Bonus!

I got bonus last week. You may not believe but its true. One may wonder about the bonus in recession time so I have to tell the entire story. It actually started with a proposal of Maharashtra Government to build a 309 ft tall statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in Arabian sea opposite to Marine Drive. The Government appointed an advisory committee for the project and Shahir Babasaheb Purandare was chosen as the president on it.


The controversy started when Maratha organisations opposed the appointment of Purandare alleging him to be biased and writing pro-Brahmin history of Shivaji. There were hot debates from both the sides (not from Purandare but his supporters) and some part of the history was questioned.


One of the allegation from the Maratha organisation was that the character of Shivaji's teacher Dadoji Kondeo did not exist. The Government also removed the mention of it from history books of standard 4th.


I have learned Shivaji mostly through my school books or short stories so this encouraged me to find the truth about the Maratha warrior. There are hundreds of books on Shivaji but I wanted to read some


One my friends suggested me a book by Jadunath Sarkar 'Shivaji and His Times'. It was published by Orient Blackswan. I went to them to collect the book. Years back, I was a frequent visitor of the office, as my friend was working there so knew some people there.


I just said hello to them and then came the surprise I mean bonus. One of the employees there offered me to write some review of there newly published books. I said ok and their kind sales manager handed me three books! (wow) namely This Gift of English (English Education and The Formation of Alternative Hegemony's in India) by Alok K Mukherjee, Good Women Do Not Inherit Land (Politics of Land and Gender in India) by Nitya Rao and Cinema and Censorship : The Politics of Control In India by Someswar Bhowmik.


One book about Indian cinema has been already taken by my friend in office and promised me to even review it. Now I am thinking which one to choose first for review.

Amen!

From thousands of years a man has been worshiping God in some of the other form. The world-wide belief is that 'He' knows everything and 'He' is responsible to run the World. 'He' is pure, holy and possess all the sanctity, which men don't. On the other hand, we think the human world is full of sins, ugliness and abuse. In order to preserve the sanctity, people prefer serving 'Him'. But the path is not so simple.

Former nun Sister Jesme' autobiography 'Amen' published in English recently opens 'the path' to the God's world which is full of sexual abuse, sex scandals, nun suicides, murders and corruption in Educational institutes.

Sr Jesme entres one of the Catholic church in Kerala during her pre-degree course as she gets revelation from Jesus Christ. She decides to become a nun and submits herself to the Christ with the hope of serving him, her entire life.

But as I told you its not so simple. She starts getting acquainted with the darker side of the Church organisation. She gets first experience of sexual abuse after realising girls in her batch were unsettled about going to the confession chamber. The complaint was that the priest there asks each girl if he could kiss them. When she opposes him, he tells her lines from the Bible on divine kisses.

In an other incident, a senior nun forces her to have sex and Sr Jesme has no option and accepts it. In one more incident where a priest asks her to strip. On denial over his demand he asks angrily if she had seen a man. When she says no, he strips himself, ejaculates and forces her to strip.
This is not enough she also alleges the educational institutes for being corrupt and discriminating poor and rich students. The discrimination among staff of the Church is also huge. The caste system very well exists in the Church.

The Church also tries to curtail Sr Jesme's honest efforts to bring transparency in the work. The Church wants to send her for psychiatric treatment and she has to leave the institution forever.
The autobiography is really shacking. It doubts the belief in religion or God. I wonder after so much of hardship and abuse that how can Sr Jesme still has faith in God and the institution. She says the belief only gave her power to deal the situation. Amen!

Dream comes to reality

I deposited my salary cheque today in account and was surprised to know that the account has some balance on the month end. It was like a dream come true for me that I have left enough cash to buy books on month ends.

After work I went to Oxford book store. A first book I saw was Amen by Sister Jasme, which was kept in new arrivals. I was looking for this book for quite a long time. It was much debated book since it reveals corruption and sexual abuse in Churches.

One of my friends was also looking for the same book and he had asked me to buy a copy for him. But the book was not available then. He thought that I didn’t want to buy it for him so avoiding.
He was repeatedly irritated me by reminding for the book. But what to do men it was not in the market. I gave him a list of leading book stalls from where he could have got it.

Finally he got the book two days before me. One of his friends bought it for him from Crosswords. Again the chap called me to tell this. Now what will I do if he has got the copy. I think he wanted me to feel jealous because he specifically told me that it is not available in any other bookstore.

I forgive him because he does not even know bookstores in Mumbai. Now I also have it and I can read with better speed than him.

Another book was A Case Of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif. The book was available in paperback edition and in affordable price.

Moral of the story is dreams come into reality sometimes.

I Got A Message!

There was a special message for me from a special person today on my mail. The best known Marathi writer Ranganath Pathare had left the message for me on facebook wow! I felt great.

It said 'thanks shruti.'haran'was written 20 yrs ago.things have changed for worse since then.it was nice hearing from you.many critics feel that ,this is not one of my good works.but there are many readers like you ,who think otherwise.personally ,i also like this work of mine despite some dissatisfaction.by the way , have you come across my new novel,'bhar chaukatil aranyarudan'? i feel that ,this is one of my remarkable attempts in recent times.'

I had commented on his book Haaran actually and he replied to that. Now I am very excited to read his new book.

Crazy surprise

Forgotten an incident to share (as usual busy schedules to be blamed). I came to office after a long day work. Checked mails, letters, fax etc. Had a glance at stories filed and updates. I was just planning to leave and my friend asked me to give his newspaper lying on my table.

I picked it up and returned him, but there was something in that newspaper. Guess??? a book 'Rivana Vahili Mungi' written by Rajan Gawas. I was searching the book for a long time. It was out of print actually. I was a surprised by my friends act.

I remember that I had mentioned him once that I was searching the book but it was very unexpected that he would get it for me. I finished it in three days. The stories were written on rural background and the style was superb.

No, but the surprise was not over yet. I was explaining the friend about the stories I read initially. While talking to him, he suddenly called up someone. It was the author of the book Rajan Gawas. I spoke to him and said I liked his stories. But couldn't talk much it was so sudden. I didn't understand what to say.

The author must be thinking us crazy. But it was really a crazy moment.

Two Marathis Novels

I read two Marathi novels which were completely different from each other. One by Vilas Sarang 'Rudra' and other by Ranganath Pathare 'Haaran'.

Rudra is the story of a poor God. Now one would wonder what is rich God and poor God. But its true. People belongs to different strata of society have different Gods. So he was the poor God. Then he tries to create the world but others rich Gods like Vishnu prevents him from doing so. Rudra has always been given secondary treatment by other Gods and Goddess.

This is sufficient to understand that the author wants to comment on the contemporary world by using mythological characters.

Sarang is known for his experiments in Marathi literature. Some say that his writing is inspired by Kafka, Camus and Sartre. He writes in English too and has been recognised as a modernist writer. I have read his earlier book of stories 'Atank'. The stories are of magic realism type.

Other story of a beautiful girl named Haaran. She born in lower caste, marries to an unsuitable man. The society forces her to break the barriers because everyone wants monopoly on her. But this is not so easy.

Recreation of Torture

Couple of days back I had written about Eric Saar's book Inside The Wire, based on sexual torture at Guantanamo prison. Though here I only talk on books, I am going to write on a blog dedicated to the same topic. Even New York Time's global edition has taken note of the blog.

A blog named http://legofesto.blogspot.com/ describes methods of physical torture in the form of toys. An anonymus author of the blog is pissed up with US and UK's 'War on Terror' and has recreated real events (torture) in the world with the help of legos (toys). A latest post on G20 talks about how an innocent man was beaten to death by police in London. But now the police is trying to hide the matter from legal frame, it says.

Another post on death toll in Iraq is very heart shacking. It says, US Central Commond had once said "We don't count bodies in Iraq". It was supposed to convince a sceptical American public that victory was coming, it adds.

The blog gives great insight to devastation by US millitary in the name of 'War on Terror'.