BOOKWORM

INDIA’S UNSUNG HEROES

Annie Besant (née Wood; October 1, 1847-September 20, 1933) was a British socialist, theosophist, and an ardent supporter of both Irish and Indian freedom movements. Image credit: WIKIPEDIA.

Rebels Against the Raj by Ramachandra Guha, Alfred A. Knopf, $47. I finished reading this book just a day before August 15 this year which marked the 75th anniversary of India’s independence from Britain and the horrors of partitioning one nation into two on the basis of religion.

As Hindu nationalism gains in favour over the secular principles on which the new democracy was founded – and as the Indians versus foreigners debate rages – Rebels Against the Raj is a timely reminder of what today’s India is founded on.

Eminent historian and political commentator Ramachandra Guha tells the little-known story of seven people – four English, two American and one Irish – who chose to struggle for a country that was not their own.

Drawn by Mahatma Gandhi’s call for a peaceful, nonviolent end to the British Raj, these foreigners arrived in India, each one motivated by idealism and genuine sacrifice.

How many in India today would even recognize these selfless souls who gave their all to India? One would have to google the names Annie Besant, Samuel ‘Satyanand’ Stokes, B.G.Horniman, Madeleine Slade aka Mira Behn, Philip Spratt, R.R. Keithahn and Catherine Mary Heilman aka Sarala Behn to even get a gist of their stories and motives.

They toiled in remote villages, suffered long jail terms for their efforts, and worked alongside Gandhi and other heroes of the day.

In this shaping and reshaping of modern India these individuals were active participants... For them all, freedom from British rule was only the first step for India; they also wished for their adopted country to be free of injustice, inequality, poverty, ignorance, and disease...The lives and doings of these individuals constitute a morality tale for the world we currently live in.

These nearly forgotten warriors of India’s freedom struggle have a wonderful message of love and hope for a nation that’s seemingly still in search of its identity.

 FIRST COMES LOVE

Love Marriage by Monica Ali, Scribner, $34.99. Yasmin Ghorami is 26, in training to be a doctor like her Indian-born father.

The Ghoramis are a regular immigrant family. Parents who have worked hard and sacrificed to provide opportunities for their children. An overachieving daughter and a younger sibling who is struggling.

Yasmin is engaged to Joe Sangster, also a doctor, whose mother Harriet is a feminist. Both their parents approve of the match, but the cultural gulf between the families is vast.

An English family would arrive at a quarter to eight. An Indian family would arrive any time after nine. Only the Ghoramis would turn up an entire anxious hour before they were expected.

But it is a gulf that can be bridged, Yasmin believes.

Until misunderstanding, infidelities and long-held secrets begin to unravel her well-ordered world. No one is quite what they appear to be. Not even Yasmin. And Arif, who had seemed like a lost cause to his parents, seems to be the only one who has it all together, after all.

Monica Ali’s acute observations of the immigrant reality and the human heart were evident in the Booker Prize shortlisted Brick Lane. In this, she presents a revelatory tale that is as funny as it is moving.

ASK JANE

Jane Austen’s Universal Truths by Susan Hart Byers, Portico, $19.95. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” That immortal line is etched in the minds of anyone who studied Jane Austen’s books at school.

The never-ending line-up of movie adaptations based on her books speaks to the enduring popularity of Jane Austen. Dive into this book and discover a gloriously witty collection of other universal truths from her works, relevant for every life situation and stage, from crushes and love, friendship and sibling rivalry to awkward encounters.

If there is anything disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it. – Persuasion.

A CASE FOR GENDER EQUITY

Eve to Ginsberg by Franky Dias, Life Rattle Press. The book is dedicated “To the 49.6% of the human population subjugated for 10,000 years”. And in this well-researched, compassionate, at times irreverent account, Franky Dias lists the many ways in which politics, culture and religion have been complicit in the subjugation of women over time.

The statistics are stark.

650 million girls subjected to child marriage.

142.6 million girls missing because of sex selection. Certain parts of the world automatically spring to mind when one hears the words “son preference”. But Dias reveals that American parents favour boys by a 36% to 28% margin. And that Nobel laureate Amartya Sen coined the term “missing women” in 1990 while referring to the “shortfall of women due to sex-selective prenatal abortions and female mortality because of infanticide or neglect or maltreatment”.

200 million have undergone genital mutilation.

Dias writes that women went from being worshiped as procreators to a “breeder, nothing more than a reproductive slave”.

In ancient and imperial China existed three obediences and four virtues according to which, a woman had to obey her father, husband and first son, at successive stages of her life. Sound familiar?

Or that the French Napoleonic penal code of 1810 allowed a man who kidnapped a girl to escape prosecution if he married her. The law was repealed in France only in 1994.

He cities the case of an Indian dentist who passed away at the age of 31 when she was denied an abortion in Ireland. In 2012. And this, after medical examination showed a miscarriage was inevitable and put her life at risk.

But there were those speaking up for gender equality, too. Like Francois Poulain, who said, “Mind has no sex”.

Dias makes a strong case for sex education in schools, quoting from UNESCO studies as leading to, “improved sexual and reproductive health, resulting in the reduction of sexually transmitted diseases, HIV and unintended pregnancies”.

A Political History of Pleasure may draw as many readers as it may keep away, but the book is about a lot more than the subheading suggests. If there’s an issue with this book, it is that it covers too many issues and thus feels like snapshots making up the big picture rather than a detailed study. And yet it must be said, it has its heart in the right place.

HEALING WAYS

Burning Bright by Kelsey J Patel, Harmony Books, $34.99. When Kelsey Patel was struck by searing back pain in her twenties while working on Capitol Hill, she had no idea that repressed emotions could manifest as debilitating anxiety and physical pain.

She healed herself by empowering herself by choosing how she lived her life. In Burning Bright, she shares the self-care techniques that helped her regain her physical and emotional health using reiki, emotional freedom technique, meditation, yoga, and more.

A LONELY OUTPOST

An Internet For The People by Jessa Lingel, Princeton University press, US $29.95. Begun by Craig Newmark as an e-mail to some friends about cool events happening around San Francisco, craiglist is now the leading classifieds service on the planet.

It is also a throwback on the early internet – the website has barely seen an upgrade since it launched in 1996. There are no banner ads. The company doesn’t profit off your data. Jessa Lingel, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania, explores how people use craiglist to buy and sell, find work, and find love – and reveals why craiglist is becoming a lonely outpost in an increasingly corporatized web.

THE NATURE OF THINGS

Mimic Makers by Kristen Nordstrom, illustrated by Paul Boston, Charlesbridge, $21.99. A bird helps transform one of the fastest trains on the planet and a tiny beetle teaches humans how to collect water in the desert.

This beautifully-illustrated book introduces young readers to 10 biomimicry inventors who are learning from nature.

TEEN REVIEW

By GURNAZ DHINDSA

Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson, Penguin Random House, $8.99. Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson tackles issues like racism, immigration, and bullying.

The story centres around six kids who are sent to a room to talk weekly. Each child has their struggles and stories that they slowly begin to share, each finding the room a safe space. Esteban’s father’s deportation; Ashton being bullied by older kids; Amari’s fear of racial profiling, and Haley’s father's incarceration are all beautiful plots of the book.

This story captures the meaning of friends, family, and life in one short and sweet novel. The six kids, Haley, Holly, Ashton, Amari, Esteban and Tiago, didn’t want to know one another at the start. By the end, they didn’t want to say goodbye. The shift in their feelings from September to June was a perfect way to end the story and display the beauty of friendship.

My favourite aspect of this book was the author’s method of displaying tough topics in a junior book. The book mentions that anyone can bully anyone and that bullying doesn’t always have to be due to racism. The story grasps significant issues in the modern world where these problems occur daily. I recommend this book to every child, youth, and adult to learn about essential topics which circulate in our world right now.

 • Gurnaz Dhindsa is a youth volunteer at Brampton Library.