Review: An Incomplete Life by Vijaypat Singhania

An Incomplete Life

My only reason for buying this book was the hype created around Mr Singhania writing about how he was throw out of his own house by his son Gautam Singhania, after the former had signed over everything to the latter. I was waiting for those juicy details which never came. I wanted a sneak peek into the family feuds of billionaires. I got very little of it through this book.

The Singhanias have been an enterprising lot and have made themselves rich and famous since more than half a century. Raymond brand is one fo the strongest and well known brands of India. They have many other business interests as well.

Mr Singhania recalls his childhood and growing up years in the first few chapters, and how the large extended family stuck together, more or less, through tough times which is quite touching for nowadays families have shrunk in size. He also recalls his various affairs he had over the years with various women while still being married to his wife. What a hypocrite!

However his writing is most passionate when he writes about his flying adventures and breaking three world records. He definitely is a braveheart! He does gives few tips in the end on how not to give away everything to children for one may end up on the streets without a penny in pocket.

This book turned out more of a personal story rather than a business book.

Review: Pandeymonium by Piyush Pandey

Pandeymonium

I did not know before reading this book that Piyush Pandey’s family is so accomplished in various creative fields! His sister Ila Arun, his brother Prasoon Pandey and many other siblings with each having his/her strength.

I picked up this book hoping to get a more nuanced, yet detailed, look into the mindset of an advertiser. I had absolutely no interest in reading about the personal life of Piyush. But I guess the dogma of formats is such that you ought to put in what nobody is really interested in. This book has been quite a disappointment. I was hoping Piyush will write about some methods to reign in the madness that is advertising. But there is none to be had in this book. He only writes about how feeling with the heart is the best way to write lines and be a copywriter.

The book is not all waste though. He does give many examples where different brands were bold enough to not have traditional settings for their products in the ads and yet the campaigns were successful. He talks of countless powerful ads he has worked on, not just for private firms but also for the government at various levels.

He is a brilliant ad maker. Wish he has sprinkled some of it within the pages.

Review: The Extraordinary Life and Death of Sunanda Pushkar by Sunanda Mehta

Sunanda Pushkar on the book cover

Sunanda Pushkar had caught everyone’s attention way back when the IPL Kochi Tusker auction controversy was in the news and had dragged Shashi Tharoor as well into it. But beyond her good looks, her brash, outspoken personality, nobody really knew what she was like when not in front of the camera. The author has done a commendable job of tracing Pushkar’s roots and her formative years. Pushkar, surprisingly, was a shy child and not as untamed as she appeared on TV and on her Twitter. I do remember she has taken over the account of her husband Tharoor and had tweeted out personal messages between him and Mehr.

However, life’s knocks did harden Pushkar’s persona and reading about her countless relationships and affairs, it does make it clear that she wasn’t neither happy nor stable in her life. Her moving to Dubai and later to Canada (for a passport) bring forth the struggles to make it big, not just financially but even in the circles of power. But the author leaves no punches for the garrulous Tharoor who has vaxes indigestible words of English to create an impression of an honest, worthy human being. Tharoor’s been a player himself with multiple affairs behind the scenes even while being married, as it is apparent from reading this book.

The moot question, however, is whether Tharoor had any role to play in Pushkar’s death? And from the testimonies in this book and the narrative woven by the author, the answer is no. Tharoor was surely going behind Pushkar’s back to be in touch with Mehr, and had shady IPL dealings, but is not believed to be so cunning to be someone who could get someone killed, least his wife!

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in knowing how high society works and how connections, more than anything else, are the most important ladder for financial mobility and to get a place amongst the power circles. Pushkar’s own fortune, made from Dubai real estate, is well documented in this book. What one does learn about Pushkar is that she was a person with a steely reserve and had gone through decades of struggles before she became famous or rather infamous after getting entangled with Tharoor. A gossipy, juicy read nonetheless, including how Pushkar had got a facial surgery done in Mumbai and had spread rumours of having met an accident to cover it up. As far as the court proceedings are concerned, Tharoor was given a clean chit but seems some after effects are still being felt.

[Below is a copy of an article about Pushkar’s facial surgery]

Article detailing the facial surgery of Pushkar in MumbaiDownload

Review: India vs UK by Syed Akbaruddin

India vs UK

What else can be a better book other than ‘India vs UK’ by Syed Akbaruddin to celebrate India’s 75th Independence Day? Akbaruddin chronicles in vivid detail the ‘fight’ between India and UK (the erstwhile colonisers) in 2017 when both the countries were vying for a seat on the Bench of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). He tells the story of how a change in the Government at the Centre in India led to a push for India to campaign for the seat, albeit at the 11th hour despite of signals being sent from Delhi to New York (where Akbaruddin was) that there is no appetite for it as India was already fighting out the elections for International Law Commission and the International Tribunal on the Law of the Seas.

A an urgent message from the then Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar conveyed to him that Akbaruddin needs to be back to Delhi urgently. He heads to the Foreign Minister’s (Sushma Swaraj) home a few hours after landing at the Delhi airport. And there Sushma Swaraj asks for his support in return for the support which she had extended to him when earlier he had made the case for not running for the ICJ elections.

The book is quite detailed and sometimes too technical to keep the reader engaged. However, it also shows how the inner workings and the intricacies of the international organizations (like UN, WHO, UNHCR, UNICEF, ICJ, ILO etc.) are rarely covered by the mainstream media. It is a must-read book for any Indian to realize how India won this much-deserved, now well-documented, victory over the UK.

Jai Hind 🇮🇳

Review: The End of Imagination by Arundhati Roy

Roy has been a favourite of BJP supporters since last few years in the category of ‘anti nationals’. My first brush with her was an eye opener. And then her heart-punching, gut-breaking article in Outlook created a sort of an uproar, not just inside me but also in the media. However, if you are enamoured with Roy (“Delhi’s greatest living writer” – Mayank Austen Soofi, who does not do justice to neither of those three names), you won’t be able to see the downside of her ‘activism’ (which she calls ‘writing’).

‘End of Imagination’ is a collection of her writings and speeches, most of them during early 2000s. Her critique is scathing and her phrases do make one guffaw, though there is nothing to guffaw about the serious topics on which she writes. Her criticism, mostly, is valid. The power nexus of the corporates, the governments, the bodies (IMF, World Bank, etc.) is beyond the comprehension of the common man.

Roy, however, is no saint. She writes in Guardian on September 29, 2001 and Outlook on October 8, 2001 about the “unconscionable September 11 suicide attacks”. So 9/11 were “suicide” attacks and not “terror” attacks by a bunch of boys who had nothing to do with Islam. That’s Roy for you. She refuses to call out Islamist extremism. When she writes about the Gujarat riots of 2002, she never mentions how the burning of the Sabarmati Express in Godhra was “unconscionable”. She does not utter a word about the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, but mentions how more than eighty thousand people have been killed in Kashmir over a period of more than a decade with “most being Muslims”. You get the gist of what I am saying? She is not, but almost appears like an apologist for Islamic extremism. You will never, or at least not in this book, read Roy writing about any Hindus suffering anywhere, neither in Kashmir, nor Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, nor in sectarian violence which is perpetrated by religious fanatics (always poor and thinly educated if at all) of all religions around India, where policing is not only inadequate but also corrupt to say the least. I get it: she is a champion and a voice of the voiceless, like Dalits, tribals, and so on. But ignoring the sufferings of one religious community because they are a numerical majority is hypocrisy, when called out mildly, and wretchedness of the highest order.

So if I were to compare the thought-process of Roy with a meme, it would be this, this, or this. Throughout the book and almost in all of her writings, the problem is not that her criticism of capitalism or religious extremism (read ‘only Hindu extremism’) is mostly valid and stinging; the problem is larger: she does not present any solutions. It is akin to giving an exam and just getting a pass / fail result at the end, without knowing what you did wrong. She writes about Kashmir, Afzal Guru (of course), JNU, Sardar Sarovar dam, Narmada Bachao Andolan (linked to Sardar Sarovar dam), Bhakra Nangal dam, Gujarat riots, 9/11, American imperialism, Chomsky (her favourite). But yet, the issue remains, and this time in all caps: SHE DOES NOT GIVE ALTERNATIVES OR ANY SOLUTIONS.

She, throughout the many chapters, asserts that she is not an activist but a writer. As a writer she visits dalits, naxals, and others to document their sufferings. But where is the solution to alleviate these sufferings? Now she might as well say: I am not the government and it is the job of the government to find solutions. So it is a full circle with no end in sight.

Roy’s acidic attacks are valid but are to be taken with a pinch, or rather handful, of salt. For there is no end to her spewing, often rambling, monologues. Does Roy ever want to hear her own criticism? I doubt. If you see this interview with Thapar, you can clearly see that Roy does not answer any of Thapar’s questions and in fact skips most of them through misdirections.

Do read Roy, for you also should not be in an echo chamber where everything is perfect and where there are no consequences of development on forests, farms, animals, biodiversity whatsover. Bridging the gap between these development hawks and criticism vultures is the challenge which nobody rises to.

And to make it personal, let me ask this: does Roy not use any of the products or services of these industrial conglomerates she criticizes in every single second of her life? Does she use a smartphone produced by an NGO? How does she fly to give “enlightening lectures” in Amrika? Or does she swim in the oceans to reach the shores? Her clothes always seem to be quite modern, of course with eye liners. Maybe those are produced by NGOs from Naxalbari? Does she use internet created by the tribals of hinterland? Does she use multivitamin supplements and medicines produced by the oppresed castes of the villages? Oh, well, why does she use English language for her communication and writing? I suppose English was brought to India by tourists of the East India Company. And does she use a detergent powder to wash her clothes? Who created that powder? The Tatas or the Unilivers? Does she employ a maid or househelp? Does she use an auto-rickshaw or a taxi driver to travel around in a city? Oh well, isn’t that class supremacy? But for Mayank-Austen-Soofi-types, she is the “best” and so be it. Be the best.

Review: The Silent Coup by Josy Joseph

A riot of conspiracy theories

There are conspiracy theories, and then there is Josy Joseph. His book Feast of Vultures was rooted in real stories, often backed by personal experience or sometimes even by facts. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about his latest book. Josy seems to have lost the plot when he treats his sources differently when they feed him ‘stories’ which suit his narrative and when they don’t. At the beginning of the book he mentions how the intelligence officers often feed false stories to journalists, and hence he mistrusts them to a great extent. But when these ‘stories’ suit his narrative, Josy readily accepts them and gleefully boasts of having access to ‘insider’ and ‘sinister’ plots which have been conjured up in the minds of the ‘evilest’ top-brass.

He raises questions about how Afzal Guru was an innocent bystander and was a scapegoat after the Parliament attacks of 2001. However, one only has to read Rahul Pandita’s book to get to the truth. Rahul has clearly presented the facts when he presents the links of Afzal Guru with these Islamic terrorists hiding in plain sight in Pakistan. But that’s too much to ask of Josy because he is clearly blinded by the blinkers.

Josy writes about how ‘hindu terror’ or ‘saffron terror’ was unearthed by NIA during UPA regime, and then posits this theory that because this does not suit BJP, all the accused were let go of lightly. Would, say, Sadhvi Pragya be so naive that she would use her own two-wheeler for carrying out attacks? But such simpleton questions would baffle Josy so he does not even bother to ask them.

He mentions in his book the chapter of Kasab and other terrorists attacking Mumbai on 26/11, but comfortably ignores how the stooges of Congress / UPA had released a book after 26/11 which claimed that 26/11 was an RSS plot! Josy, as expected, does not write a word about this. Not even a hint. Of course Josy won’t because when you have an agenda at the back of your mind, incovinient facts are to be ignored and brushed aside.

As per Josy, the two dozen or so intelligence agencies are an evil manifestation of bad State actors, who can’t think of anything else but to create havoc in the state. Josy, as would be apparent to the reader by now, is a typical journalist who sits in his ivory tower and keeps pointing out how the armed forces, police, politicians, intelligenc officers, informants are not only imperfect, but even conniving at each breath on how to fool the public, the journalists, and the world at large. One would infer from Josy’s criticism, that when a terrorist enters Kashmir with a gun, the military should present the law book to the terrorist, outling what the terrorist’s rights and duties are. And in case the terrorist crosses the line, which would be a rare occasion as per Josy, then the military should take recourse in the laws of the land and go through a ‘proper’ process through the judiciary.

I am glad that people like Josy are confined to the journalistic world, having no real-world experience dealing with terrorists, gangsters, anti-nationals etc. Because only the theorists and purists can revel in their own utopian principles of ethics, equality, and kindness. It is because of this parasite called “fourth pillar” that India as a country has been weakened from the inside, like a moth-infested beam. It is not journalism but disguised-journalism that is the real enemy of India. What exactly are these so-called journalists upholding? If India fails to avert a terrorist attack, these journalists gleefully roast the security establishment and political masters of being a failure; but when the security establishment / politicians are able to nip terrorism in the bud, these ‘journalists’ smell a fish and suspect foul-play.

My disgust for journalism and especially the holier-than-thou attitude of those in this ‘establishment’ has grown by leaps and bounds over the years. Noam Chomsky could not make an iota of a difference in this world for a reason. Arundhati Roy likes to go on ‘explorative naxal’ trips and then write books and articles but cannot dent an inch of the government, and that’s like this for a reason. And the reason is that these people and ‘thinkers’ are stuck in their textbooks of ethics and morality. They scored 90% percentage in their written exams and think they can change the world and fight the enemy based on their 90% score! Welcome to the real world, folks!

I would not recommend this book as it is full of hypotheses, fact-less pronouncements, personal disgust, political agenda, and even laughable, if not derisive, conjectures. His first book was way better, but somewhere Josy seems to have lost it. I will wait till he veers back to the track.

Review: What Ails the IAS and Why it fails to Deliver by Naresh Chandra Saxena

What Ails the IAS

What Ails the IAS is a highly practical book with lot of insider stories of how IAS’ wings have been clipped by political corruption in India. In each chapter, it gives a detailed account of how officers at IAS tried to beat the system of corruption and apathy, but often failed.

The author highlights that the maladies affecting IAS leadership are: lack of domain knowledge, constant transfers, fear of punishment postings, redundant posts. He then mentions ‘internal reforms’ which should be undertaken at IAS, namely: civil services accountability, monitoring of absenteeism of government employees, outcome monitoring, rewards based on outcomes, curb inflated reporting, capacity building / training, lateral entry for professionals.

A must-read book for anyone interested in the inner workings of IAS and how indifference, inefficiency, and corruption of the political system has caused massive deficiencies in the administrative capabilities of the State.

Review: The India Way by S. Jaishankar

The India Way

The India Way comes at a time when Chinese aggression at the borders has gnawed at Indian security establishment and at the psyche of the common man. Being the Minister of External Affairs, his book carries weight beyond the diplomatic circles. My expectations from the book were very different: I was expecting more of practical foreign policy maneuvers which India can use to upstage ‘enemies’ like Pakistan & China. But what I got was lot of verbose paragraphs in diplomatic and strategic affairs.

I wish the book was more practical in its approach. It is quite theoretical when it keeps bringing up Mahabharata as a game-changer in the current affairs. While equating it to different game-plays of Mahabharata is a good reckoner for showing how India still alludes to tradition, it makes little for winning against aggression of China and Pakistan.

I was hoping to hear a lot more about QUAD and QUAD-Plus, and how the strategic doctrine of India’s foreign policy aims to circumvent Chinese grip by cross-continental alliances. I was hoping how India is going to up its ante in the region of soft power against Chinese ‘incursions’ in Hollywood mainstream. I was hoping to read how India-Russia partnership will counteract communist China’s hardboiled leadership’s ‘One China’ policies.

Whatever I was hoping for from the book wasn’t there. In all honesty, I would suggest to skip this book.

Review: Invertonomics by Goonmeet Singh Chauhan

Invertonomics

The common citizen of India has given up hope that many of the problems plaguing the country would ever be solved. The systemic corruption, apathy, indifference, ‘chalta hai’ attitude, and the lack of ownership have all together had an overbearing effect on the ‘positive’ attitude of the common man.

The author is an architect who attempts to provide solutions for many of the common problems India faces. Some of the problems covered are ‘solving the problem of honking’, ‘cleaner air’, ‘traffic compliance’, ‘safer cities’ etc. He comes up with some practical and novel solutions for these problems, however not many will be successful for the lack of funds and the endemic ‘chalta hai’ attitude in the Indian system. The will to see through a successful implementation is lacking in the governmental structures of this country.

Nevertheless, a thought-provoking book with a ‘can do’ attitude. I recommend this to anyone down in the doldrums feeling that nothing can be changed, because this book shows that some things can be and should be changed for the better.

Review: Making India Great by Aparna Pande

Making India Great

Making India Great comes at a much needed hour when the government of India let by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing immense criticism on multiple accounts: CAA-NRC, handling of Covid situation, farmers bill agitation, economic downturn, human rights curtailment in Kashmir, Chinese aggression at the border.

The book is full of facts and numbers and puts forth what should be done to make India great (maybe ‘again’ too?). India of the past was ‘sone ki chidiya’ (‘the bird made of gold’), however it was robbed of this ‘gold’ by rulers like the Mughals and British. That is how the narrative goes in the mainstream.

It also has some interesting factoids, like “India is the 2nd largest exporter of beef annually after Brazil, with turnover of $4 billion annual sales. It is amongst the top 5 producers of leather ($16 billion in sales). Governement had a target of doubling leather revenues to $27 billion by 2020”. So much hyperbole for the sanctity of cow in a country which is exporting such large amounts of beef! It also lists down how India is faring poorly in education and defense-sector spending compared to others, especially China, which is presenting a looming threat to its north-eastern and northern borders. Global average for government expenditure on education is 4.8% of GDP, while for India it is 3-4%. R&D spend as % of GDP is 2.74% for China, while it is a measly 0.69% for India! In a country of 1.4 billion, only 15 million pay taxes. India’s military spending in 2019 was $66 billion, while China’s was $200 billion. The author also points out to the lack of a ‘grand strategy’ in India’s foreign policy.

An interesting read for anyone wanting to know what still ails the nation.

Review: Remnants of a Separation by Aanchal Malhotra

We were sitting by an outdoor cafe in one of Europe’s wealthiest countries, when the gentleman passed by us. He overheard us taking in Hindi and stopped to say hello, told us he had lived in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, gave us his card and left. Few weeks later, I rang him up and fixed an appointment with him at this home. I was curious to know how could he have lived in all the three countries? Was he a spy? Or a diplomat?

Holding a book written by his friend in Bangladesh

I went to his home one winter evening, and he had already prepared fish for me, not knowing beforehand that I was a vegetarian! He apologized for assuming my dietary preferences and quickly took out a packet of sliced vegetables and prepared it for me. My request to not prepare any food for me were not paid any attention, and he told me, rather sternly, that it was dinner time and I was his guest. And over the next couple of hours, he told me his story. He said, “My life was a very sweet life”.

Certificate from Shah Jahan, probably in Farsi

Translated in English

He was born in the 1940s in undivided India, in a large Bengali-speaking city (I can’t put  here the exact year of birth and name of his birth-city as it might get him in trouble for some legal reasons). In 1956, nine years after the partition of India, his father, a Congress party member, took his family to Bangladesh for good. However, as a young boy, this gentleman had no inclination towards studies or any formal education. He wandered from one classroom to another for some time, and then totally gave up on it. Though, as he was from an educated family, with every cousin and friend well versed in different languages, he engaged in self-education whilst reading from books in libraries and temples. Though his religion is Islam, he has an interest in Hinduism as much in Islam. He has read the Vedas, and other mythological works like the Mahabharata as well as the Quran. He possesses formidable knowledge about history and historical facts.

Probably his family tree, written in Bengali

His grandmother was a Hindu Brahmin and grandfather was a Muslim, and they had engaged in an inter-religious marriage back in those days! The times were such that when borders were porous between India and East Pakistan, he regularly used to travel between Calcutta and Dhaka. Due to lack of formal education, finding an office job would have been difficult, and he veered towards volunteering with aid and welfare organizations. In 1967, he got a visa to go to one of the wealthiest countries of Europe to work as a volunteer. He was in Sri Lanka at that point. So he left the three countries [India, Pakistan (East and West), Sri Lanka] behind. Four years later, East Pakistan was separated from West Pakistan and became Bangladesh. As history would have it, he had lived in undivided India, Pakistan (East), and had later traveled to Bangladesh as well few times. He had held citizenship of three countries of the Indian subcontinent (and had held passports of all those countries), and that too without being a spy as I had conjectured in my mind!

Engrossed in a book

He could trace back his family lineage to more than 400 years ago as senior court members of Akbar, Jehangir, and Shah Jahan. In fact, there are many documents with him which are written in Persian. Some of these documents are now not original as they are stored away in libraries, and many were taken away by the British, while others would have been lost in transit whilst moving between India, East Pakistan, and Europe. When I ask him how he feels about his life in Europe, he said, “I miss the shadows behind the bright lights”. About the partition of India and the religious fanaticism driving a schism between Hindus and Muslims, he says, “Our arrogance has divided us. The Hindu prejudice and the Muslim arrogance..these have divided us”.

Remnants of a Separation is book deeply awash with melancholy. It brings forth the stories lost in time, the stories about belongings which one hurriedly carried along after the partition. The men and the women in the book tell us not just about their possessions which remind them of lands long lost, but more so of the lives which they could have had if not were for partition. There is a strange ‘what-if’ sense of direction in each subject’s narration on what all they could have been or could have done, had they not been forced to migrate across the lines. It is people’s history that is covered in those pages, not through ghastly statistics, or distant commentary, but with immense affection.

(Below slideshow shows copy of an article published in East Pakistan, seemingly about lineage of Mughals)

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Review: A Feast of Vultures by Josy Joseph

 

For anyone who believes in the sanctity of democracy in India, and has cast votes to any of the political parties vying for attention, this timely book will shatter their faith and belief. It is not only a scathing attack on the way India functions, but a grimy account of the insider machinations of politicians, businessmen, and the ‘go-to men’.

You will come across R.K. Dhawan, the typist and secretary of Indira Gandhi, the Ambani family and their palatial home Antilia standing on a piece of land which was once a graveyard, Dawood Ibrahim and Naresh Goyal colluding together to kill Thakiyuddin of East-West airlines, Subroto Roy, Vijay Mallya, Ottavio Quattrocchi, and the many other big names who matter.

The author precisely decimates the outward aura of fair-game and healthy-competition which is projected after the clinching of successful deals.

A must read book for anyone who is interested in India. I can’t recommend it enough. And it is surely with great courage that the author has mentioned various high-profile names involved in abject corruption and backhanded dealings.

Buy it on Amazon.