Reviews of the latest books from and on Southasia

AIDS Sutra: Untold stories from India
edited by Negar Akhavi
Random House, 2008

Any book with an introduction from Bill and Melinda Gates, a foreword from Amartya Sen and essays by Salman Rushdie, Shobhaa De, Kiran Desai and Amit Chaudhuri must be worth the read. However, while some of the stories here are interesting, others are fluff pieces for a 'concept' book. There is much to be learnt about a serious problem, and Sonia Faleiro and Siddhartha Deb successfully get under the skin of that problem with their rich pieces. In fact, though, these are not actually 'untold stories', but are too often well-known stories that do not seem to shift public policy one way or the other. No one in this book tackles that issue – not even Amartya Sen, who ends his essay, uncharacteristically, with a call for personal responsibility. (Vijay Prashad)

Alchemy of Iniquity: Resistance and repression in India's mines, a photographic enquiry
edited by Rakesh Kalshian
Panos South Asia, 2008

Soot-covered Adivasi and migrant labourers toiling in the collieries of Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand; hillsides, filled with opencast mines, transformed into a treasury of tree stumps; iron-ore dust sprinkling a reddish tint over vast landscapes and human settlements – these are only a few of the images depicted in this poignant photographic collection. The compilation allows readers to undertake a journey through what can at times seem to be three completely different worlds, though adamantly covering the same physical space. Beginning from Adivasi communities living a seemingly harmonious existence with their environment; moving on to the rapacious corporate state-assisted extraction of bauxite, coal, iron and other valuable minerals from resource-rich lands; and finally ending with sometimes-bloody Adivasi resistance movements against displacement and exploitation. These focused photographs reveal the devastation in a stinging manner, achieving much more than words could have done. (Smriti Mallapaty)

Maudiegirl and the von Bloss Kitchen
by Carl Muller
Penguin, 2009

Beef fritters, roast teal, pork pies and plum pudding find centre stage in this delightful chronicle of Burgher life. Dishing out home-cooked wisdom as generously as she does sumptuous meals to all who drop by her kitchen, Maudiegirl is the quintessential Burgher matriarch. These charming vignettes, along with the genuine recipes, are a poignant reminder of a world that is fast disappearing, squeezed between the polarised Tamil-Sinhala polity – a world that Muller recreates in memory of his grandmother, who died before he was born. Read about the rambunctious von Bloss family and its boisterous friends and neighbours, and you will want more of the 'Sri Lanka collection', as Penguin bills this work. (Laxmi Murthy)

Nautch Girls of the Raj
by Pran Nevile
Penguin, 2009

In Pran Nevile's new work, you can almost hear the applause in an elaborately decorated hall, against the constant sounds of bangles and anklets worn by lavishly dressed dancing girls. The girls who practised nach, or dance, were so popular during the Raj era that many British continued to discuss them back home, thus bringing the titular term into existence. Yet a veritable myth had long grown up around these girls, starting with the mention of "the dancing girls" in the palaces of gods, as described in the Vedas, with beautiful women subsequently making their ways to earth and into the palaces of Mughal kings and British emperors. More down to earth, Nevile succeeds in challenging some conventional notions regarding the dancing girls, particularly the common association of dancing girls and prostitutes. In fact, the Nautch Girl was a much-respected part of society – for her physical beauty, her power over the other sex and, most importantly, for her talent. In the end, she was an artist. As such, a reader cannot help but rue her decline with the onslaught of modernity. What remains, however, is her grace and the story of how she ruled the rulers. (Anubhuti Poudyal)

To uphold the world: The message of Ashoka and Kautilya for the 21st century
by Bruce Rich
Viking, 2009

One of the more interesting of historical transformations had to have been how exactly King Ashoka went from being a despot to an advocate of peace and good governance. From what Bruce Rich finds in answering that question, comes the gist of this book: showing the relevance of Ashoka's teachings to the modern world, particularly in terms of economic interdependence and political hegemony. Though seemingly romanticised in its approach to modern-day global issues, the volume is not necessarily as it first appears. Ashoka's idealism is counterbalanced by Kautilya's starkly different philosophy – one of wealth and economics, notably similar to that shared by many in today's world. Yet these two were more closely linked than one would think, Rich rightfully notes, "Ashoka's success and failure were tied up with the Kautilyan system of administration." Given its contradictions in comparing vastly different eras, this book does not necessarily provide any specific solutions. It does, however, give the reader a sense of how we as societies can mitigate global problems today by learning from these two powerful men of ages gone by. (Shiven Thapa)