from cover to there are any "right" books. cover. Indeed, the "Age of Distraction" All books are books, period.), where the attention spans are in minutes but also about reading just and seconds means that we hardly have for the "heck" of it. The objec- time to breathe, let alone read. tive should be to embark on There are many authors like Nicholas a journey with the book as Carr who have pointed to the "shallows" the companion and discover that inhabit our minds in this electronic the sights and sounds of age. There are others who have drawn delight in the process. Many attention to the "fragmentation" of our of us take books along with selves because of so much digital "noise" us on journeys. that assaults us from all directions. Why not read a book sit- Studies done in recent years have shown ting at home and transport that the average time spent on a task has ourselves into the world of come down to 11 minutes and the need the characters of the book for constant switching back and forth and experience their stories between tasks means that our "e-person- in the same way we reflect alities" might take over our "offline" on our other experiences. selves and there can be a morphing of Reading a book is the per- both. Increasingly, many behavioural fect antidote to the lack of experts are calling upon people to medi- focus and concentration for tate or sit still in contemplation if we do extended durations that not want this to happen. seems to be the malaise So, what better way to "logout" from afflicting many of us. the e-world than to pick a book and read The pleasures of reading it at leisure? are such that once you start Of course, there are many who would reading; the rest follows willingly give up the TV remote or put quiet beauty that reading offers as a much like a musician finds the right their mobiles on discreet to sit down and reward. And those moments of quietude notes after the initial prelude. read. But for those who find it hard to and reflection are well worth the time Finally, reading as a habit for children tear themselves away from their gadg- and effort spent in reading the book. should be taken seriously by parents if ets, there is some advice coming your way. Reading a book is like sipping I f you are wondering, "Why not read an eBook on a Kindle or a Nook?" The answer is that while reading eBooks is they want their kids to discover a world other than TV and Video games and wine and it grows on you. Hence, the there are titles galore on all subjects that best thing to do when you get the time is certainly catching on, nothing can beat interest kids. There cannot be a better to sit down and reach for that book that the pleasure of plonking oneself on the way to ensure that your kid does not you have always wanted and get going. favourite armchair and reading a print- grow up on gadgets alone if you initiate Never mind the incessant buzz of the ed book. There are many reasons for them to the wonders of reading. messages or the temptation to check the doing so. For starters, an eBook is again movements of shares and the urge to a book that is read on a gadget, when Writer's Note: There are many books on scroll through the updates on the inter- the objective clearly is to "disconnect" the topic that I have written about and in net. A book is worth reading not only from the virtual world. Next, not many fact, the topic was inspired by the recent for the pleasure that the joy of reading books are available in the electronic for- publication of a book, from which I have bor- gives us but also for the moments of mat (as of now) even though their popu- rowed the title.  larity is increasing. Finally, you can
  • 13. JustBooks Connect - September 2011 13 Venturing out Friends with a franchise Sapana Rawat Meet Mr. Vinod Shankar, one of the partners of Trupti Ventures that runs JustBooks Malleshwaram franchise. Vinod also leads Strata Retail's Marketing department. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your partners. I am a typical Bengaluru boy, who recently married a typical Bengaluru girl. I was born here and have lived all my life here. Travel and food interests me a lot, and if the place is breathtaking and food is great I dabble with my camera to cap- ture the best of both. Trupti Ventures has four partners: Rahul (a software engineer), Shajin Serine (a financial analyst), Sabari (a chemical engineer) and myself. We all have been friends for years, right from our school There were a lot of other ideas that we ends, some days I spend my evenings and college days. had considered — express car wash, trav- interacting with our members. el & holidays or a millet-only restaurant. Every member has a unique taste in What were you doing before joining I had become a member of JustBooks, books, and the satisfaction of helping JustBooks as an employee? Whitefield and around the same time them find a particular book is immense. In my previous avatar I worked for Sabari and I were attending start-up The members come from varied back- four years as a Digital Signal Processing event at IIMB, where we came across grounds, there are dancers, techies and engineer in a large communication com- JustBooks as a possible opportunity to homemakers and not to forget ever bub- pany. I still find technology interesting start our entrepreneurial journey. bling energetic kids! Interacting with for it simplifies tasks in everyday life like kids, knowing that they are reading has issue and return of books at JustBooks. How has been the customer response to been insightful. JustBooks as a concept & your library, in How has your experience been on work- particular? What kind of books do you read person- ing full time and taking care of the fran- The customers are delighted to have a ally? Who are your favourite authors? chise? library like JustBooks at Malleshwaram, I love autobiography and biographies Working at JustBooks has been fun and which is one of the oldest areas of along with books related to Indian a learning experience. The best part is Bengaluru. medieval history though I used to read you get to meet varied and interesting The use of technology for issue and Sidney Sheldon, Dan Brown, Paulo Coelo people every day. return, the vast collection of books and and likes in my college days. Being a part of organization that's mov- universal access across branches has I like Indian writers like Ramachandra ing from start-up to its growth phase is enabled kids and seniors citizens alike to Guha and Subroto Bagchi. valuable. I always wanted to learn and appreciate JustBooks as a noble concept. experience how organization are built What is your advice to book lovers who and scaled up. What do you think will be a great addi- would like to turn entrepreneurs through JustBooks has provided this wonderful tion in terms of value to your existing JustBooks? opportunity to me, and I get paid to do members? If you are a book lover looking for a what I love to do. After joining JustBooks Through JustBooks we provide a serv- simple business, with decent returns on the time spent at the outlet has reduced to ice that means a lot to our members. To your investment, then JustBooks is the some extent, though I hope to make up enrich it further, we are looking into pro- place for you. for that soon. viding literary consultants once a week to Along with the profits, the satisfaction help our members choose books and that you get by setting up a JustBooks Why and how did this franchise option organize creative events for children. franchise in your community adds intan- happen? gible value to your own life. I always wanted to start something on How much of your time do you spend at With presence across five cities, it's only my own as the entrepreneurial bug had the JustBooks outlet personally? How a matter of time before JustBooks makes bit me. It was only matter of time before rewarding is the experience of interacting its presence across India and becomes a we four friends started something. with your members? synonym for Library.  I'm there at the outlet over the week-