A review of THE SIGNIFICANT ANTHOLOGY - PART ONE by LALIT MAGAZINE.

PART ONE of a review that is going to do justice to The Significant Anthology by Lalit Magazine who is in his own right a great writer!

REVIEW OF THE SIGNIFICANT ANTHOLOGY

Divided into three parts: Prose, poetry and a long poem, Oh Hark!, this
anthology of more than 300 pages is indeed a treat for bibliophiles.
Bringing out an anthology of this magnitude where young and old,
veterans and amateurs, Indians and foreigners rub shoulders, is indeed
a very significant achievement. Allow me to add my voice to that of
Dr. Ampat Koshy, who says:

“The best thing about the anthology is that it stands for peace. Here,
Pakistani and Indian, young and old, man and woman, black and white,
Muslim, Christian, Jew and Hindu, and people from all professions and
walks of life or ones without jobs as well as from places as far flung
as Ghana or UK or Australia, all nestle together in the pages of the
same book, with no wars amongst them.”

As Reena Prasad so poetically puts it in the introduction:

As submissions kept pouring in, “Opening the mailbox was like
opening the clinic door, and finding graceful birds, comic bears,
erudite foxes, and angry cheetahs waiting in orderly chaos …….”this
line itself is a scintillating piece snipped from a literary gem
which glints and shines with the brilliance of 176 writers from all
over the world . Poems- big and small, prose pieces, stories and a
play, all set an example of peaceful co-existence and orderly chaos
.Tragedy and comedy, satire and surreality all coming together to form
a heady brew , leaving a taste which lingers and lingers, wanting one
to go back and again have a second and third helping, without the fear
of indigestion. ".Some books should be tasted,, some devoured , but
only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly ."
And this book, is one such book, which is meant to be digested.
Francis Bacon would have surely remarked thus about this book.
All the prose pieces offer something, but some pieces tugged
at the heartstrings with their tragic intensity. The Keepsake by
Namrata Privy Trifles, from India, Father and daughter, by Animesh Ganguly, tire by
Michele Baron from U.S. A were some such pieces. The effortless ease
with which Michele Baron’s prose flows is indeed amazing.

The boy who wished for rain, by Ushnav Shroff from India, I found
exceptionally well- written, and touched a chord in the heart. So did
Pamposh Dhar’s reminiscences about her father. Shriya Pant’s Cauldron
of Dreams, poetic in expression, with its refrain,” the wispy dark
woods have secrets of their own”, was another piece which gripped me
completely. Tearful Memories, by Sajini Chandrasekera, from Srilanka,
a poignant piece about tragedy and devastation in the aftermath of
Tsunami, made me cry unashamedly at the injustice of it all. Tribhawan Kaul’s piece The Present left a lingering smile on my lips.

Let me hasten to add, that all the pieces are commendable pieces of
art, and I feel pathetically small in the face of such greatness to
review all pieces. You need to grab your copy soon to partake of
these literary delicacies.

The solo short play by Jawaid Danish, from Canada, is indeed the tour
de force, short in structure, but monumental in its message – a power
punch of a play .One lives the emotions of the mother of the autistic
child- the narrator- with every printed word. Through this intensely
moving play, I could sense the magic in the child’s eye, and “his
sweet smile, the spark in his eyes, his unblemished innocence, his
playfulness”.

Reena Prasad further says:

“To read an international anthology of poetry is to glimpse how life
treats people in different parts of the world. Each time the twenty
six letters of the English alphabet are rearranged into silences, into
music and thrown into dance moves using a refreshingly unusual grammar
and unique structure, our limits of ‘English’ imagination expand a bit
more - till all images foreign seem to communicate effortlessly with
more rustic, close to-home voices, literarily yelling to each other
over neighborly walls.” Yes, indeed, this anthology with its varied
themes, carries fragrances from all over the world and they waft
across to us singing the tune of peace and love.

The second part of this anthology focusses on poetry, and has some
immensely great poems, which refuse to leave the mind, even when one
has finished reading the poem. One such poem is by Christopher
Chiwanza, from Zimbabwe. This sensitively written poem touches one to
the core. In one stanza he says:

“And I’m going to teach our son

Not to be man first but to be human first with women

And I’m going to teach our daughter

Not to let patriarchal pretenders usurp her greatness

I’m going to wring apologies from every patriarchal man in this world

Until they ring in the echoes of truth and sincerity

Because woman, you deserve to be deserved

You deserve to be served

A buffet of love, respect and honour”.

The poem which completely bowled me over was A Boy and a Girl Sat By A
River, by Joanna Sarah Koshy, India. Its narrative style transported me
back to the classical poets, and I found myself reading it aloud.
.Here is one poem which enchants by its mellifluous strains, and
here is one young poet all set to create waves in the literary world.

I read the almost hundred page prize winning poem Oh Hark ! with a
finger –in – the mouth awe. Intrigued by its weird characters, I found
myself chanting with the three witches and the selfie scene had me in
splits.

Let me congratulate the indomitable editors, Dr. Ampat Koshy, Reena
Prasad, and Michele Baron for enriching the literary world by this
praiseworthy effort. It has something to suit all sensibilities.
Soothing and sensuous, sublime and stunning, it is pregnant with the
promise of proving a wonderful companion in long journeys, and a
permanent part of one’s book-shelf. The poems enthuse and energize,
initiate and inspire, stimulate and stir, throb and titillate, they
caress the emotions and soothe frayed nerves. The stunning use of
imagery and metaphor is indeed praiseworthy. Some poems with their
gut-wrenching intensity are like a poetic squall sweeping right
through the literary world rearing to knock down retrograde beliefs
and skeptical mindsets. One has to read the anthology thoroughly to
believe what I, with my pathetic vocabulary , am trying to convey.

Taking into consideration the high quality of the literary pieces
here, it would indeed be gratifying to see this book adorning the
shelves of college and university libraries. The publisher
George Korah, Morph Books, Bangalore, also deserves hearty congratulations
for this stupendous effort.

Hoping to see more such literary magic, some more sleight of hand and
heart from the invincible editorial team of Dr. Ampat Koshy, Reena
Prasad and Michele Baron in the future .

(to be continued.....)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - with Santosh Bakaya

Worldwide Launch of The Significant Anthology - Learning and Creativity

Worldwide Launch of The Significant Anthology - Learning and Creativity

The Significant Anthology - Michele Baron, A V Koshy, Prasad Reena - Bok (9789382759096) | Bokus bokhandel

The Significant Anthology - Michele Baron, A V Koshy, Prasad Reena - Bok (9789382759096) | Bokus bokhandel

Writing, Theory and the Making of Verse. - Learning and Creativity

Writing, Theory and the Making of Verse. - Learning and Creativity

Samuel Beckett’s English Poetry: Transcending the Roots of Resistance in Language - Learning and Creativity

Samuel Beckett’s English Poetry: Transcending the Roots of Resistance in Language - Learning and Creativity

Curating Micro-narratives: The New Creativity - Learning and Creativity

Curating Micro-narratives: The New Creativity - Learning and Creativity

Reading, the Reader and Readers.

There are several direction one can go in as a reader.

There is that of reading the text carefully and taking into consideration what it signifies or refers to or means and also taking into consideration the author's intentions and motives, as well as what critics have said on a text and its historical context. This is the traditional method and it is one where the reader acts like a truth seeker, trying to please himself as a reader of his analysis that he has got it 'right,' regarding the conclusions he has drawn.

There is that of looking at a text in terms of placing it in different contexts. This is how literary theory comes in. Here we can read a text  by framing it with or by feminisms, Marxisms, psychoanalysis, culture studies, new historicism, modernism, post-modernism, ecocriticism, structuralism, post-structuralism, super-structuralism, formalism, lemon squeezer criticism or close reading, reader response theories, narratology, stylistics, linguistics, discourse analysis, post-colonialisms etc.

There is that of the intra- and inter and transdisciplinary methods of reading whereby we can connect a text not only to itself within or to other texts but also to other disciplines like branches of philosophy of which aesthetics is one, psychology, sociology, eco-aesthetics, theology, eco-spirituality, comparative literature, anthropology, the sciences, new disciplines like design etc.

There is that of studying it in terms of literacies where one compares medium to medium which is really a new approach where, to take but one instance, one would learn to 'read' a book and then 'view' the film based on it in two entirely different ways, and compare the two not in terms of better or worse but on new methodologies of interpretation that are only evolving but are worth following. The beginnings of such an approach can be found in Marshall McLuhan, to some extent.

Jacques Derrida, Franco - Jewish philosopher, deconstructionist, thinker and writer.

In a film on Jacques Derrida made in 2002, the world famous deconstructionist and philosopher was asked about his extensive personal library by Amy Ziering Kofman. She asked him if he had read all those books. He replied 'no, but I have read about four of them carefully, very, very carefully,' or words to that effect. This is similar to T.S. Eliot who once denied having read Marcel Proust as he had not read it with pencil in hand and paper to make notes on etcetera, meaning 'very carefully,' to repeat Derrida again. This also reminds us of Ezra Pound's refusal to read Wallace Stevens and vice versa as it would take too much time. This is true, that great writers and books demand a lifetime of reading from us and it can be very taxing and strenuous, but the gain is immeasurable as ultimately it is the reader who gains most, more even than the writer who often does not know the full significance of his work, of both what it means and what all it may come to mean or stand for.

The reader and the readers are the real kings. Readers make writers great and keep them alive or consign them to oblivion or the trash cans and garbage bins of history. It thus matters that the writer learns to write in such a way that readers come to love his writing enough to want to keep it alive.

To give an example of how to read one can turn to this poem by Barva Paramaz, a Laz poet from Turkey known for being a poet, writer, novelist and writing a manifesto on what world socialist poetry should be like, being anti- Islamic, working with Diamanda Galas, working for the Armenian Christian genocide survivors, criticizing even Marx though he says he is a Marxist  etc. As he told me once in response to my telling him I am a peace loving anarchist, his heart is anarchist but his mind is Marxist. However, this poem of his fits best into psychoanalytic criticism, as a framework for it to be interpreted.

Love Fucked My Mom, Baby

My heart is a swear-word ever after
Which I spit at Love
I vomited my youth to Pain's atlas

Love fucked my mom, baby

My long hopes crumbled up
Mountains tumbled down on my dreams
I kiss Death from its lips

Love fucked my mom, baby

Now shoot me from my verses
Crucify all my syllables
Barbarian cavalcades of my tongue are at full gallop

Love fucked my mom, baby

(c)Barva Paramaz, 2007
(from "Men's Heartbreak Anthology" published in USA, collected by Karineh Mahdessian.)

The love that 'fucked' the poet's or narrator's mom is obviously the Freudian father figure who castrates and that haunts him all his life. This also has biographical overtones. The poem contains in it barely suppressed images of violence towards the end that both historically refer to, perhaps, the poet's own empathy for the Armenian Christians who were killed by Islamic fanatics as well as to an anti-Freudian peace loving desire to be killed rather than to commit the crime of killing the father-figure, though the father figure is hateful. This is the poetry of the quintessential rebel who stands against all forms of authority and tyranny who has a long list of forebear-poets in this like Rimbaud and more recently, the late great Jim Morrison.

In the lyrics of the song found in Francis Ford Coppola's famous American film Apocalypse Now (that is based on Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and T.S. Eliot's Hollow Men and the Vietnam War)  in a song called The End, Morrison - the lead singer for the cult rock band The Doors who died mysteriously probably of drug overdose at the age of 27 -, puts it more blatantly, from the point of view not of the castrated 'son' who tries not to kill the father but of the one who does not repress or suppress the libido or the ego.

Jim Morrison, American singer, songwriter and poet and the lead singer of The Doors

"The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and...then he
Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
And he came to a door...and he looked inside
"Father" 

"Yes, son?"
"I want to kill you."
"Mother...I want to...**** you.

(Morrison screams)"

Sigmund Freud

Those who have read Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams and his reading of the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles will easily understand both Barva Paramaz's poem and what Morrison is writing. Freud can surely and definitively be called the father of psychoanalytic literary criticism.

This is why it pays to learn how to read. It makes texts easily accessible to us and also explains why certain kinds of art fascinate us. Here what holds us is the expression in the language of poetry of the irrational or subconscious/unconscious sides of ourselves that deal with sex and violence or Eros and Thanatos, which also find an echo in us as they deal with primary and primal relationships and urges, desires and drives that all of us do not speak of but none of us can deny, as they appear in fractured forms in slivers like broken glass that can cut our hands in our dreams and - yes - in our nightmares and from our past wounds, bleeding but transformed and bringing us (at times, salvation) through their re-making into art and poetry.

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/doors/theend.html (Lyrics of The End)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_JHeHcjrIg (The video from the movie of The End.)

Canons | Literature DIY | Dr Ampat Koshy

Canons | Literature DIY | Dr Ampat Koshy

How To Enjoy a Poem: Taking the example of Langston Hughes' 'Harlem' or 'A Dream Deferred .' - Learning and Creativity

How To Enjoy a Poem: Taking the example of Langston Hughes' 'Harlem' or 'A Dream Deferred .' - Learning and Creativity

Indian English Literature, Literary Criticism and Theory - Learning and Creativity

Indian English Literature, Literary Criticism and Theory - Learning and Creativity

Keralite Writing in English-II | Literature DIY | Dr Ampat Koshy

Keralite Writing in English-II | Literature DIY | Dr Ampat Koshy

Poetry and Keralite Writing in English - 1 - Learning and Creativity

Poetry and Keralite Writing in English - 1 - Learning and Creativity

Written on August 18, 2012

The diary of leaving Leaving is not leavings. The landscape of a childhood with its plantain trees yams and creeping bitter gourd vines is the richest source for one's future discovered much later. The language unlearned is a loss. Living in books, printed pages and far away realms of the imagination is not enough, dear Breath Looking at the 'kaduvas' from a distance and not knowing what the others were up to, not being sunk in native soil as if they were oddments, all of it was something that added up to and increased my losses. Not that I don't hate the culture terrorists or the moral police and the religious fanatics but the broadening, widening canvas of colours also loses much specificity. Search for essence makes one lose all sense of belonging. The child now forever floats in an empty sky like those winged seeds, tiny parachutes in which unseen fairies cuddle my 'appooppan's thaadi' with its silvery gossamer filaments so ethereally beautiful, but searching desperately for crannies, places to lodge, safe catchment areas, sheer and mere good ground to call home and flourish but all that's left is the nature of the 'udumbu' Won't you love me? We are different and most of what you are or what I am will never be known by each other separated by languages and customs and rituals and rites and a million other things of strangeness and differences. Yet love me, please - sex is not a construct and touch, taste and smell can create memories - a new his and herstory that can overlay if assiduously pursued an eternity of palimpsests and give us for a while or ever , if destined, a feeling of completeness but even that is not real anymore in these new whorls where the voice I hear is once removed from reality as is the moving image I see, the words are not material; your hands made no paper want to make you blush and the writing is deflected as if by the lack of calligraphy that might have charmingly hid more than it revealed. So, as in under the water experiments for seismic disturbance from a great distance I hear the earthquake faults being plumbed and if everything collapses like the new games that thirst more for destruction than alleviation or value, brownling, my Breath, let us close our eyes and return to our childhood gardens, a little kanthari will spice up our poor man's meal of kanji and salt and a few button onions balance it off while the swing awaits and your ribboned pleats fly in the air already in anticipation of the hands that will push you up up up unreachable into the infinity of the blue sky and the spinning green up there and the white clouds and sunlight dazzling in the summer with crow pheasant calls and kuyil songs the leaves falling down occasionally under the mango on your hair and blouse and skirt. Still the heart beats with restless questions. Who am I? Why born? When to die? What is life? Like the pulse and breath and heartbeat, air, water, food and the other unanswered because unasked question Do you love me? Did you ever really love me? Will you, forever? Eternally? Village girl, can't you see it was that in you that I loved and that imaginary imagined child that usurped my heart leaving me and you helpless, bleeding silently mutual this suffering but endless now my wandering leaving leaving leaving... walking endless roads alone. Is this leaving like leavings? I refuse to acknowledge it.

Organic

Not just the size
the shape
the form
the feel
the colour
the smell
the texture
the taste
the contours

all -
matter

Earthshake

Earth, you are killing
unreasonably
not where you should
but where you want
Have you also turned
human like us?
Please return
to your goddess-ness

It hurts me

It hurts me
only when I think of you
trapped in a body
wordless

Maybe it hurts me more than it does you?

The tears fall from my eyes
like torrential rain
thinking of how
when I go away
you cannot express -
I cannot ever know -
what you feel, then
and when I return
you cannot express -
I cannot ever know -
what you feel, again
and then, thinking of that one day
when one goes away to stay
my chest constricts more
my tears fall faster
even as I pray
that I will not be the one to, first
or you
or she or them
but it may all happen together
though I know such prayers are not answered
so I hope again, that it may happen the other way
you first, then she and then I
but if it  goes the way of nature
then I know it will go thus
I first, then she, then you

Thinking of that
I get upset
but do not know what to do
except to wipe my eyes
go on
as if
there is a choice
when there never was one.

War Plane

War is over
but it is never "Happy Christmas"
anymore, on earth
Copters still fly overhead
Border skirmishes continue
Last night a bomber flew overhead
loud and thunderous
penetrating into my sleep
so deeply
that war seemed  real, its price as steep
as ever, and night its only natural keep.

http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/35396.gif

Reuel

Can you understand God?
Do you need to? No
For to you He is not the Word.
Is He the Image?
You do not need to understand God
You "live and move and have
your being in Him."
He is for you beyond word and image
in love, in deed and being.

Earth, make me move, under my feet

As earthquakes have an epicentre
so are you mine

Wild, the tremors rip through me
in increasing magnitude
The last one was 7.6
on the Richter scale

The bed was shaking
the lights swaying
though the time was day
and the windows, closed

I wondered if it was Exorcist
and you had come to possess me
lovely in your disheveled state

You are my earthquake
but I cannot stay away
anymore
though the panes are rattling
the pots and pans
haunted by your sway

Whether the tremors subside
or you kill me
I want you there, to make us quake
I want  you, to stay.

Breaking the Rules

When I said she should pay
she went away.

The Significant Anthology

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

https://www.facebook.com/avkoshybinabiswashttps://www.facebook.com/avkoshybinabiswas

My fb page

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-AV-Koshy/232091103474997https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-AV-Koshy/232091103474997

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

https://www.facebook.com/avkoshybinabiswas

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.

"https://www.facebook.com/avkoshybinabiswas"

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
"https://www.facebook.com/avkoshybinabiswas"

WATCH THIS SPACE - THIS BOOK IS COMING OUT SOON FROM HOMESHOP18.COM AND BOOKADDA.COM AND OTHER OUTLETS. PRE - ORDER FROM HEMANT KALRA ON THIS PAGE GIVE BELOW

"http://www.ysbooksinternational.com/servlet/General?Pagehead=ContactUs"

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!

http://www.ysbooksinternational.com/servlet/General?Pagehead=ContactUs

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