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Ahead of the publication of Get Epic Shit Done (Juggernaut), Ankur Warikoo’s follow-up book after Do Epic Shit, the The Hindu magazine got the Internet entrepreneur who has 2.44 million subscribers on YouTube for a freewheeling conversation with bestselling writer, diplomat and politician Shashi Tharoor. In the chat, edited and condensed for length and clarity by Surya Praphulla Kumar, the two try to make sense of young India from the other’s perspective, while also discussing writing, the definition of success, and being “several people in one life”. Tharoor, whose latest book is a biography of B.R. Ambedkar, wants his ultimate legacy to lie in “the words I leave behind and the ideas they embody.” Asked how he would define success, Warikoo replies, “For me, success is simple. It’s the ability to spend time on the things that I would love to do and not things that I have to do because the world tells me to.” For Warikoo, who has a very good sense about his audience, there are a few things that stand out about Gen Z. “One is the audacity of their ambition. They are not limited by the standard options that their parents have laid out for them. They also see themselves as a global workforce…. The last thing that characterises them is the abundance of choice. That’s wonderfully summarised in the four letter word that this generation lives with: FOMO (fear of missing out).”
In reviews, we read the former Reserve Bank of India Governor’s memoir and a prescription on the economy, a book on tiger conservation, snapshots from past FIFA World Cups and more. We also interview Pankaj Mishra who says Indian writers are under tremendous pressure because of a noisy rightwing ecosystem and trolls and Nilanjana S. Roy talks about her new fiction.
Books of the week
In this long-awaited account of the 1991 reforms, former Reserve Bank of India Governor C. Rangarajan discusses India’s transition from its post-Independence planning era to present times. The narrative of his memoir, Forks in the Road: My Days at RBI and Beyond (Penguin), is contextualised in contemporary debates, says the reviewer Puja Mehra: why planning was the only available option post-Independence as an economic model for development, how when India finally broke away from planning in the 1990s, it was already 20 years too late for reforms, and how the heady India growth story is unravelling. The author presents his views on the criticism of the decisions taken, why the alternatives were rejected and the unfinished agenda. To be a developed country, he writes that India will require more than 20 years of strong growth – and lots of economic wisdom and statesmanship.
Review of C. Rangarajan’s Forks in the Road — My Days at RBI and Beyond: An unfinished agenda
The book is a remarkable autobiographical narrative on the biological behaviour of the tiger, its critical role in shaping natural ecosystems, and its presence in our collective imagination.
In his new book, Among Tigers (Chicago Review Press), K. Ullas Karanth, one of the world’s best tiger biologists, makes a case for growing the Big Cat population in India. “India still has 3,80,000 square kilometres of potential tiger habitat. If these forests can be nursed back to health by employing proven means already at our disposal, they can provide enough habitat for 15,000 or more wild tigers,” he writes. In his review, Sudhirendar Sharma says Karanth brings out the joy of being in the forest and also the perils of engaging with forest bureaucracy in equal measure while drawing up proposals for conserving wild cats. “Balancing human emancipation and nature conservation is critical for making more room for tigers.”
Many people around the world is still in the grip of football fever after the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Doha which ended in a stunning final between Argentina and France on Sunday, with the match going down to the wire. Lionel Messi and Argentina finally won on penalties, making it a memorable tournament for the 35-year-old. But French fans were distraught after Kylian Mbappe had pulled them back from the brink with three remarkable goals – that’s the Beautiful Game for you. In his book, The Most Incredible World Cup Stories (Niyogi Books), Luciano Wernicke traces the history of the Cup from 1930 onwards, the inaugural edition that hosts Uruguay won, right up to the last one in 2018 in Russia which France won. In his review, K.C. Vijaya Kumar says the author offers nuggets for the football lover as also varied records, anecdotes, and facts linked to the World Cup. Wernicke showcases a game that is full of history, agony and ecstasy.
Review of Luciano Wernicke’s The Most Incredible World Cup Stories: Football snapshots
Spotlight
Writer Pankaj Mishra
In Mumbai for Tata Literature Live!, the Age of Anger writer, Pankaj Mishra, discussed his view on how the politics of the day has impacted the state of Indian literature with Avantika Shankar, and how the modern Indian writer is working against far more formidable forces than ever before. Asked about the potential of fiction to provide a space for conversation and critique that maybe journalism cannot, he said, “Our public spaces have been invaded by a certain kind of noise, largely manufactured by trolls and ideologically driven fanatics, and they have made not just artistic creation, but life really difficult for a lot of people in India today. The writer in India is living under tremendous pressure, and unfortunately, the one thing that writers elsewhere can still rely upon, which is an attentive readership, is not something guaranteed in a country like India today.”
The writer in India is under tremendous pressure: Pankaj Mishra
Journalist, columnist and writer Nilanjana S. Roy’s latest book Black River (Context) is a crime noir and the title is a straightforward reference to the black waters of the Yamuna. In an interview with Stanley Carvalho, she says she has an affection for the colour black: “Black for me stands for a lot of depth, a lot of layering, opacity, a time for contemplation, a time to think about what’s been happening in the city.” She says her crime fiction is very Indian at heart and influenced somewhat by Scandinavian and Japanese freedom with the form. “In this novel, there are no heroes, and it is not a novel with the detective as a hero or with the bereaved as the heroic figures. I hope people will find a certain amount of empathy and compassion in what is ultimately a very human story.” Framed as a police procedural, Black River is about a murder and its aftermath. “It is about the investigation, but also about justice,” she contends.
‘I find crime writing very calming’: author Nilanjana S. Roy on her new noir novel Black River
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- With a curation of objects from the prehistoric ages through 21st century India, Sudeshna Guha provides a panoramic view of the rich histories of the subcontinent in A History of India through 75 Objects (Hachette). The essays detail not just the objects but the histories of their reception: examining how changing times and attitudes cast their shadow on the ways in which the past is interpreted and narrated.
- In House of the People (Cambridge University Press), Ronojoy Sen focuses on the Lok Sabha or the House of the People. There are two questions the book seeks to answer: has the Indian Parliament, which represents a diverse nation of a billion-plus people, been able to articulate the demands of the electorate and translate them into legislation and policy? To what extent has the practice of Indian democracy transformed the institution of Parliament, which was adopted from the British, and its functioning?
- For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit (Context), edited by Shilpa Gupta and Salil Tripathi, speaks of the history of resistance and courage like its subtitle points out – Encounters with Prison. Conceived in dialogue with artist Shilpa Gupta’s multimedia installation, it brings together poets featured in the installation, all persecuted for their words. Articles include Gautam Bhatia’s ‘You Can’t Always Say What You Want: Free Speech and the Law’, poetry by Varavara Rao, prison diaries of Umar Khalid and poems of Nguyen Chi Thien (‘My Mother’), Nazim Himet (‘City of No Voice’) to Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s ‘Speak’.
- Dr. M.R. Rajagopal has spent a lifetime caring for patients in pain. In Walk with the Weary (Aleph), he knits his own experiences as a doctor with stories of the unique lives of his patients, asserting that medicine can bring comfort and security to those at their most vulnerable and provide them the opportunity to not only live healthy lives but to die with dignity.
