There is nothing more satisfying than reading a book while sipping a hot cup of tea.
aapbeeti: Kale Pani ki Karawas Kahani by Bhai ParmanandMy rating: 3 of 5 stars The writer was a Professor of Modern European History at National College, Lahore and thus was a teacher of Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev. This was his memoir of his days in captivity at the Andamans. The book was proscribed by the … Continue reading Review: aapbeeti: Kale Pani ki Karawas Kahani
Gandhi Benaqaab by Hansraj RahbarMy rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a brave book since many authors would shy away from exposing the 'Mahatma'. However in doing so Rahbar exposes his own prejudices. Nevertheless, it is a well-researched critique of Gandhi and his politics. First Line: Desh ki shashya shyamla bhumi par Shiv ka … Continue reading Review: Gandhi Benaqaab
Bandi Jeewan by Sachindra Nath SanyalMy rating: 4 of 5 stars The book which according to a British secret report sent "more young men to the jails and gallows than any other book" is a first-hand account of the revolutionary movement in India during the second and third decades of the twentieth century. Sachindranath Sanyal, … Continue reading A Revolutionary’s Life: Bandi Jeewan
A History of the Indian Nationalist Movement by Verney LovettMy rating: 2 of 5 stars A biased, often condescending look, at the freedom struggle of India. *First Line: An accurate knowledge of the conditions of the past is necessary for a right understanding of the problems of the present.Pub. Details: 1920. ND: Vishal Publishers, 1972.Pages: … Continue reading Review: A History of the Indian Nationalist Movement
A couple of years back, I read Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes which was not so much about a murder in a boarding school as a deconstruction of the process of detection where it was the limitations of the detective - subjectivity, prejudices, likes, dislikes, - that was interrogated. It was a novel that broadened … Continue reading Forgotten Book: The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
My last read of 2016 was the Complete Tribunal Proceedings of the Lahore Conspiracy Case that had revolutionary Sukhdev's remarks in the margins. I am glad that the first book that I read in 2017 is about Sukhdev's closest friend: Bhagat Singh.M.M. Juneja's biography of India's most famous martyr doesn't add much to all that … Continue reading First Read of 2017: Biography of Bhagat Singh by M.M. Juneja
One of the things that I invariably do while cleaning cupboards etc. is read the newspapers lining the shelves. Of course it tells you how tardy you have been in the cleaning (once I found the newspapers were years old and belonging to the era when newspapers in India were still b&w with no colour … Continue reading Krantiveer Bhagat Singh: ‘Abhyudaya’ aur ‘Bhavishya’ (Ed) Chaman Lal
We live in a time of terror where the war has come right to our doorstops. Thus, it was interesting to read this collection of essays which looks at the hydra of terror as a lived experience whether in its real or literary form. Divided into three parts, many of the essays in this book … Continue reading TERROR AND THE POSTCOLONIAL (Ed.) ELLEKE BOEHMER & STEPHEN MORTON
TRANSNATIONAL HISTORY by PIERRE-YVES SAUNIERThis is a lively and lucid look at the emerging discipline of Transnational history. A look at the way history is being researched seeing the manner in which the local also had connections with the beyond. No use of jargon is a major plus point. And I loved the author's cheeky … Continue reading
The great events of world history are at bottom profoundly unimportant. In the last analysis the essential thing is the life of the individual. This alone makes history, here alone do the great transformations first take place, and the whole future, the whole hist. of the world ultimately spring as a gigantic summation from these … Continue reading Reaction to Reading: FROM A CLEAR BLUE SKY: SURVIVING THE MOUNTBATTEN BOMB by TIMOTHY KNATCHBULL
a hot cup of pleasure 