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