May 30, 2016
by Neelima
0 comments

Robots and Literature @ BYOB Party in April 2016 (Part 4)

Have you been reading about the BYOB Party(Parts 1,2,3)?

Rise of the RobotsRalph, who is a regular BYOB-er, talked about an exciting new book called  Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future by Martin Ford. This book was awarded the FT Best Business Book of the year award 2015. We are all excited about technology, but how much technology can we afford to have? Ford looks at a world where robots are a better economic alternative. Already factories are doing more today with technology and a same sized labor force than it did in the last century.

Umakant Soni pondered on this idea too. ” Creating intelligence is dangerous, as we can never tell how long we can stay secure. During the Industrial Revolution, children were sent to school so that they could be supervised. The same could happen to adults whose jobs have been taken over by the robot workforce. What will adults do if they are unemployed and what about income?”

Jaya proceeded to discuss her ideas on the value of Universal Basic Income. You can read more about her ideas here.

Another book that Ralph read was by the very eclectic Anita Nair, a book called Goodnight and God Bless. This book is about writerly stuff- books, book events, anecdotes and literary trivia. It’s a refreshing read and a change Ralph thought from his usual penchant for serious books. A good change at that.

 

Anvita Bajpai, author of a short story collection Life, Odds and Ends, found a book called The Holy Indian Cow and Other Stories by Tarun Chopra, a book replete with pictures and altogether a fun reading experience.

What have you been reading?

 

 

 

 

May 26, 2016
by Neelima
0 comments

Macho Book Clubs@ Link Wanderlust

Jennifer Miller talks about the all male book club in her essay Men have Book Clubs, Too. The Man Book Club is an example. Men have expressed the need to have a more grisly book club experience where they are free to talk about ‘manly’ topics they would otherwise stay away from when women are around.

In addition to going by the name the Man Book Club, for instance, Mr. McCullough’s group expresses its notion of manliness through the works it chooses to read. “We do not read so-called chick lit,” he said. “The main character cannot be a woman.”

Then there’s the International Ultra Manly Book Club and the NYC Gay Guys’ Book Club. Many of the book club members defend their right to discuss books, an idea that is seen in the US at least as more of a mom’s hobby.

In India, there seems to be a less gendered approach to reading, at least. We’ve tried experimenting with book clubs as you may have seen in our Talking Terrace Book Clubs and BYOB Parties, and we’ve seen a large number of men who want to discuss books as serious as Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past to Charlotte Bronte’s  Jane Eyre!  Gendering a book club is not entirely necessary.

men and books

Source: Flickr

May 23, 2016
by Neelima
0 comments

Kaizen, Suitable Boys and Stories of Sikkim @ BYOB Party in April 2016 (Part 3)

Have you read Parts 1 and 2 yet?

One-Small-Step-Can-Change-Your-Life-The-Kaizen-Way-by-Robert-Maurer-Ph.DOne Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer is the book Himanshu Shah, an author himself, talked about. This book deals with the concept Kaizen- the art of making lasting change by taking small steps towards that direction. The book helps in all areas including getting fit or gaining vocabulary. The seven steps include Think Small Thoughts, Take Small Actions, Solve Small Problems, etc.
Vinod Pathangay got the book A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. This enormous tome still awaits a sequel ‘A Suitable Girl’, on which Seth is still working. For Vinod the book has been a challenge as he hasn’t managed to complete it; yet the depiction of life in the northern part of India holds great appeal for this Chennaite. “Even the Table of contents of the book is a poem,” he said when describing why the book appealed to him. The problem with the book is the elaborate genealogy which forces you to reread the family connections before the book so that you understand the plot better. The story primarily revolves around how Lata tries to find a suitable match. The era the book is set in is the 1950s and deals with the multitude of prejudices and etiquette of Indian society.

Jaya was fascinated by The King’s Harvest by Chethan Raj Shrestha. She speaks about the book in her Short Book Review at Worth a Read Blog. Here’s an excerpt:

“The book contains two novellas An Open-and-Shut Case and the eponymous The King’s Harvest. Don’t look at the hype and the sales numbers and this is easily one of the best English-language books to come out of India. The writing is adroit, literary merit of the text considerable and the juxtaposition of the dark and the criminal with the innocent and the straightforward is hair-raising and heart-tugging at the same time. The vivid elucidation of not just what is picturesque about Sikkim, but also of its towns and villages, police stations and homes, people and their ambiguous characters and moralities is the cherry on the top. While it is unambiguously a “book from Sikkim”, the last one makes it relatable to all, especially those who have grown up in small places.

You can read and understand the stories in many ways. Since that is one of the charms of the books, I am not going to tell you what all I read in the book. I must confess I felt overwhelmed at times. But you must read it and decide for yourself!

The hardcover edition that I read has also been produced beautifully. The cover is bewitchingly beautiful and interiors are well-done too.” You can read more here.

More books shared at the BYOB Party next week.

 

May 18, 2016
by Neelima
2 Comments

Boys reading Girls Books? @ Link Wanderlust

Caroline Paul shares an interesting idea at Ideas Ted.com in her essay Why Boys should read Girl Books. Are boys being subjected to too much strait jacketed reading? Come to think of it, boys are encouraged to do their own thing and focus more on all their interests.

“We read to experience a panoply of perspectives. We read to learn of people and situations outside and beyond ourselves, so we can deepen our connection and understanding. We read to prepare for life. It follows, then, that we are raising our boys to dismiss other people’s experiences, and to see their needs and concerns as the center of things. We are raising our boys to lack empathy.”

The author talks about books she had read that were primarily focused on boys and she enjoyed being included in experiences she wouldn’t otherwise been able to partake of. She mentions another instance when boys were excused when an author of a ‘girl’s book’ made an entrance. If boys are excused from being a part of a girls’ experience, they are encouraged to see a girl’s experiences as unimportant and not worth taking heed of.

Ideas like these have given rise to projects like The Representation Project, a nonprofit that challenges destructive cultural stereotypes. Boys should read girl’s books and vice versa; in fact there should no cap on who should read what. Reading is not about reasserting who you are; it’s about stepping into someone else’s skin. It’s empathy and there’s no room for stereotypes if you want a more empowered, compassionate generation.

3537327425_d0c519ed1e_m

Source: Flickr

May 16, 2016
by Neelima
0 comments

Spirituality and the Poetry of Bachchan the Bard @ BYOB Party in April 2016 (Part 2)

Have you read Part 1 yet? Lots of Indian writers featured at the BYOB Party this time.

Vijay brought along a book from the  SriRamachandra mission series called Heart to Heart. The book is for the spiritually inclined and deals with the nuances of Raja Yoga. Through a series of discourses, the author talks about his own his dilemmas and revelations during his travels to foreign shores. It makes you think about the lives of spiritual masters. Discussion around this book led to the mention of an interesting book about spiritual dilemmas that is also linked to mythology- The Difficulty of Being Good by Gurucharan Das.

bachchanTwo Harivansh Rai Bachchan books were on the cards this BYOB Party. Harivansh Rai Bachchan is the author of the most famous Hindi book, in fact, the fastest selling Hindi book on e-commerce sites, Madhushala which translates as House of Wine. The book Arisudan got is called Meri Shresht Kavithaein, an anthology of some the best poems written by Bachchan, which he himself has selected. This part of the BYOB Party was poetry heaven for Hindi poetry lovers as Arisudan read out some beautiful stanzas and Jaya went on to talk about the nuances of his poetry, including the inconsistency of his message. When Bachchan was inspired, he wrote inspiring poetry and when he was in a dark place, his poems reflected this. Though he wrote about wine, he was a teetotaller and wine was a metaphor he used to convey his philosophy.

bachchan 2Umakant Soni, the owner of Artwist where the BYOB Party was held, got a Hindi book called Dashdvar Se Sopan Tak. This book is the fourth in a series of Bachchan’s autobiographical works. The series describes the poet’s journey and how the poet’s life and experiences shaped his poetry. Soni mentioned how not many people know that Hindi words like Doordarshan and Aakashvani have his signature behind them.

 

More in Part 3.

May 12, 2016
by Neelima
0 comments

The Utility of the Arts @ Link Wanderlust

Sarah Ruhl’s essay entitled Is Theatre Helpful? deals with the utility of art. How seriously is art taken where you live? In many countries, children are encouraged to study science and technology; even in developed countries, humanities is being removed from universities. The question is often whether arts will help further anyone’s cause. Does it have the seriousness required for it to be taken seriously?

For this reason, Ruhl was surprised when she received help from exponents of Buddhism for researching her play. They saw her effort as beneficial for sentient human beings.

“This confidence in art’s helpful quality—“your play might benefit other sentient beings”—is not, I think, a deeply held conviction in the West. Or—to put it another way—it might be a deeply held unconscious belief held by many artists, but it’s not confidently articulated in the culture at large. “Ah! You’re an artist! Well then you must be helping other sentient beings!” One does not hear that kind of reinforcement about one’s usefulness in general.

In our culture (which evolved from the Pilgrims), the utility of pursuits with moral uplift or application is made into the opposite of the solipsistic luxury of art. Art is often defined by both artists and non-artists alike by its very uselessness.”

Ruhl believes that art is more of a gift than a profitable venture. It is useful as a catalyst and has a cathartic function that no society can do without even today. Even if the arts are being done away with and the utility of humanities is questioned, there’s nothing like a good story, drama or screenplay that can affect an audience.

 

 

 

May 2, 2016
by Neelima
0 comments

Dalit Literature and the Problem of Revealing True Identity @ BYOB Party in April 2016 (Part 1)

The seventh BYOB Party was held in collaboration with Artwist, which believes in whole brained education.  Umakant Soni who runs Artwist says, “Learning is not only through books; it’s an experiential process.”  At Artwist, kids, parents and senior citizens learn through play.

joothanAbhaya started the session with Joothan, an autobiography by one of the most important voices in Hindi Dalit literature.  “This book is very similar to Lakshman Mane’s Apara.  The story starts with a childhood spent in utter poverty and misery in rural areas and an inclination for education which helped the author break out of surroundings and connect with the growing Dalit (Untouchable) movement in cities. More than incidents of outright violence, the most heart wrenching incidents are those where initial affection and cordiality are shattered once the author reveals caste.” Abhaya found this part of the book as a revelation, “Consider the eternal suspicion that lurks in the mind of a Dalit—he expects that he will be treated badly.  The question he asks himself continuously is whether the other person is nice because he does not actually care about caste or has he misunderstood?”

Abhaya cites that this question is relevant in India today. “A large number of people claim that they are caste blind, because they do not know the caste of their friends and colleagues. They might spare their friends a great deal of internal turmoil if they acted as they did in spite of knowing their caste.”

The author’s surname, Valmiki, confused those around him. Many people mistook him to be an upper caste and treated him with respect, only to pull the rug from under his feet when his true caste was revealed. People are forced to lead a double life and move to cities to conceal the identity that others disrespect.

This is definitely a relevant book in these times when discrimination is rampant. Have you read any books that deal with discrimination or racism? Tell us about it.

April 29, 2016
by InstaScribe
0 comments

Visual Friday: The Hateful Four – Ms. Inconsistency

Visual Friday: The Hateful Four - Ms. Inconsistency

Want to embed this post on your blog or website? Use the following code.

<div style="text-align: center; margin: auto;"><a href="http://instascribe.com">
<img src="https://instascribe.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/hateful-four3-01.jpg?w=600" alt="Visual Friday: The Hateful Four - Ms. Inconsistency"/>
By InstaScribe
</a></div>
Related articles

April 28, 2016
by Neelima
0 comments

Jane Eyre and the Selfie@ Link Wanderlust

Karen Swallow Prior celebrates a book about selfhood in her essay Jane Eyre and the Invention of the Self  in The Atlantic. If you haven’t read Jane Eyre already, it is well worth your while. A book primarily read by school children and considered as a classic, it has so ubiquitous a presence that if you haven’t read it, you may already know about the terrible childhood of Jane Eyre and how she climbs out of her destitution through sheer willpower. Jane Eyre’s story is Charlotte Bronte’s articulation of the self, the idea of selfhood we now see versions of in the selfie.

“But before the selfie came “the self,” or the fairly modern concept of the independent “individual.” The now-ubiquitous selfie expresses in miniature the seismic conceptual shift that came about centuries ago, spurred in part by advances in printing technology and new ways of thinking in philosophy. It’s not that the self didn’t exist in pre-modern cultures: Rather, the emphasis the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century placed on personal will, conscience, and understanding—rather than tradition and authority—in matters of faith spilled over the bounds of religious experience into all of life. Perhaps the first novel to best express the modern idea of the self was Jane Eyre, written in 1847 by Charlotte Brontë, born 200 years ago this year.”

CBRichmond

This book has laid the foundation for the first person narrator. It was written in 1847 and was a by-product of people now were forced to interpret religion and their circumstance for themselves. No preacher could change Jane Eyre’s position, and she alone was responsible for her destiny.  Considering that this month witnessed Charlotte Bronte’s bicentenary, this looked like a good link for Link Wanderlust. Which Bronte sister’s work do you most love?