Review of Wake Up India by Shruti Goswami (Bengali poetess)

Review by Shruti Goswami (writer) of Wake Up, India Essays for Our Times by Dr A.V. Koshy & Dr Bina Biswas

A Review:
I have been asked by Dr Koshy to read and comment on the book Wake Up, India Essays for Our Times by Dr A.V. Koshy & Dr Bina Biswas jointly .While going through the book the first thing that came to my mind was that both in our schools or colleges, we have been mugging up the same syllabi and most of the teachers and professors have been passing on the same notes down to us over generations with little or almost no updates to them. Here, I felt we need more teachers like Dr. Koshy who dares to think out of the box and also dares to implement them in his own way.
I am not much of a reviewer. However, I found almost all the topics in this book related to my interest areas, either personally or professionally or as a mere reader who takes interest in a variety of things. In this book, a variety of subjects ranging from population to poverty to land to autism to planning to politics and politicians to environment has been dealt with in a new way. For example, in the chapter where Dr Koshy addresses poverty and creates a new index for it, far removed from what we know as the standard parameters for determining poverty, namely, clean air, potable water, access to health care etc as against the calorific measure of food intake is an idea worth pondering. Similarly,Dr Koshy in his attempt to rationalize the fact that we must be informed enough to oppose development, mainly in moving from the primary to the secondary and tertiary sectors, and that blanket opposition without even knowing the pros and cons of a particular development does more harm than good,is something I heartily agree with. India, as he rightly points out, is a fertile land and most states have double cropped land. Since land is an essential component for any development, crying hoarse at every instance some double cropped land is taken in public interest isn’t really conducive for development and people should be well informed before opposing such a cause. The case in Nandigram is one such glaring example where neither the car factory came up nor the land could be returned to the land owners due to land policies that exist.
Since Ananya has already touched on the autism project which is also very close to my heart due to personal reasons, I would just like to mention that people need to be more sensitized specially in respect to differently abled persons. That, to me is proper education. Dr. Koshy has started an excellent job regarding this and I wish him all success. The plans for his Autism village are an excellent one and I hope it translates his dream into reality. His take on Mahatma Gandhi is also different and while I would say he was a great politician, I am not very sure about him being a great person, having read his book My Experiments With Truth. But then very few people in India actually can dare to bare all in their autobiographies. His take on black and white money and gradual loss of faith in politics and keeping faith in humanism only is something I can identify with and yet, it is educated people who should foray into politics and not goons and muscle men if we are really to have some work done for the people of this country.
I found one thing lacking in areas where Dr Koshy has proposed new ideas. It is the lack of statistical backing of such ideas or the quantification of those ideas. Many a great idea never translates to reality or is not executed due to lack of statistical parameters. I would request Dr Koshy to look into this area in his next edition. With proper quantification, they might well turn into some path breaking ideas.
Dr. Bina Biswas's writings are very concise and a pleasure to read. The feminist in me could well relate to the struggle of the Irom lady and admire and look up to the life and deeds of An Sang Su Kyi. Most people turn the word feminism as a tool to ridicule the fights of women for other women. Feminism is not demeaning the rights of others. It is to restore the rights that women have as human beings and they are for nobody to give. Sadly, most men don’t realize it. Dr. Biswas has also rightly pointed out the plight of the North East people and how they are discriminated against. The issues of E- waste are a burning issue and it’s an irony that countries like USA who are among the leading ones to produce it did not sign the treaty. Another topic, the loss of honesty in today’s world is something I can well relate to. The moral fibre of the citizens of a country very often determines its progress. If each and person decides to be honest, we wont need god men and god women and corrupt people preaching about honesty. Honesty is imbibed during the formative years, and then thrown for a toss because people have started measuring success in terms of money and power and not by the kind of person he or she is.
The book is a must read for people who want to have a different perspective of the same problems we face and for students who are tired of reading the same text books that have seldom anything new to offer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

by Shruti

Reflections

The houses I stayed in were always full of books, the main treasure my dad and mom had to give me, over and above love, food, shelter, coffee, clothing and education. It was my eldest brother's gift to me too. When I won the Shanker's I got a huge cheque and went to Pai & Co in Trivandrum with him and my elder brother and sister and we bought books to our hearts' content. I did not know what to buy but my eldest brother did. I got my first Tintin that way, 'Black Island', and became a lifelong fan of Herge ever since. Though we were Christians we did not buy any book based on the Bible but when Shanker's sent me the certificate and anthology with my poem in it they also sent me, strangely enough, a book of Bible stories, beautifully illustrated and published from abroad! Four such incredibly unique collections made of unforgettable children's books by four of us prize winners in the same family made up my infant years of reading! As a result I started to live in my own imaginary world and was often found talking to myself. I never wanted to visit the places in the books I read as visiting them in my head seemed a better option, besides which such things were, of course, beyond my reach then. As I grew up my love for children's literature remained. Though led astray briefly by the tortuous language of literary criticism and theory and by the impenetrable density of philosophical language what I really got from years of reading children's books was the ability to write in a clear, flowing, transparent and limpid style that was easy to understand.

While doing my P.G. and my research I found many of my friends going abroad to UK, USA and Canada. I also tried for a scholarship once but did not make it. I did not pursue it by applying for more and more scholarships being tied down by the feeling of not having enough money or by what I now recognize as false ideas of patriotism or rather by a world view that taught me that excellence has no need of the props given to it by things like validation from foreign shores or universities and other colonial crutches. 

A long, long journey later through many jobs, I had learned to read carefully, analyze well, interpret well, and do critical thinking all on my own without knowing such a term existed, for a long while, In all this I was and am like Siddhartha. I was naturally led to writing which was where it could be put to most use and teaching, where its presentation-al and spoken skills aspects could be used. In a way my whole life has been, you could say, not about making and doing but about reading, thinking, speaking, presenting, teaching, writing, observing, describing, imagining, analyzing, questioning, critiquing, seeking and finding etc. But as all things are connected one cannot stay out of making and doing and learning by hands on experience eventually, and remain only in the ontological realms of being and existence, and I too started to 'do,' as the world around me changed from being word centred to technology centred.

I am on the verge of becoming fifty. I have achieved much and will more. I am naturally thankful to all who helped me on the way but most of all to the new technology which made it possible for me to realize what my gut feeling told me, which was that excellence cannot be hid under a bushel for ever, whether it has to face adverse circumstances or not. Seven books old now, my hugest successes have come about, not in terms of money, but in terms of popularity, respect, fame, name and influence, as a teacher, yes, but in more recent times in larger measure through making use of the global reach of the internet, new media and mixed media and not through the so-called to- me- outdated traditional routes of quality validation.

When tempted to get discouraged that I have not got much recognition in places I would like to get more of it in, a little bird on my shoulder tells me the other side of the story, how for a slow learner and late starter, I have achieved much. By writing to my readers directly, that too from the heart, I have carved out a niche for myself in their hearts and won literally thousands of readers. I have not let middlemen interfere in the process, my greatest strength. My books appear in Googlebooks, Amazon, Kindle, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and many other international online book portals and Indian portals like Flipkart, Infibeam and homeshop18, though not yet in bookstores for which I blame not myself but the partiality driven, cruel, faulty world of publication, advertising, marketing and distribution, a system that exploits writers and readers. Many people in all the English speaking countries and even other countries have read what I write in part or full and have liked it. All kinds of big writers and scholars and writing Prize nominees have told me that my writing skills as a poet and critic are extraordinary. Most of all, my readers keep on reading me and keeping my works alive, against all odds, and coming back for more. I am most grateful to them as they are the ones who have really made this whole enjoyable journey of discovery as a reader and writer online exciting and possible. Starting from on journalspace where I used to appear in the top ten often, under five different aliases, and going on through being 'learnertransmitter' to Urgent Evoke where everyone in the community waited eagerly for my posts to appear, to Facebook where I get enough attention without tagging I have proved, not alone, but along with the help of many other beloved friends, some of whom are also writers, that if one gives all one has to what one loves, which is writing in my case, being unsparing on oneself for the sake of what one considers as the best, which for me is the great books I have read by the great prolific authors of the past, the likes of whom are not so easy to find now on earth, one cannot but make it eventually.

With all my love and respect, and written at a point when I am going through what seems to be a trough in my life but is not, I wish this reflection finds you all in the best of spirits and wish you all too all the best.

To all my many readers and sincere and genuine well wishers,

Dr Koshy A.V.

Latest interview of Dr Koshy A.V. by Ajit Kumar for The Criterion

http://www.the-criterion.com/V5/n4/Ajit.pdf

Book Review by Dr Santosh Bakaya of Wake Up, India! Essays for our Times by Drs Koshy A.V. and Dr Bina Biswas

REVIEW OF “WAKE UP, INDIA! ESSAYS FOR OUR TIMES by Dr A.V. Koshy and Dr. Bina Biswas

by Dr. Santosh Bakaya

“Wake up, India! Essays for Our Times” is a cornucopia of 36 essays by two acclaimed scholars of our times; Dr Koshy AV and Dr Bina Biswas.
22 of the essays in this "extremely idea riddled book" have been penned by Dr. Koshy in the first part- The Road to Shangri La and 14 by Dr. Bina Biswas in the second part - Corrective Seeds. Most of these essays have the potential to wake India up from its sonorous slumber, jerking it out of its Rip van Winklesque sleep.

I have no qualms about conceding that as an almost comatose citizen of my sleepy nation, some of the essays made me sit bolt upright in bed , making me knuckle away sleep kinks from my eyes and look at the world undulating around me with new eyes; the vision being provided by these two scholars.

This enchanting eclectic mix ranges from themes such as reservation, ideology, poverty and class, population and land, politics and the populace, corruption, debt, black money, the Grand Narratives, inflation and yes two more articles which delve into the personality of Gandhiji, trying to answer the question whether he was a mahatma- a term Gandhi himself was never very comfortable with.

In the second chapter [pp 4 to 16], Dr. Koshy deals at length with ideology, reiterating that ideologies tend to work only if they address injustice and aim at distributive justice across all borders, but the moment they start propounding systems, stultification starts, and they end up" tilting at the proverbial windmills a la Don Quixote." [p12].

The piece de resistance are the twin essays- the 20th-The specially gifted and Shangrila and 21st - Shangri La-The dream of an autism village in India- which set the mind churning and the heart burning with the ardent desire to shake our comatose nation out of its callous indifference to the needs of the specially gifted, and shame it into doing something for these special children of special parents.
With a heart -wrenching honesty, the author tells us that none has looked at the world through the lens of a differently abled child, and poignantly enough the needs of a specially abled child were revealed to him accidentally; by his son who, he says, has influenced him the most in his life.
"Autism, like death, is a great leveller," he says and goes on to outline his dream of an autism village where money will definitely be used for building up the edifice but happiness, love, compassion, peace, patience and mercy..... will rule graciously and gracefully.

Part two, titled Corrective Seeds , has been penned equally beautifully by Dr. Bina Biswas, having a variety of essays on Irom Sharmila, Aung San Suu Kyi, Jawahar Lal Nehru, Arvind Kejriwal ,Tagore- the poet eduactor, honesty in today's world, dreams vs reality of FDI, the lessons to be learnt from the first war of independence, biodiversity, E-waste,and the future of the Indian youth.
The essay on the Irom lady, in the context of her recent release and arrest is very topical.
How many among the youth know that 'this' iron lady, Irom Sharmila, has been protesting against the AFSPA for the past fourteen years? Caught between the official view that AFSPA with its overriding powers of arresting and killing is absolutely essential and the simmering public discontent, it is human dignity that has been mercilessly bludgeoned in this story of resilience and incredible moral courage. The essay pleads for a repeal of AFSPA, maintaining that "at the centre of it all, steadfastly, inspired by the Gandhian way in a land no longer Gandhian, the Irom lady has gone on, unperturbed, to make a visible dent in the infrastucture of India's democracy,"[p146], and unless her grievances are redressed, India will not be a democracy in the real sense.

I would happily gift this invaluable book to my student who asks,"why reservation?", and to the one who raises a quizzical eyebrow wanting to know who Irom Sharmila is and to the blatantly ignorant drifter not knowing what to do with himself, and yes, to the authorities who are in a position and have the wherewithal to convert the autism village into a reality - into Tagore' s "tangible poem", where love and compassion abounds.

Running as a common thread through these two parts is the theme of Truth, non violence, compassion and the almost obsolete values of honesty and sincerity, which even succeeds in tying the two parts beautifully into a meaningful whole. Honesty, the author believes has almost become extinct in the present world , where we merrily turn a blind eye to injustice and a deafening silence in the face of gross unfairness has become the accepted way of doing things.

The book is addressed specially to the youth who, alas, are breathing the toxicity unleashed on them by selfishness, in a world fragmented by narrow domestic walls, which is smouldering in the fires of orchestrated hate. In the article on the youth of India co-written by Dr. Koshy and Dr. Biswas, the two scholars hope that the youth of the country will move from selfishness to altruism, and with fearless minds tirelessly strive for perfection , and tackle the burning issues of food security, water security,rapid urbanization and education. They hope that the youth , armed with Truth, rationality and broad visions will strive tirelessly towards a world "where the mind is without fear, and the head is held high", "where knowledge is free" and the "world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls."

Hats off to the erudite scholars for this timely and intellectually stimulating book, and also to the publishers Y S INTERNATIONAL who have done a wonderful job. No , the book does not merit "any book or author burning", but yes hints at a fiery annihilation of all negativities that have plagued our country and our youth.
As an educationist who has been dealing with students of all hues, I highly recommend this book for all students and hope to see it adorn the shelves of all university and college libraries.

Published by YS BOOKS International YsBooks Intl Mahip Chadha

Pages: 195
ISBN -13 978-93-837932-0-4
Available at: http://www.homeshop18.com/wake-up-india-essays-our-times/author:dr-bina-biswas/isbn:9789383793204/books/education/product:32548565/cid:10735/?pos=1

Sole (c) for this article Santosh Bakaya 27 August 2014

Book Review

I got this email today to cheer me up  Comes from an eminent scholar and lady who is most probably or rather surely the foremost and leading oral historian in India today. 

"Dear Koshy,

Thank you for giving me a copy of your book "The Art of Poetry". I read it quickly and enjoyed your reflections. I am sure this will be of great help to those teaching language and creative writing so I shall pass on your book to ********* who heads the writing centre at ********** now."

Book launched finally on the online portal homeshop18.com :D

Our book is finally out on homeshop18.com. Thrilled beyond words and thanks to YsBooks Intl YS BOOKS International Mahip Chadha once again. This is a grand debut and unveiling to the world of online portals for this book.

with Bina Biswas

http://www.homeshop18.com/wake-up-india-essays-our-times/author:dr-bina-biswas/isbn:9789383793204/books/education/product:32548565/cid:10735/?pos=1

Our latest book page

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Two essays from Wake Up India: Essays for Our Times by Dr Koshy A.V. and Dr Bina Biswas

Our new book's teaser -read and enjoy two essays, one by each of us, before it hits the stands.
The book will be released on August 9th 6pm at Cafe Coffee Day by ColChadha with both authors being present
Tivoli Talkies, Tivoli Gardens & Cinema, Rani Gunj, Bolaram Road
NCC Ground, Gunrock Enclave
Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh 500003
AT SIX PM AUGUST NINTH, 2014.
ALL ARE CORDIALLY INVITED
Signed copies will be available for buying. Cost: 400 Rs

http://www.destinypoets.co.uk/?p=13051

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Review of a short story

From hazy memory: I recently read a story that went like this. A Brahmin priest in India throws his son out of the house for marrying a "lower caste" woman. The thrown out son and his wife go to USA, change their names to American ones and have a son. On dying, the couple want burial and not cremation. (note: they have not become Christians or anything, only thoroughly Westernized as a reaction to the injustice meted out to them.) The grand/son is given an urn with earth and not ashes in it, after both his parents are killed off in an accident simultaneously, and he carries out their last wishes. He (the grandson) is living in with an American woman. The grandson ponders  a lot and finally informs the parents of his father of his father's and mother's untimely demise. It's obvious why they think of the father's parents to inform - because of the quarrel - but not why they do not think of the mother's parents. THE MOTHER'S PARENTS DO NOT COUNT, OF COURSE.  This is also connected to their fleeing not to her house but to USA on being turned out. The father's parents come over (to the USA) to do the last rites. After grudgingly letting the 'white' woman attend the rite the priest, shocked by the urn with earth in it, while ready at last to do the rite for the daughter in law too, finally becomes the one who has the last word. If only he (my son) had obeyed me, he (the priest) laments and we are supposed to feel deeply for him and ponder on the supposed depths of profundity in the story which is ambiguous, with multiple points of view (3 generations, and Oedipal), secular, liberal, democratic etc., except for 'non Brahmins' like me who could not care less who the hell marries whom. This is because its text is seemingly tolerant but the subtext is be a Brahmin, and you are the cat's whiskers and if not you are some stray dead rat the cat brought in on a rainy day, put across very subtly or ignorantly by the author, the Catch-22 of a situation the story cannot tide over, making it of no significance to me in comparison with stories by writers/masters like Chekhov in Lady with a Dog for instance who are actually humanist and not biased, and only limited in their art by everyone's inescapable circumstances of having been born into a particular time and space, in their story-telling. The story fails in the choice of point of view which is subjective, and not objective. I am not being facetious or reductionist or essentialist here.Titled 'Burial' (of the old way of life?), or something like that- if I remember rightly, as my memory - I repeat - is hazy, and written in typical American creative writing courses manner, (I may have the details in the story also wrong, by the way) the story is penned in copy book style/fashion by Mahendra Rathod but is ideologically pretty lame and taught me only one thing. India, USA, UK and Israel will always talk of equality and equity but never have or grant it to the untouchables in their societies, as it profits the ones who are in power to not let them have it. This is, of course, also the sentiment behind the do away with reservation campaign. So too, with brown babus and their colonial cringe over people who go to USA and UK and make it, and then stay there or come back. Lesser choices are making it in Canada, Australia or NZ or Europe.They also look down on sensibly used 'Indian' varieties of English. These are the ones Fanon referred to as people having black skin, but wearing white masks, sarcastically. The sarcasm being that one cannot change the colour of one's skin, after all, however much one looks down on others with the same colour of skin or on other human beings. It is, or seems to be, unfortunately/contradictorily much worse in many other countries!

Where the story lacks is in that while the theme may be very touching to the writer, it is not as powerful as it would have been if written from the point of view of the mother of the narrator as inter-caste marriage and its repercussions might have mattered as a shocking issue once upon a time but today if it is to really make a difference it has to go deeper, much deeper, to make sense to a Western audience or be liked by an Indian audience and not as here into the minor intricacies of this situation that actually reveals even in the 'positive' characters in the story gender bias and purblindness to the harsh reality of casteism, pointing out only its superficial wound and a band aid of a salve, finally.


There is hope only in the ordinary people.

PS: I like being inexact.

WAKE UP, INDIA! ESSAYS FOR OUR TIMES

201 likes  on our book and release details event page already.

THE BOOK THAT SIGNALS OUR SEVENTH SOJOURN - A kind of fb photo album to commemorate the seventh book of two writers who both already have six each - excerpts to follow as a teaser soon. Thanks toMahip Chadha of YsBooks Intl YS BOOKS International The album is about covers we discarded along the way. A link to a review by Michele Baron is also there along with the link to the book and event/book release page.

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http://newsloop.in/reviews/754-two-voices-across-time-a-book-report

from Soul Resuscitation/Allusions of Simplicity by Angel Meredith/ Dr Koshy A.V.

http://www.destinypoets.co.uk/?p=13010

from 2 Phases: 50 poems by Dr Koshy A.V and Gorakhnath Gangane

http://www.destinypoets.co.uk/?p=13012

WAKE UP, INDIA! ESSAYS FOR OUR TIMES IS FINALLY READY!

WAKE UP, INDIA! IS FINALLY READY!

Wake Up, India! Essays for Our Times by Dr Koshy A.V. and Dr Bina Biswas 
Book Release will be at Cafe Coffee Day
Tivoli Talkies, Tivoli Gardens & Cinema, Rani Gunj, Bolaram Road
NCC Ground, Gunrock Enclave
Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh 500003
AT SIX PM AUGUST NINTH, 2014.
ALL ARE CORDIALLY INVITED

with Mahip Chadha of YS Books International, Dr Bina Biswas and Dr Koshy A.V. also attending. Signed copies are available for buying. Cost: 400 Rs

Wake Up, India Essays for Our Times by Dr A.V. Koshy & Dr Bina Biswas Please click like on this book page for further exciting updates
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Book Review (work in progress) of Poem Continuous: Reincarnated Expressions

Book Review (work in progress) of Poem Continuous: Reincarnated Expressions

I have read four books that can be ascribed as being primarily the work of Kiriti Sengupta. They are "My Glass of Wine" which is a genreless mix of his poetry, thoughts on translation, autobiography, spirituality and criticism, the "Unheard I," "My Dazzling Bards" and "Poem Continuous: Reincarnated Expressions." I liked the first one best as its structure resembled what some of my books also offer, apt for the times, one that can be read in fragments or as a whole, in a linear or discontinuous way, or maybe I liked it most because it was the first one of his that I had read. The others books stick to the same structure and hence appealed to me slightly less.

Don Martin often collaborates with Kiriti by editing and writing forewords etc. I enjoy reading Don Martin as he writes in a clear manner and makes a lot of sense. However, in the book under review, I take exception to his talking at length on the Bengali language in his introduction, a language of which I suspect he knows as little as I do. My own approach to this work would thus be that of one who is looking at it not to find out if it is a successful translation or a happy "transition" from one language to the other which is what Kiriti calls it in his translator's note but simply from a text centred and reader/critic centred point of view, of one who does not know anything about the original language but uses literary criticism and theory as tools to look at the book or work, after reading it carefully.

Having read the book certain adjectives came to my mind like 'simple', 'enjoyable' at times and in parts, 'readable' ( being brief), 'affordable' etc. The meat of the book consists of thirty poems by Bhibas Roy Chowdhury. The brief bio at the back of the book tells me he is a distinguished poet of the 90s and an established poet by now in contemporary Bengali literature. I would like to say that the collection gripped me and made me echo these sentiments of his being distinguished and eminent as a winner of many awards, but the truth is I found the whole collection curiously dissatisfying, unable to trigger off in me the desire to read the poet again and again or to find more of his work and read it. Several things impeded me. The main thing was the use of English that, while trying to be different, ended up only being inexact, or so it seemed to me.

I explain by looking at the first two quotes.

"I swam across the river while
my mortal floated away in the water..."

Why the elision which attempts to be metonymic is made, by dropping a word after mortal in the second line, is something I am unable to figure out, try as I may. I see no corresponding gain in poetic intensity created by such a gap.

"I'm nowhere
the life-less frame is but the 'poet', they refer...

The second sentence is again so odd as to puzzle me exceedingly.

The whole book goes on like this, as a series of hits and misses; on this curiously unsatisfactory note...
I go to the first poem.
It is titled "The People." It makes for a good choice as the first poem in the collection. Starting from the article I would omit in the title to line seven where again the odd elision occurs, we come to the inexact use of the word 'some' in line 9 and two closing lines that bewilder me completely. The poem personifies the word "sorry" and probably deals with the poet's irritation with people who hurt you and then keep saying sorry but the last four lines read -

"How can I depart?
His words fail to cease!"

("His words" here means the words of the man or people who is/are summed up by the word/personification "Sorry.")

"Better I keep some wound
beside the coming tune..." -

and sound so inconclusive that one feels totally let down.

Poetry is supposed to be music, figures of speech, intention, effect, language, style, imagery and meaning (themes), not to mention structure and form. Reading a collection should give me a good idea of the poet's ability in all this. Collections of translations I have read recently seem to settle nowadays primarily for a poet or translation slightly better than those around - or so it seems - but cannot really compare with translations done by masters in the past like Walter Lippmann's of Rilke (Duino Elegies), Constance Garnett's of Dostoevsky, Beckett's of Beckett etc. I say this for a reason. The mark of a good translation for me is either my wanting to read it again or wanting to read more of the same poet or translator. An exceptional translation would even make one want to study the original tongue to read it in the original. In this context Bina Biswas's and Sayantan Gupta's translations and Ravi Shankar's are better in their choice of poets from Bengali or Urdu or Hindi or Malayalam respectively, or so it seems to me, albeit in a qualified way, meaning that their works impressed me more than Kiriti's but this does not mean that it can automatically be deduced that therefore the poets they choose or the poems they chose can be placed on the same level as the ones I mentioned like the Rilke and Rimbaud (sonnets) translations by Lippmann or Beckett translating himself from French to English, in the case of poetry. As for Bengali poetry, the only Bengali poet I have read recently who has really held my interest is Atindriyo Chakraborty, in his English poems. If I know anything about poetry and I do know a considerable lot, his poems and Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Meghnad Badh Kavya epic in its recent avatar/translation by Bina and Sayantan will last considerably longer than the Naseer Ahmed Nasir translations that are of poems by a poet who is unfortunately still writing Romantic poetry that would have been considered wonderful or great or world class/classic 175 years ago (- despite what Gulzar says about it, Gulzar himself being as hopelessly and quaintly outdated in his lyricism in his poetry as NAN, as opposed to his (Gulzar's) song lyrics that are apt and praiseworthy for/in their scenic, cinematic contexts - ) and only those who are caught in the miasma of wanting to be in a nostalgic, sentimental, weepy, soppy, imaginary, feudalistic monarchy of a pre- Independence world, one of what it was supposed to have been like in the past, in the glories of the heyday of Urdu and Hindi poetry, would still want to read and enjoy them. I can understand liking them and translating them but to think they are important enough as poems or translations to rival poets like Eliot or Yeats who won the Nobel is stretching it a bit too far.I listened to a play recently by Jawaid Danish and the hard-hitting cutting contemporary political edge in it which held me glued to listening to it despite my being deficient in the language is unfortunately missing in the poetry of these two elderly respectable and highly respected folk. You can note the same 'edge' in a poet like Serkan Engin , from Turkey, though he seems to suffer from collaborating with horrible translators. The real problem seems to be that some of these ye oulde writers or translators seem to have no awareness that post - Poundian Modernism that includes poets like Geoffrey Hill has happened.

To sum up: I am not sure whether the poet in question, namely Bibhas Roy Choudhury, is worth reading again but being kindly disposed to both the dynamic Kiriti who is enterprising, a poet, talented, a best selling writer and now a publisher to boot and to poets in general I would like to say that I will give them the benefit of the doubt, as I - remember? - know next to nothing of the Bengali language.

This review is negative because we live in a world where translations can actually be transcreations that are as good as and/or even better than the original nowadays, being set free by theory to not having to be tied down to the text of the original, and that is what one feels the lack of here; but on the positive side I want to thank Kiriti for making me aware of such a poet and his works and of a bustling scene of new Bengali poetry. I wish more such collections come out till new masterpieces emerge.

This is not to say that there are no riveting lines or images or even stanzas in these poems or that there are no good poems in the collection. There are but one feels their magic, even to the extent that it is there in them, has not yet been fully brought out.

(c) Dr A.V.Koshy, July 2014

Review by Michele Baron on Wake Up India: Essays for Our Times by Koshy A.V. and Bina Biswas

http://www.destinypoets.co.uk/?cat=760

Review by G Gangane of Wake Up, India by Koshy A.V. and Bina Biswas

http://www.destinypoets.co.uk/?p=12465

Essay from my first book Wrighteings: In Media Res with A.V. Varghese and other relevant links

http://www.destinypoets.co.uk/?p=12428

Excerpt from my book Art of Poetry

http://www.destinypoets.co.uk/?p=12398

Excerpt from my book on Beckett.

http://www.destinypoets.co.uk/?p=12204

Muse

Wake Up, India! Essays for Our Times by Dr A.V. Koshy and Dr Bina Biswas NEWS

Wake Up, India! Essays for Our Times by Dr A.V. Koshy and Dr Bina Biswas Bina Biswas , published by Mahip Chadha and YS BOOKS International YsBooks Intl has gone to the printers!  110 copies already ordered of first print order.
Pre orders can be made with Hemant Kalra at http://www.ysbooksinternational.com/servlet/General?Pagehead=ContactUs

Order if you need it, please. The book will soon come out from bookadda.com and other online outlets and book stores, starting from Delhi, later.

Latest book will come out from bookadda in two weeks

HOW TO PRE ORDER Wake Up, India! Essays for Our Times by Drs A.V. Koshy and Bina Biswas

Dear Friends, preorders for Wake Up, India! Essays for Our Times by Drs A.V. Koshy and Bina Biswas can be made with Hemant at the link given below
Any number of copies can be ordered - as this book is going to make a big splash!

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WAKE UP, INDIA! ESSAYS FOR OUR TIMES by Drs Koshy A.V. and Bina Biswas

WAKE UP, INDIA! ESSAYS FOR OUR TIMES by Drs Koshy A.V. and Bina Biswas

When a Pushcart Prize nominee for poetry with six or seven books to his credit and a writer whose translations of an Urdu poet have been nominated for a Nobel who also has six or seven books to her credit get together and bring out a compilation of their essays on India in a post modern minimalist aporia ridden effor what will the result be? A delectable potpourri, a Cortazarian hopscotch, collage, montage, bricolage, an assemblage of fragments 'shored against ruins' that is poetic in pieces, literary at times, critcial, theoretical and surface centred at others and sketchy at places, definitely. Will this book be banned, burned, be controversial or silenced and marginalized for questioning concepts like nation and caste and religions, questioning Gandhi, criticizing Indian governance, politics, politicians and polity, exposing fault lines and espousing indirectly a non Marxist revolution without stating if it should be violent or not, looking at the past and leaders and Pak-Indian relations etc.; in a totally original way, while mixing high and low culture? One thing is certain, this book is dynamic and challenges the reader to let go of his safe assumptions and begin thinking for himself or herself and enter areas of thought that he or she may find highly disturbing so that he or she may even turn against the book but will be forced to acknowledge its ability to work as a pulley and lever to bring movement and activism towards the process of nation building. Hate it or love it, curse it or praise it, criticize it for its glaring flaws, inconsistencies, inaccuracies, weaknesses and mistakes or laud it and give it awards and accolades for its equally amazing strengths- this book is going to make waves. All we its authors can say of it is : Watch out for it, get hold of a copy when it comes out soon, read it, discuss it angrily and loudly and vehemently and then go out and do something, anything, about the issues it raises in a very brief and tantalizing manner.
with Mahip Chadha YsBooks Intl Bina Biswas

About our new upcoming book Wake Up, India! Essays for our Times by Dr Koshy A.V and Dr Bina Biswas

1. HAMARA INDIA MAHAAN
   Our upcoming book Wake Up, India! Essays for Our Times by me and Dr Bina Biswas wrestles with the idea of what India really is. While all of us respect India's past as Bharath do we have to accept the Hindutva version of it as the only true one? Don't many of us find that we belong more in the India that came into being on August 1947, 12 p.m.? And are we not looking forward to an India that is not just politically able to choose its own government, where one is physically (seemingly) free, but to greater freedoms fulfilling all that is promised in the constitution and potentially ours but not ours yet. The book is a pointer and a signboard to awaken your thoughts on the participatory process of nation building where all of us can have our own dreams and visions and bring them into being as a billion and more torch bearers, to make India truly 'mahaan' in the 21st century as others too, like Kalam, have envisioned. This incomplete in the best sense of the word book - as all such books must be - going to be brought out by Mahip Chadha of YsBooks Intl will be a must read for all who are genuinely interested in joining in the ongoing process of nation building and thoughts on the same as well as discussion and action on it. We and our people are great and in these days when the whole world is going to become one we have to move beyond what our petty leaders have had to offer to us so far to a larger bigger wider group vision and this book will act as the lynch-pin for such a discussion, going beyond even the beginnings set by stalwarts like Kejriwal, in its concise seed-like brevity. It sows ideas as seeds. It is a book for the people, of the people and written by two of India's people. When we sow good ideas of equality, justice and progress or make people aware of them it is not always necessary that the ones who introduce the ideas need be the ones who carry them out; sometimes they need not even be thanked if the fruit is of use to many people. We hope this book alters many perceptions and starts off movements that makes things better for our nation in leaps and bounds in the coming century.

   Mahip Chadha, our publisher, says about our new soon to come out book Wake Up, India: Personally, I realise its worth and was keen that it should be published before the elections so that the readers get an insight into Indian politics and the lethargy which grips our populace! Nevertheless there is no harm in trying- after all we know that = if wishes were horses,beggars would ride-consider me a beggar !You guys and gals are going to love this piece of artistry woven by two literate doctors!
2. 
   
   

Wake Up, India - Essays for our Times by Drs A.V. Koshy and Bina Biswas - the contents list!

One of the most interesting and controversial books on India going to come out in the near future, partly a compilation, written in two minimalist and aporia ridden enjoyably populist styles, will be the one by me and Dr Bina Biswas called Wake Up, India: Essays for our Times that is soon going to be published by YsBooks Intl /Mahip Chadha

The contents list below will give you an idea why!

Contents

Auuthor’s Preface by Koshy A.V.

Acknowledgements

PART ONE
The Road to Shangri La
by Koshy A.V.

Chapter 1: A Few Thoughts on Reservation.
Chapter 2: Ideology -1
Chapter 3: Ideology -2
Chapter 4: Ideology -3
Chapter 5: Poverty and Class - 1
Chapter 6: Poverty and Class - 2
Chapter 7: Population and Land - 1
Chapter 8: Population and Land - 2
Chapter 9: A Bridge Piece
Chapter 10: Politics and the Populace -1
Chapter 11: Politics and the Populace -2
Chapter 12: Was Gandhi a Mahatma? The heads side of the coin.
Chapter 13: Was Gandhi a Mahatma? The tails side of the coin.
Chapter 14: Corruption, Common Sense and the Common Man – 1
Chapter 15: Corruption, Common Sense and the Common Man - 2
Chapter 16: Debt, the Common Man, Black Money and White Money.
Chapter 17: More Horrors and Grand Narratives.
Chapter 18: Return to Analysis.
Chapter 19: Inflation.
Chapter 20: The Specially Gifted and Shangri La.
Chapter 21: Shangri La – The Dream of the First Autism Village in India.
Chapter 22: A BRIDGE TO PART TWO: LIVING MODERNITY

PART TWO
Corrective Seeds
by Bina Biswas/Koshy A.V.

Chapter 23 : The Irom Lady
Chapter 24: ‘Freedom from fear’ Aung San Suu Kyi’s story
Chapter 25 The Maker of India – Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
Chapter 26 Is Arvind Kejriwal an Aam Aadmi?
Chapter 29 FDI
Chapter 28 The First War of Indian Independence 1857 – The Lesson To Be Learnt
Chapter 29 Bio –diversity : A New Challenge For The Youth
Chapter 30 E-waste and the Question of Livelihood in the Third World
Chapter 31 “Look at the Darkness, giving birth to the Sun” - Gujarat.
Chapter 32 Is HONESTY a far cry in today’s world?
Chapter 33 Tagore – The Poet Educator
Chapter 34 The Desolate Indian Youth - A Story of Expunction
Chapter 35 The Youth of India and Their Future

Addendum:
Chapter 36. On post-colonialisms by a non- post colonial by Koshy A.V.

An interview with Pooja Sharma (writer and editor) on me

Me interviewed by Pooja Sharma (writer and editor)

Pooja Sharma:I am planning to write on you and your creative activities. Kindly tell us about yourself in general. 

Koshy: In general? Smiles. I am short or of medium height, 5 feet and 6 or 7 inches to be precise, dark of complexion and have six fingers on my right hand. I am 49 years old. I was born in Kerala, as a Malayali Christian and share Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s birthday. My father belongs to the Church of South India (the Anglican persuasion, the one people like T S Eliot and C S Lewis came from ) and my mother to the Mar Thoma denomination that claims to be directly descended from St Thomas’ converts, so my upbringing was very much religious, South Indian, patriotic or nationalistic, politically Congress oriented and English education based, in fact a typical lower middle class and later middle middle class one in many ways, my father having worked his way up the government employee ladder, being ISRO personnel, and my mother having retired from the Railways to look after four children.

2 Would you tell us about your family and upbringing and particularly about the society in which you have been brought up?

My family was loving and closely knit, with my parents being very Indian Christian in beliefs and values, though my mother was quite futuristic in her vision and also ambitious for us, being herself a writer in English and Malayalam. She made us all write in English and constantly win prizes in writing in school, district, state, national and even international levels. I lived in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala, my hometown and the most beautiful place in the world according to me. It was a sleepy little hamlet and everything was peaceful, beautiful and dreamy. My great love for Nature comes from the time I spent there, and for a quiet and serene indoors life, as too for its geography in terms of its roads and architecture and its lovely monsoon and temperate weather. Trivandrum had superb libraries and one or two small but quite nice theatres in those days. The Public library, the British Council library, now closed, and the Sree Kumar theatre and New Theatre gave me a lot of education and pleasure. My people, meaning all in Trivandrum, were and are mainly friendly but non-interfering, and a tad conservative.

3 You are a great academic personality. Tell us about your teaching and the Ideals which you believe in.

I don’t know if I am a ‘great’ academic personality but many of my students tell me I am the best teacher they ever came across. I have done some courses in Srishti with my brother A.V. Varghese, with whom I have also collaborated as a writer on one essay, and some courses by myself in creative writing that I rank with the best in the world. My ideals as a teacher were shaped by people like Jesus, Gandhi, the Catholics especially the Jesuits (sometimes negatively), Tagore, Ambedkar, Jiddu Krishnamurthy and most of all by Geetha Narayanan and they place the student at the centre of the learning experience and believe in making learning fun as well equipping the student for life by passing on not just knowledge but life skills and all other skills and constant adaptability and not by tortuous methods of learning. In fact my ideals run counter to most of what is practiced in India and abroad and can be summed up as expertise, simplification, love, passion for teaching and finally in the teacher making the student so self sufficient that the teacher is no longer important, only the process of life long learning and achieving and excellent output remains.

4. Could you please tell me why poetry is so important to you?

Poetry is the one thing that makes me feel alive, for some reason or the other I feel a love for it that goes beyond my love for anything else, and it started with a great writer who taught me called Nakulan and a poem by Keats called Ode to a Nightingale. Poetry makes life worth living as it enables me to understand every aspect of it and writing and reading it and teaching it remains my greatest pleasure to date.

5. What is your conception of poetic creativity?

From childhood I have been reading story books but when I try to write it is poetry that comes to me most easily so I think it is a gift and made up of an ear for music, an eye for images and a grasp of figures of speech and language at its best, as well as philosophy, psychology and the ability to touch the heart of the reader through the senses and through the ability to make the reader feel and emote powerfully, in empathy with the poem’s content. Thus I think my aesthetics on poetic creativity is unconsciously Indian as it asks for bhavas and rasas to correspond on both sides of the fence, on the writer’s side and the reader’s side. IF a poet can do this he is a poet and a master. I mean if a poet weeps while writing a poem on death and then reading it the reader weeps too the poet has succeeded as has the poem. The same with laughter

6. You have written so many poems, on different subjects. Which is your favorite topic? Do you feel poetry to be basically a medium for giving a message to the people?

My favourite topics are universal ones like life, family, love, sex, romance, violence, anger, hatred etc… They even transcend human topics. Poetry is and should be for the people but the message has to define itself. I aim at finding a balance between simple, complex, complicated and profound as I want any person who knows English or reads it in translation to read my poems and find something there that touches him or her, even if all of it is not understood.

7. Which writers and poets is your source of inspiration?

I can’t really answer this question properly as I would need to write a book on it but I am definitely influenced by books like the Bible, the epics like Ramayana and Mahabharatha, the works of Shakespeare and Dickens , the great Russian writers, Eliot, Pound, Yeats, Joyce, Beckett and so many, many others, Pooja – in fact it is very classical and very much a kind of letting world literature’s best influence me.

8. What are those points which you keep in mind while penning your imagination? Do you feel that there should be a touch of reality as well?

Imagination is only reality remixed or mashed up or reconfigured so yes, but the points I keep in mind are always those of accessibility meaning will my reader love it, understand it and embrace it etcetera. I boldly borrow from anywhere and use things freely to achieve maximum effect.

9. You are working for autistic children too. How do you feel when you are around them?

I am more into supplying funds but whenever I work with autistic children I feel very happy and at ease as my son is autistic.

10. Would you like to share about your son with us?

He makes me the happiest and gives me a reason to exist, he is a blessing or gift from God and even in the midst of the most difficult times with him I understand he is there for a reason and purpose, that of showing us true love – a divine one – and thus want him and all such differently abled people on earth to be given as much and more than neurotypicals in return for us receiving unconditional love from them.

11. How do you manage to cope up with your poetic world and with your social work?

I am more a poet than a social worker and to be honest social work takes a backseat as something I do only when I can, so far.

12. Did you ever face any problems regarding ‘Autism for Help Village, ’?

Yes, the main problem being I juggle family, work, writing and that and so it is something that at present takes fourth place so for it to flourish it will have to wait for some more time, till I become more free.

13. Would you kindly tell us about your life as a teacher and how would you like to relate it to your life as a literary critic and as a poet? Is there any conflict between these roles?

No conflict, as I teach literature and thus am constantly engaged in literary criticism even in class and as for poetry I teach it and then come home and write it. It has always been so and still is in Jazan University, Saudi Arabia. The passion for teaching literature, being a critic and a poet or a short story writer, writing articles and dabbling in journalism are all interconnected… as is teaching and learning, they cannot really conflict…

14. ‘A Treatise on Poetry for Beginners’ and ‘The Art of Poetry: A Self Styled Verbal Weaving’ are well known books in our literary world. Which one is more close to your heart of both of them and why?
They are both the same book. When the Treatise was published it sold well in print and as ebook, kindle etcetera but Indians found it too costly as it was costing too much for shipping and handling. So now it has come out under a different name with Authorspress and Butterfly and the Bee…and Indian readers can easily get hold of it on flipkart or www.authorpress.com. Both books are well produced and close to my heart. The book got rave reviews spontaneously from authors as diverse and significant as Dr Bina Biswas, Vasudev Murthy, Sujata Parashar, Dr Prathap Kamath and Dr Madhumita Ghosh to name only a few.
15. This world is a stage, and on this stage you are playing many roles as an established author, poet, critic and artist. Which role do you enjoy playing the most? And why?
The role I enjoy playing the most is that of poet but people sometimes tell me my criticism is better than my poetry. I am now entering fiction and later want to go into all kinds of art more seriously. Regarding why I enjoy being a poet the most, the answer is simple, though purists and classicists sometimes look down on my poetry while reading it ordinary people have found so much of meaning, sorrow and happiness in it that it pays me back hundredfold what I gave to it which was nothing less than my whole heartedness.
16. You are the source of inspiration for the new generation, what is your message to the emerging poets of the present time and future?
My biggest message is against pride, the saddest thing I see is young people who want help in the beginning soon becoming proud and refusing to help others in their turn or they even consider themselves bigger than me or people like me and go away. Good poetry is of course not based on your character but a good life is and for me writers should enjoy each other’s writing and help each other as much as possible, not be so petty and clique ridden and selfish as is often the case in India. I hope the younger generation will be different.
17. Would you like to tell us about your future publication plans?
Yes, a book of my short stories will come out from Lifi and a couple of other books are there, one on Dattani with me as co-editor with Bina Biswas, and one on analyzing Indian issues as well, again with her, as well as many, many poetry collections, some of which are collaborations. I eventually hope to bring out a novel and a play too.
18. Kindly tell us about your Indian relations.
My wife and children are in India though I am an NRI and India is my first love as far as countries go. I hope the Aam Aadmi party is voted in to bring about any kind of a change and our country improves. I feel sad about many things in India and writing will also help to bring changes.
19. Would you like to add any more info about you to the questions I did?
Yes. I would like to add some specific info on my books and certificates. My first book was called Figs and was a self published collection of ten poems. Then came Wrighteings: In Media Res with A.V. Varghese – a collection of critical essays - published by LLAP from Germany and two collaborations of poetry, one published by Brian Wrixon Publications of Canada and the second by Destiny to Write UK, collections in which I collaborated with Gorakhnath Gangane and Angel Meredith respectively. They are available on Amazon, Blurb and Lulu respectively as PODs. Then A Treatise on Poetry for Beginners was brought out by Speak Up Publishing USA, which is available on Amazon as book and kindle, and on Smashwords in e book formats and on Createspace, Barnes and Noble and Kobo. Last but not least is my Beckett’s English Poetry: Transcending the Roots of Resistance in Language, published by Authorspress Global Network which is probably my best book in terms of literary criticism to date and the re-release of Treatise as Art of Poetry, - the new bottle and old wine - both these books just mentioned being available on flipkart and www.authorspress.com as of now. I have also written for or appeared in distinguished online portals like Plumtree Books UK, Bardo blogazine, Nothing No one Nowhere, Carcinogenic Poetry, Camel Saloon, Destiny Poets UK, Poetryz’own of Canada and in many Indian and Western (Canadian and Indo-Australian anthologies), and have co-edited Inklinks by Poets Corner. I have certificates from World Bank and USA for online courses in social innovation and pedagogy. I am also on the advisory committees of research journals and contribute to them. I have also won awards for writing as well as been nominated once for Pushcart Poetry Prize in 2012. I have won awards for teaching too.
20. Lastly, what are your ideas on Facebook creativity and also the future of online media that is gradually becoming more popular than the printed media.
Facebook is a hub or buzzing hive of creativity and the future belongs to such places as far as writing is concerned as writing needs readers more than anything else. In fact online media is what is going to thrive and flourish and not books and there is scope now mainly for the community of writers and not anymore for single, great writers as much as there used to be earlier. Defeating market constraints, self publishing and print on demand and ebooks and kindle will grow and be in demand and even big publications houses will go this way. My only warning is that writers should be careful they are not exploited in this new atmosphere by syndicates but get their due in terms of not only fame but money or they will be foolish to enter this arena, where love or passion for literature and an ability to do well at it is not rewarded and only market savviness is adulated. Thanks for giving me this opportunity to be interviewed, Pooja, and I wish you all the best.

Postscript: I would like to mention something interesting, that my poetry and writing hangs around places/spaces that are mental reconstructs, so memory plays a large part in my works in a fictional way. The places thus reconstructed are Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kerala, Bangalore, Delhi, Jeddah, Riyadh and Jazan in Saudi Arabia and Al Khums and Tripoli in Libya and Sri Lanka and Oslo in Norway. This will make my fictional world very different and rich in the future even as it already irrigates my poetry. Dr Zeenath Ibrahim has pointed this out in her research paper on me.