History in the Making: The Visual Archives of Kulwant Roy

By Aditya Arya and Indivar Kamtekar.
HarperCollins.
Pages 304. Rs 4,999.

Reviewed by Roopinder Singh

History in the Making: The Visual Archives of Kulwant Roy

THE black and white of history, a rare clarity that we get with the perspective of distance in time, a feeling of connection with our past, and the nostalgia that it evokes. This book brings many emotions to the fore as you leaf through pages rich with images of an important moment in India’s history.

Images, à la sauvette or “the decisive moment”, became a modern mantra of photojournalism, in no small measure because it was the title of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s book of 126 photographs, and his long preface that provided the philosophical moorings to his pictures.

I really don’t know if Bresson, widely recognised as the father of photojournalism, met Kulwant Roy during one of his sojourns to India. Roy owned a studio near Delhi’s Mori Gate, and both captured decisive moments in the early history of the Indian nation. Roy was born in Bagli Kalan, near Ludhiana, in 1914. He learnt his craft in Lahore, and later took aerial photographs in the Royal Indian Air Force. The Tribune, then published in Lahore, gave him an early break.

Aditya read History (Hons) at St Stephen’s College, Delhi. He was also a keen photographer, and the secretary of the Photographic Society, of which I was a member too. He lived on the campus, courtesy his father, Dr V. Arya, our Hindi teacher. The lure of being behind the lens was strong enough to make him take up photography as a career, a journey that took him places, professionally and literally.

In a serendipitous moment, Aditya, egged on by his mother, finally opened the trunks left for him by his uncle, Kulwant Roy, a press photographer. Thus, he saw bundles of black and white photographs and negatives that literally made history come alive in front of his eyes.

Here were pictures of Muslim League meetings, INA trials and the signing of the Indian Constitution!

Jawahar Lal Nehru called the Bhakra Nangal Dam a “New Temple of Resurgent India”. Roy took photographs of the construction of this wonder that bring out the human dimension, in the form of thousands of toiling workers, to this infrastructural sculpture in concrete.

As we turn the pages, we see the leaders age in front of our eyes. We notice how they actually mingled with the people … and some incongruities, like the immaculately-clad delegates to the 1945 Simla Conference, being ferried by liveried but barefoot rickshaw pullers. Other feet, however, are clad in contrasting wingtip-brogues, Peshawari chappals, jutti’s and pump shoes worn by various persons in the book.

Different readers will gain various perspectives as they flip through the volume to which has a Foreword by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

As one browses through it, the feel one gets is of loving and meticulous care that has gone into this book, a design conspicuous by its minimalist approach and elegant touches, like showing the yellowed caption strips in the true yellowed paper they were typed on, Roy’s cameras and so on. Obviously, expenses have not been spared in producing this high-priced book.

Indivar Kamtekar and Aditya have provided the text that showcases this collection. Captioning such pictures would have taken a lot of effort. One wishes for more details, for example, the “Sikh colleague” with Jawaharlal Nehru on page 175 is Partap Singh Kairon, who has figured prominently on other pages of the book too. Some of the princes in the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU) pictures, loosely titled as “Phulkian Union”, are misidentified, but these are minor quibbles.

Mention must also be made of the Aditya Arya Archive, which seeks to “digitise, document, annotate and preserve photographic archives in India.” As Aditya says: “Tales of marriage, births, deaths, mourning and celebration captured on film. Photographic archives are an invaluable source of knowledge and interest, our gateway to understanding the past and acquiring a perspective on the present, through diverse visual narratives.”

There were many Roys and each provided his own perspective and eye to recording events as they unfolded in front of his eyes. Of them, only Kulwant, who died in 1984, had an Aditya to turn his sepia bromides into a book that will grace many shelves, and keep alive the memory of the photographer and his work.

The review was published in The Tribune on April 18, 2010

Indian Persuasions: 50 years of Seminar: Selected Writings

Ed. Rudrangshu Mukherjee.

Roli Books. Pages 544. Rs 695.

Reviewed by Roopinder Singh

TO judge a book by its cover would be a transgression for whom only the written world matters. Yet, this cover comprises letters that when read together become the names of some of the finest minds in India, collectively representing a formidable intellectual legacy. Their coming together on the same page, so to say, shows the vision of the people who brought them together.

Indian Persuasions: 50 years of Seminar: Selected Writings

 Seminar is a magazine only in a strictly technical sense. It is far removed from the glossies that populate newsstands and purvey what purports to be opinion and information. Seminar, ever since its inception, has been a periodical that devoted itself only to one issue every month and encouraged experts to write on different aspects and express their views freely and frankly.

Raj and Romesh Thappar, the founders, brought out the first issue in September 1959, and kept it going till they both died in 1987. Romesh Thapar dallied with the Left in the 1940’s and 1950’s, and after spending some time in Bombay, where he was involved in films and art, he settled down in Delhi. His wife was his partner in every sense, and together with some friends, every month they brought out a new issue that provided fresh food for thought.

After their death, their daughter Malvika and her husband Tejbir Singh have kept the flame alive by continuing the legacy. Seminar provided a platform for new ideas, and it attracted the best—Nirad Chaudhuri, K.N. Raj, Amartya Sen, Nirmal Kumar Bose, and Beteille, have all contributed to it.

Rudrangshu Mukherjee, the historian who is editor with the Telegraph, has put together a collection of 60 articles divided into five sections:

1. Maximizing the Possibilities: Personalities, Parties and Politics
2.  Does the Centre Hold? Trends in Indian Politics
3.  Growing Out of Planning: Problems of Economic Development
4. Education the Nation: History
5. Other Themes; and Culture, Art, Identity.

India’s finest intellectuals find the space here to discuss various problems and issues. As we read them, we see how these articles are still as pertinent as they were the day they were written.

Perusing the volume, we find ourselves nodding our heads as the late Ravi Dayal describes Delhi as “a collection of villages, each with its own ways and mannerism, and altogether more provincial than stylish, integrated city of not so long ago”.

Krishna Kumar rightly focuses on the anti-rural bias in the Indian education system and points out that the rural school’s timetable is totally out of tune with the socio-economic routine of village life throughout the country. Robin Jeffery gives us a perceptive insight into Indian language newspapers. In India and History, Romesh Thappar gives an account of Indira Gandhi and her 19 years of rule as only someone who knew her well could have.

Reading the book, the reviewer often found himself looking at the end of each article to find out which issue it had originally been printed in. How Seminar brought out such insightful issues on relevant topics was something that one often wondered about as a student in Delhi when one was introduced to the magazine, became a reader and a collector. At first one only bought of immediate interest, then one started picking up those which could be of interest later, and soon all. For those who missed out issues, or are new converts, the magazine has an online presence and is now available in a digital format, as CDs.

One does not read such compendiums cover-to-cover in a linear fashion. One started at the beginning, which set the tone of the tome, but also dipped, skipped and jumped backwards and forward. The distinctive cover is typographical, echoing the technique used for the magazine since its inception—this book can thus be judged by its cover, since it reflects the content, while establishing a connection with the original magazine. The editor and the publishers deserve to be congratulated on putting together such a fine and relevant collection of essays. Indeed, this is a rich fare, to be savoured, mulled over, ruminated upon and revisited, much as people who have issues of Seminar tucked away in their shelves have been doing for over 50 years.

This review was published in The Tribune on Sunday, November 22, 2009.

In Search of Roots: Guru Amar Das and Bhallas

In Search of Roots: Guru Amar Das and Bhallas

Nanak Bani: Interpreted in Free Verse
By Harjeet Singh Gill.
Publication Bureau, Punjabi University, Patiala. Volumes I and II.
Pages 1,251. Rs 650 each.

GURU Nanak’s bani is his living legacy, the very core of the religion he founded. Even as we admire Guru Nanak for eschewing the complicated forms of language and embracing not only the common people but also their idiom, we marvel at the sheer poetry of his expression that transports those who read it or listen to it on transcendental level.

Over the years, there have been a number of serious attempts to translate the bani of the Gurus. The early work was done by Ernest Trumpp (1828-85), which raised a lot of hackles, whereas M. A. MacAuliffe (1842-1913) got a positive response from the Sikhs.

Dr Gopal Singh (1917-1990) wrote the first translation of the complete Guru Granth Sahib into English in the 1960s. Another translation by Manmohan Singh, which was published by the SGPC, followed soon. A decade later, Prof Gurbachan Singh Talib brought out a translation under the aegis of Punjabi University, Patiala.

Many people would be excited to know that now Prof Harjeet Singh Gill has applied himself to the task, especially in reference to Guru Nanak’s bani. A distinguished linguist and former professor and chairman, Centre of Linguistics and English, School of Languages, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, now he is Professor Emeritus at JNU, and has spent the last few years in Patiala.

In the two-volume book on bani, Gill uses the free verse to communicate Guru Nanak’s message. The following is a quotation from Raag Wadhans, Chhant:

The dirt of dirty deeds cannot be washed away

With ritual baths, with superficial ceremonies,

The only true bath is the bath of truth

When the heart vibrates with truth

When the devotee lives in truth

There is purity, there is perception

What Gill writes is clear and lucid and his interpretation of Guru Nanak’s bani introduces modern English-speaking audience to the Guru’s compositions. It marks a welcome break from the ornate compositions written in flowery language that have traditionally been used to translate gurbani. Gill conveys the Guru’s message with simplicity and fluidity and it would, perhaps, be too much to expect this translation to capture the glorious transcendence of gurbani, more so, since he is a scholar of language, not of divinity.

While most of Guru Nanak’s bani used common language, as opposed to the formal Sanskrit, at the same time his vocabulary comprised words from various local dialects and languages, which were used to express complex thoughts and concepts. It is thus imperative to get the meaning of the traditional interpretation, understand it, internalise it and then render it to another language.

Gill’s credentials as a linguist are tremendous. In fact, he is among the tallest scholars in the field internationally. At the same time he is candid in admitting that he has relied on his understanding of the Guru’s bani, rather than traditional research. Sometimes the seeming familiarity leads one astray, thinking of the word ahren as a hammer, rather than as anvil, a common mistake that is also repeated in the book.

Gill himself is acutely conscious of his limitations, and this is obvious from his preface where he says: “Being conscious of the fact that even the best interpretation/translation is only an approximation … I crave for the Guru’s indulgence, and above all, for his forgiveness, for the Guru alone can articulate his discourse in its multiple aspects of formal and conceptual constitutions … . In any case, no interpretation/translation can ever replace the sacred Guru Bani or the Guru Shabad with its cosmological reverberations in rhythm and resonance … .”

Gill’s earlier work, Baba Nanak, a revised edition of which has been brought out now, won him high praise for the free verse rendering of the life and times of Guru Nanak. Darshan Singh Maini and W. H. McLeod both liked it and indeed, it is a very interesting form, well carried out. Here he captures the essence of Guru Nanak’s life as well as his bani.

The covers of the three books take one back to his Phulkari from Bathinda, a classic he published while on the faculty at Punjabi University, Patiala, the same institution that has published these books. After exploring the world, he has returned to his roots, geographically, intellectually, and dare we say spiritually too. And we Punjabis are richer because of it.

This review of Prof H S Gill’s book by Roopinder Singh was published in The Tribune on September 6, 2006.

It is not often that you come across a good translation of a good book in Punjabi. The Tale of the Phoenix is one such volume. The author, Dalip Kaur Tiwana, is considered one of the best contemporary Punjabi novelists and Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, the translator, is herself a product of the same milieu —Patiala and Punjabi University figured prominently in both their lives, as also mine.
Dalip Kaur Tiwana is a student of my mother, Inderjit Kaur Sandhu. When my mother became Vice-Chancellor of Punjabi University, Patiala, one of the three women in the world to hold that position at that time, Dalip Kaur was a colleague and Nikki the daughter of a very dear and venerable colleague, Professor Harbans Singh. Of course, I have known them both for a long time, and it was one of the attractions of the book…however, my review reflects my unbiased view. Please click here to read it.

A young man came and introduced himself as the author of a new book on love, intriguingly titled I too had a Love Story. He then proceeded to tell me about the book, and the conversation was so interesting that I felt like reading the volume. Ravinder Singh is a programmer, but no nerd, let me tell you. He has a moving story to share with us. Please read my review of his book by clicking here.

Guru Granth Sahib—The Guru Eternal by Dr Mohinder Singh is a magnificently produced volume and with impeccable it has been released by the Vice President of India at a time when the Sikhs worldwide are celebrating the ‘Gurta Gaddi Divas’.

Please click here to read my review of the book.

I had written, in 2004, an exhaustive article on Guru Granth Sahib, which you may be interested in reading. You can access it at this URL.

Let’s rededicate ourselves to following the teaching of the great Gurus on this occasion and follow the path they have shown us.

Make no mistake about it, Chetan Bhagat is churning out bestsellers regularly. This banker who is also the largest selling novelist in India, has hit the right note with the young Indian and he has a hat trick of successes to prove that point.

Chetan has not allowed the adulation of millions to go to his head. He is charming and unassuming, a deadly combination. Please click here to read my interview with Chetan, and my review of his latest book, The 3 Mistakes of my Life. I had interviewed Chetan earlier, and reviewed his book One Night@the Call Center. Please click here to read that review and interview.

When I saw a copy of Lord Jeffery Archer’s A Prisoner of Birth, I knew

that I had a long night ahead of him. I have read all his books, and that fact that they are in the 400-page range is never a deterrent. Please click here to read my review of this book. In my next post, on Monday, I will tell you about an Indian who is churning bestsellers in numbers too big to ignore.

A sweet book by a sweet person who is also a politician. Sounds too good to be true? You must realise that there are Governors and then, there are Governors.

Internationally, Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York, is hogging headlines because his life did not quite turn out to be an open book, and certain chapters in it included trysts with lovely ladies, and payments for these liaisons.

If this were a perfect world, another Governor would be written about more. He has written about two women who he was involved with, and what a lovely book it turned out to be. A few days ago I started reading Tamil Nadu Governor Surjit Singh Barnala’s book titled My Other Two Daughters. Please click here to read my review of the book.