WHOSE LAND? WHOSE BORDERS?

Midnight’s Borders by Suchitra Vijayan, Melville House, $39.99. Suchitra Vijayan travelled India’s vast land border – 9000 miles over seven years – to understand the reality of people living close to the borders and to document how even places just a few miles apart can feel like entirely different countries.

Maps are keepers of a state’s knowledge, she writes in the prologue. They are not keepers of people’s memories.

Having lived and worked in some of the most troubled spots on the planet, in Tanzania, Palestine, Sudan and Afghanistan, she brings a deep grasp of the issues of displacement and war.

She met 91-year-old Balwinder Kaur whose family had migrated from Pakistan to India and who now lives in Toronto.

She met Ali, who lived along the India-Bangaldesh border. Caught in the constant, unrelenting glare of the floodlights, he’d chosen to live in a darkened space where he covered the windows to block the light.

Ali’s home appeared on no maps. It lay on one of the last remaining stretches of porous, unfenced international border left over from an administrative error.

She met children playing cricket in no-man’s land.

Most days, for the kids from either side of the border, Border Pillar No. 1 in Panitar is simply a handy cricket stump.

She met Sari Begum, who fought to keep a military bunker off her land.

The more she travelled, the more people she met, the more Vijayan realized that “local history and memory sometimes bore no resemblance to the political history” she knew.

Then I realized that the walls in people’s heads, like their prejudices, were more durable than these fences made of concrete and wires.

People can be undocumented, they can be migrants, but can they be “illegal”? Existing is not illegal, she writes.

Vijayan exposes how a “lie fabricated by a departing colonial power, and forged maps” might be responsible for much of the India-China conflict.

She shares the story of her Pakistani friend Natasha now living in New York whose great-great-grandfather Mir Abdul Rahim lost his life in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Her history, says Natasha, “lies on the other side of the border”.

Saddened by the fact that Natasha and she couldn’t have had this conversation sitting in their homes in either Lahore or Madras, Vijayan concludes that we owe it to our children not to pass this loss down to them.

Natasha’s little son Kabir and her own three-year-old daughter Meera, shouldn’t have to be defined by lines on a map. 

Incisive, clear-eyed and immensely human, this is a must-read for those who are in danger of being misled by the rewriting of history.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Unfinished by Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Ballantine Books, $37. She’s been Miss India and Miss World, an A-lister in the Indian movie industry, a pop singer, a success on the international stage in her television series, an entrepreneur who recently launched her own line of haircare products and a restaurant in New York.

She’s also turned producer, bringing heft to productions such as White Tiger and several understated but strong movies in Marathi and other regional languages of India. This is all public knowledge. What Priyanka Chopra Jonas reveals in Unfinished is what led her to the here and now. Her parents, their love story, the extended family that enjoyed summer vacations together.

She shares a lovely anecdote about a nameplate at her parents’ home which had their names, ranks and qualifications – both were medical doctors in the Indian Army. Why was her name missing, she’d asked, didn’t she live there, too?

Without missing a beat, my father answered, “So what would your name read?”

The nameplate was amended to include Miss Priyanka Mimi Chopra, Upper KG.

From a young age she recognized the privileges she was blessed with. And couldn’t understand the disparity between her and other girls.

I couldn’t grasp the distinction between girls who received medical care and girls who didn’t; girls who were free to make their own choices and girls who  had their choices made for them.

She describes the years she spent with her aunt (her mother’s sister) and family in the US, the first-generation immigrant pressures they faced while striving to provide the best for their family; and the bullying she dealt with at school.

The taunts that were yelled out at her – “Do you smell curry coming?” – the fear she tried to suppress by avoiding the school bus, the corridor with the lockers, the cafeteria...

Writing a memoir jogs your memory, bringing to light things that have been pushed below the surface of awareness, things that one might rather forget.

Building upon her experience at high school and as a newcomer in the movie industry, she chose to support those who followed. Her wish for a world “in which those who are blessed with more might build a larger table rather than building a higher fence” can only be met with a resounding yes!

She acknowledges the missteps she took – endorsing a fairness cream, for one – and apologizes. The music career which, in spite of a few major successes, she moved on from because she worried  it sounded generic and contrived.

She discusses lessons learned from failed relationships, but this is no kiss-and-tell book. She reminds readers that the book is not about them, it is about her.

And she describes a house which she is envisioning for the family she and her husband Nick Jonas will have. A house in which she’ll plant a gulmohar tree, her father’s favourite.

So of course, her book is titled Unfinished. For someone with her dreams and ambitions, life is just taking off.

THIS ONE’S A KEEPER

The Dating Plan by Sara Desai, Jove, $22. Liam Murphy ditched Daisy Patel on the night of the high school prom and vanished. He left behind a heartbroken girl and unanswered questions in the family that had taken him in as their own.

Sparks fly when they reconnect ten years later. Will they find their happily-ever-after this time around?

Sara Desai says she writes sexy romantic comedy and contemporary romance with a multicultural twist in her author blurb. And so she does. There’s a whole lot of possessive growling (and breaking of beds) but also a whole caboodle of zany, sweet aunts. There’s mention of jalebi ice-cream sandwiches (now there’s an idea!), Kurkure and dollops of  good old Indian dad-guilt.

“Fine.” Her father sniffed. “Make your own decisions. In twenty years I’ll be gone, and you won’t have to worry about your old dad trying to make you happy by finding you the perfect man”.

The chosen term of endearment is humraaz, or keeper of secrets. What secret? The Dating Plan will reveal all!

A PRESCRIPTION FOR SUCCESS

Brainwashed by Ramdyal Bhola, Balboa Press, $24.95. Desis who have grown up being told that there were only a few professions worth pursuing will connect instantly with the opening lines of Brainwashed: “Come hay, bai, si down and meh go teach yu fi say de alphabet and count, cause yuh gonna be a dacta”.

Ramdyal Bhola’s father, a jeweller by trade and Indian by origin who spoke Creole, had his son’s future all mapped out. He even named his son after the town’s physician. Brainwashed is the story of how he achieved that and more. It reads like pages from a personal diary, or letters one might leave behind for the next generation, with sections with titles such as Ram the son, Ram the sportsman, Ram the friend, Ram the traveller and so on. Even one on Ram the dancer! 

But behind the personal anecdotes are details of a life spent on three continents, the cultural traditions, the challenges faced. The first 18 years in Guyana where he was born and raised, the next 11 in England where he studied to become a doctor and began his medical practice and the last 45 in Australia where he raised a family and enjoyed the fruits of a successful medical practice and entrepreneurship.

Canada plays a role in this memoir, too, as he shares details of considering Canada as a possible place to put down roots in. ... “even though I did not like the thought of six months of winter each year”. Australia makes the final cut., but he visits Canada often, where some of his family is settled and enjoys a memorable trip on the Rocky Mountaineer.

There are a few typos. His father’s disciplining him with a chimta leaves “wheals” on his legs and “last rights” are performed after his wife passes away. But those apart, it is a warm and entertaining read studded with lovely family photographs.

HIDE-AND-SEEK

Masters of Disguise by Marc Martin, Candlewick Studio, 24.99. What do panther chameleons, polar bears and Gaboon vipers have in common? They are all masters of disguise! Featuring animals from around the globe, Marc Martin takes young readers on a delightful hunt for enthralling creatures. Now you see them, now you don’t!

TEEN REVIEW

By NIRANJANA NAMBIAR

If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi by Neel Patel, Flatiron Books, $21.99. If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi is a tightly bundled assortment of short stories that revolve around the lives of wealthy and working-class South Asian-Americans.

They are first and second-generation immigrants, living in both the old and the new world – ordinary people with complicated dynamics within their personal and professional lives. They are  closeted and straight.

The stories are about the journey of rediscovering yourself, validating your emotions, and breaking common stereotypes that have been fostered about South Asian culture.

In God of Destruction, a woman imagines how life would be, living on her own terms, without the constant pressure of society to get married. In Just a Friend a man falls for another man and an elaborate web of lies. The title story is about the estranged relationship of two brothers and how they  come to mend it after a mutual silence of ten years. The stories showcase the change of thought and change of relationships between characters. 

Their stories are relatable. I was able to understand what they went through and appreciated the natural tone in which the book was written. Some stories were too short and had me wanting to know more, but they had relatable characters.

 • Niranjana Nambiar is a youth volunteer at Brampton Library.