The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan

One cannot talk or write about Partition without invoking a lot of emotions. As Ramchandra Guha also says that one biggest flaw in the writing of History is that the author himself/herself has an opinion and its most difficult to talk about the topic unbiased. But Yasmin Khan has risen to this challenge and left her text un-corrupted by any bias and I simply can't resist thanking her.
Yasmin Khan followed a contemporary historian's method of narrative history to describe the events during the dark days of Partition. While Maulana had described the various events leading to Partition, Yasmin Khan weaves a web of situations around this dreadful event.
The book is a slow starter and seems to be a little over analytic. But once you proceed to the third chapter, the narrative becomes nothing less than gripping.
For a generation born post emergency, its highly impossible to understand or even envisage the chaos of those times. But Yasmin's book through a collosal research and lucid writing has been able to do the impossible. She invokes images in mind which even well written novels like Tamas or Pinjar have not been able to do.
These were times which had no Parallel in history. There was no guiding post. To make it worse, communications were at there Nadir. We cannot deny it as the biggest Political error of the Modern India. But, Yasmin, as Maulana had illustrated that there was no single event which could have been pointed to lead us to these dark times. The seeds were sowed long back when Jinnah forming a Muslim League. All events post that just added to the pile and in 1947, we reached the tipping point over which Mountbatten just gave us a push.
Unlike Maulana, Yasmin Khan is not a Mountbatten fan. She has analyzed his actions to a great depth. Personally, in this part, the narrative to me seemed as if Mountbatten had a list of To-dos and Partition was just one of them.
When I shifted from Lucknow to Hoshiarpur in the 90s, the absence of mosque's and Muslims in this part of India was a shocker to me as a kid. I later thought that its just that Muslim's were centered a little more in UP and Sikh's in Punjab. But my readings of the Partition have made things more understandable.
Through Yasmin's book, I believe I have been able to live a life of the refugee for at least a week till I read this book. And if it was such an emotionally draining experience to just read, I just cannot imagine the trauma and horrors of the people who lived through. As one of the social workers remarked that the trauma was such that they didn't know what to say and how to console the ones affected; I would want to leave these horrors to rest for now.

Manish Saini

India Wins Freedom - Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

Its a popular belief that its Books which choose you and not the other way round and I can definitely say that the saying has been true for me for this book. It was just on a sleepy Saturday that I laid my hand on this astounding tale of Partition at a second hand book shop.

Its a tale from the close Quarters, from the desk of somone who spearheaded the nation into an almost Blodless freedom.

It is one book which puts one in an extreme conundrum. How is one supposed to react when ones' icons fall into a deep abyss of Human falacy? How is one supposed to react when he understands that the greatest error in the human history was done by none other than his greatest icon whom he had emulated since childhood?
I am not sure about the answers to these questions nor am I sure to the feelings I am exposed to by this book. What I know is that I just need to know more about this most tragic event in the history of this subcontinent.

The book being a Biography and written by the long time associate of Maulana is completely devoid of a human angle of him which one sees very clearly in Mahatama's "My experiments with truth" and Mandela's "Long walk to freedom." This book does paint Maulana as the one of the greatest of his time and I have no doubt about it.

This book has opened a Pandora's box which is the reason why its full publication was extremely controversial and only a court case was won was when readers were humbled by Maulana.

It is my first thorough insight into the events leading to Partition but it seems to me as a slightly biased view with lot of personal feelings about individuals and events involved. And I don't blame Maulana for this as the time was such and the tragedy was one of its kind.

But this book has definitely given me a good starting point to research into a story whose genesis I wanted to know more about since a long time.


Manish Saini

Letter toThe School of Barbiana

Dear Sir,
Its been 43 years since you have written your letter and I am sure it has passed through a million hands since. Even people who matter like Edward Boyle have acknowledged and written back to thank you.

43 years on, the world hasn't changed much. I guess it needs more than a Letter to change it. But what your Letter has done and can do cannot be thanked for even by a million letters from Gianni's like me who were a little lucky than you.This letter of mine, am sure will be among the thousands which you have received since your first publication.But what has instigated me to write it is the sorrow of letting 43 years gone waste since you first opened the Pandora's Box.

Your Pyramid is more valid in India today with increasing population and compulsory education laws and teachers still teach 18 hours a day, the young kids are as Timid as in those times, Gianni's are in abundant and Pierino fill the Universities, the Knife has turned into a sword and Rabrindranath has been trapped in the National Anthem and Gandhi in the portraits, Geography has become social studies and mathematics is as dreadful as it was ever, poor still travel miles to reach school and Teachers have left their jobs to create flourishing businesses out of after school tutions, I still pay my full taxes every month with a 2 percent education cess and need Rs 1.5 lac to get my kid admitted in a good school to start his rat race, government has stopped recruiting teachers for primary schools because of abundant supply and still 1 out of every 5 teachers is absent for a full year from schools, geniuses are still BORN and somehow GOD only curses poor with STUPID kids, Even at 32 I have not voted in a single general elections and my kid's history book changes with every change in the government every 5 years, the passing on of the knowledge is the job of only priests or parents while a teachers job is making sure the kid lives are cut down to the lowest denominator with the knife and I still don't know how many flats are there in my Building.

What has really hit me is that some people who have been close to me had been or want to become a part of this filthy system irrespective of thinking how they have suffered at the hands of the same system. By becoming part of it they have or will become the carrier of the same philosophy which you and I hate, sowing what their next generation is going to reap.
If the weakness of the Indian Education system is not rectified, we might loitre The greatest strength of India, its democracy. Also, its this strength itself which needs to be used to overcome the education system's weakness.

While I don't see any dramatic changes happening immediately, I also cannot sit on the boundary line seeing my kids struggling. This letter of your's has very strongly negotiated with my soul to start THE SCHOOL OF BARBIANA in India and which I will start soon. I don't want anyone reading your letter after another 43 years and writing back to you again a similar thank you.

With Deepest Regards,
Manish Saini

Anne Frank – The Diary of a Young Girl

Paper is more patient than man

Frankly….when I picked up Anne’s diary, my expectations were –
1. It is going to be a very interesting thriller story. 8 people living in a hidden apartment for over 2 years hiding from the German’s with only 1 coming out alive (as per the theme). I sincerely expected a Stephen King.
2. It would tell me more about those horrific times of Hitler’s regime.
Least had I expected to be a “DIARY of a young girl”. A classic case of over(mis)expectation.
50 pages into the diary, I realized that it was Anne’s only friend with whom she shared her thoughts during those hard times. I was not too convinced that the sentences, phrases and the words used are those of a 13 year old kid. They were pretty refined and mature. As it was a translation in English, the translator took the liberty of doing it so. But can’t say the same about the thoughts expressed through them. They were definitely 13.
Ranting about food, hating her mother, growling about anything coming her way, jumping at slightest joy; she was a typical, totally confused kid trying to come to the new reality.
One thing which I really appreciated of Anne’s parents and other grown ups was to support the kids to continuously read and write which made all the difference.
I do believe that when you verbalize your thoughts and listen to yourself, your thoughts become more refined and you start choosing the right words to communicate. It’s like rehearsing in front of the mirror before the actor is to take the final shot.
I think the same started happening with Anne and by the November of 1943, she had grown into a mature young lady with more condensed and clear ideas.
She writes that the most striking part of her personality was that she can watch herself as an outsider and analyze her actions. Her analysis of the relationship with Peter, her change of attitude towards her mother, the letter she wrote to her father, all corroborate the purity of her soul and her honesty.
By the second half of the book, I was screaming at the back of my mind – God let the fact that she didn’t live through be wrong and wanted to jump to the last section to find out.
By the time I reached there, Anne’s undying spirit had taken over and taught me, that it’s not important to live a hundred years cheating your own soul.
If someone wants’ to read Anne’s diary, I would strongly recommend, not reading it for the content for it is the mistake I had made. The diary should be read for the unwritten. For understanding the fact that society is not important, important is one’s own honesty to oneself.
As I am still in the quest to find the truth in the ideas of Hell and heaven, karma, rebirth etc., but I am sure that all of them emerge from the same thought of honesty towards oneself.
While reading Anne’s description of the quarrels in the Secret Annexe, I realized that the concept writers of the popular TV shows – Big Brother and Big Boss must have read this book and tried to create situations closer to the ones in the book to incite the human mind. Two conclusions I derived was –
1. They can never be even closer to what Anne and the other 7 went through for 2 years as the times were horrific and were devoid of any leisure.
2. Winner of any of these shows have to be a strong spirited soul like Anne.
I really wished Anne would have lived longer for her thoughts would definitely have given us much more than what is left of her. At the same time I also wonder that had we found a diary of Peter, we would have got a real view into a boy’s life too.

May Your Soul rest in Peace.

The Hard Way

Choosing the next Jack Reacher novel from Lee Child was not tough. Logically I picked up the novel next to One Shot (the first one I read; courtesy Don) – The Hard Way for my journey from Hoshiarpur to Hyderabad, possibly the last journey on this track :-).

Contradictory to my guess, it did not start from where One Shot left. Jack Reacher finds himself in a new puzzle this time in New York; a kidnap mystery in which he gets involved by a shear stroke of luck. As magnet attracts the metal, any nearby complicated crime finds Reacher.

The complication was really tightly knit by Lee. While helping a military contractor find his wife, he stumbles upon an unsolved mystery of his previous while. Solving the mysteries he realizes that was a Catch 22 situation for Reacher where he seemed to be surrounded by Bad Guys on all sides. By the time we reach the climax, he is ready to take all of them down one by one. This is when the mystery turns into an action thriller and the Sherlock dons the of Bond….James Bond.

Interestingly enough, Lee has characterized Reacher in such a way that whatever he wants, he gets it done from him. This makes the reader difficult to find a pattern in Reacher’s approach making the story less predictable.

On my next journey am planning to pick up Lee’s 1^st Reacher novel. Hope it is as interesting as The Hard Way.

One Shot

Preeti was in for a complete surprise on her Birthday this year when I and Don threw in a surprise party for her at Don's place braving our laziness. But so was I.
Don introduced me to one of his favorite fiction collections by Lee Child and offered me to read One Shot for a trial.
In my early reading days, I remember, I had loved Wilbur Smith's Time to die and Sheldon's Master of the game. I found One Shot to be as good as those and equally gripping.
A murder mystery, One Shot introduced me to Jack Reacher, an ex-military investigator who is in Indiana after coming across a news that there had been 5 random killings by a sniper - James Barr. Its a decent paced novel wtith multiple chain of events which unfold the mystery behind the killings.
The best thing about the novel was the character of Jack Reacher. He is a confident upright person with his set of failures in life. At certain instances, it seems to me that his understanding of the psychology of the other characters is a little overboard. But will still give Lee the credit of creating a wonderful charater in Reacher.
After reading One Shot whose mystery got me gripped to the novel, I have started thinking that of laying my hand on some of the Conan Doyle's books too for Sherlock is adjujed one of the best detectives. But for sure, I am going to read some more of Reacher of the Lee's collection of 13 novels.
Manish Saini

The Last Lecture

Preeti once asked me my opinion on Gays and gay marriages and I told her sincerely that I don’t know for I can’t feel like them. Had I would, I would definitely told her.

The character of Rajesh Khanna in Anand who knew he is not going to survive more than 6 months because of an incurable disease was also a similar problem to me; for I was never able to co-relate with the Anand's character.

Later in the years I read a lot of books and articles to understand the dilemma’s of this character.

But for the first time I have read someone describing it as an engineering problem.

As engineering is not about perfect solutions; it’s about doing the best you can with limited resources.

Randy Pausch is a successful Professor who is suddenly in face with the approaching death. As a college ritual he decides to give a last lecture to his fellows and students but the only difference was that this lecture was not for the ones in the room. It was for his kids to watch when they grow up. On the unprecedented success of his lecture, which touched hundreds of hearts, he poured his complete lecture into his book – The Last Lecture.

The book has been a real revelation to me to understand Anand better. Even the my last article was the reason that the book has touched some cords deep inside me.

The book starts with a very promising introduction and some hard hitting and passionate writing. Randy describes life as a game of cards where “We cannot change the hand which has been dealt just how we play the hand”. He reviews his complete life to understand why he is, what he is. With the help of small fables, he talks about everyone who has touched his life and lessons he had learnt from each one.

Randy acknowledges that his life changing event was the lottery he won – The parent lottery. He was born with the winning ticket and that is what made the real difference.

As we enter the later half of the book, it becomes preachier and I started loosing interest but stopped here and there to enjoy the anecdotes.

Randy says that he was a brilliant salesman and that was the reason to join the field of education. Though the book is heart touching but difficult to read full out due to its preachier nature, I am sure Randy would have done a brilliant job in delivering The Last Lecture in which he packed the full stuff in an hour’s talk. I am currently downloading to check out the lecture.

Overall, I would rate this book as work giving a look for the litterary interest and read it for the passion of the author (at least the first part).

Manish Saini

God's Debris

My reasoning and logical self always vexed me with hiding my inquisitive nature behind the shadow of my beliefs. For they are just a shadow, they tend to disappear in the light of knowledge.
I am not sure if these shadows are ever going to disappear but yes they do keep changing the sizes with every ray of the light of knowledge.
First few days on bed after a silly accident I was trying to keep myself busy when I get hold of a book by one of my favorite authors, Adam Scott. The book is freely available on the net here.
A small 132 page book presents the concept of God in a whole new perspective which has a lot of shades of Grey. Adam normally a man of few words represents a perspective of a normal man like me who is torn by limited knowledge and information.
This man believes that science does not have the answer to a lot of questions; but sooner or later they might get answered in future as have happened in the past. He also wants to believe in the omnipresent for reasons unknown (But I do attribute my set of beliefs to my parents). This man is not an extremist.
Adam has tried to give a scientific twist to the concept of God. But science still comes later. First comes is the Belief. For the science to exist, God must exist.
His book describes that we are all some minute parts of God who has destroyed himself and is trying to resurrect. To fulfill his desire we must act in a way which increases the probability of his resurrection which in a way supports the karma theory to an extent. Since the day I have read this book I have been seeing the play of probability all around.
Would recommend this book for those who want to have all perspectives of an argument.
I shall give this book 3.5 out of 5 for it is not a literary Genius but yes, the idea was fresh to me.

Winning

‘Gyaan’! The first impression that any typical MBA grad would get about Winning – another addendum to Welch’s ‘Straight from the Gut’. And after GE Money proudly announced that anyone sitting for their interview needs to go through this book (during the pre placement talks), I got a bit more eager to lay my hands on it.

Believe me, in no way is the book an anticlimax to its title. Welch’s proprietary no-nonsense, precise and dominating style keeps one bombarded with surprises. Thanks to the amazing layout that makes the book a 20-30 minutes read J. Every chapter hangs independently like a ripe mango from a full grown tree, ready to be plucked from the branch closer to your side.
Enriched with personal anecdotes, I personally found – Candor, budgeting, The right job and Work-Life balance the most amusing of all the chapters. Every word of them is worth imbibing.

The pointers are so precise and to the point that their elaboration gives an impression of repetitiveness at times. Though it does not seem to be a business Encyclopedia as claimed by Warren Buffet, it is definitely a job well done.

Interestingly, Welch shares his views on the one of the hottest topic being debated currently in India i.e. Quota in the private sector. His views seem to resonate through the Indian Industry on Manmohan Singh’s call for affirmative action.

“Winning companies (read countries) are meritocracies.
Quota undermines meritocracies. They artificially push some people ahead, independent of qualifications. That can be demotivating to the top performers who are passed over, and it doesn’t do much for results.”

My take on the book is 7.25 on a scale of 10. Hope you would enjoy it too.

One Night @ The Call Centre

A 289 pager by Chetan Bhagat, the author who shot to fame through his 5 point someone. I admired the way the book was advertised by the promoters even before the launch and so couldn’t keep my hands off the book as soon as I saw it on the stands.
As expected, Chetan hasn’t changed his witty, dark writing style. But his overemphasis on this style makes him sound very clichéd at times. The best thing about the novel is its strong characterization.
A story knitted around 6 call centre agents’ life; I prefer calling it ‘One Shift’ rather than ‘One Night’ when almost the hell breaks loose on them.
Chetan, through his character Vroom, has epitomized the discussion for pros and cons of call centre boom in India. While other characters add on spice to the story, through Shyam, Chetan seems to have addressed a problem which almost each one of us is going to face – a bad boss.
On the whole, the purpose of the novel is quiet noble - "To make the youth of today more conscious of the choices one makes in life". But 289 pages leads to over dramatization and the story seems to drag at various points.
I would rate it 3 out of 5.