Bookwatch
BY ANITA JOSHUA
My Fight Back from Death's Door,
V. Chandrasekhar, EastWest Books, Rs. 150.
IN a day and age of you-can-do-it books that are full of pep talk, here is a real-life narrative of a battle against the odds; a case of making the seemingly impossible possible. And, while narrating his battle for justice, former table tennis national champion V. Chandrasekhar offers no quick-fix solutions or one-liners that make good sound bytes.
His is a painful account of a career nipped in the bud at its peak because of a surgery gone wrong due to negligence, and the struggle thereafter; not just for justice but going through the very basics of life — walking, speaking, seeing... Just weeks after receiving the highest sports honour of the country — the Arjuna Award — in 1984, Chandrasekhar went in for a knee surgery and returned near-blind, inarticulate and ataxic. In his book, the former TT champ offers a blow-by-blow account of his life since; particularly the eight-year-long battle against the hospital and doctors who messed up his surgery. Though christened My Fight Back from Death's Door, the narrative is not in the first person. But for the occasional lapses into "I did this" and "I recall that", the book is like a reporter's notebook; especially the parts dealing with the courtroom. While this makes the account seem detached, the book's main appeal lies in the absence of the rhetoric normally associated with such true-life narratives. But, when the details are so stark, no crutches are needed to make the point.
Bachchan: The unstoppable
Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar, Susmita Dasgupta, Penguin, Rs. 250
EVERY time he is written off, Amitabh Bachchan makes a comeback in a new avatar that is invariably more enduring than his earlier incarnate. Tomes and epitaphs have been written on him in equal measure and now, evidently, he has even become the subject of a doctoral thesis; that, too, at the high temple of intellectual activity _ Jawaharlal Nehru University.
That a Ph.D. on Amitabh Bachchan was unthinkable is something Susmita Dasgupta acknowledges in this Penguin publication that has been culled out of her thesis "Sociology of Hindi Commercial Cinema: A Study of Amitabh Bachchan". "My parents never winced when I almost put my career in academics on the rocks because I worked on what was perceived as a rather `pedestrian' topic," she admits in her acknowledgements; adding for good measure that there was a real threat of being thrown out of her job for "pursuing Amitabh Bachchan".
Dividing Bachchan's celluloid life into four phases _ the "Saat Hindustani" to 1973 phase, the decade-long angry young man avatar that redefined Indian cinema, the 1988 to 1999 years when filmmakers cashed in on the star appeal of a man who was just a shadow of his past, and the present when he has taken to the small screen like fish to water _ Dasgupta finds a parallel between his on-screen "neversay- die" attitude and his real life. Bachchan's critics have found fault with his willingness to lend his persona to market almost any product on television, but Dasgupta has a different take. In her opinion, it is this last phase that really endeared him to people; charming the nation with his "patient endurance of his financial situation, his honesty in dealing with his creditors, staying on to fight and not quitting even at a time when age was not on his side".
Walk down memory lane
Scoop! Inside Stories from the Partition to the Present, Kuldip Nayar, HarperCollins, Rs. 250.
WITH Scoop for a title, veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar's latest book will make the occasional head turn at book stores in the hope of it being a new "reveal-it-all" publication. But the title is rather misleading because what the book at best offers is stories which may have been scoops _ breaking news to couch potatoes _ in his reporting days; notes from Nijalingappa's diary being a case in point. For the most part, the "inside stories from the Partition to the Present" are stuff that have become a staple of the modern Indian legend; the only difference being that Nayar brings to them impressions gathered from personal encounters with the likes of Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah and Mountbatten to name a few.
In the process of penning his autobiography, Scoop is evidently a by-product of this journey back in time. In fact, Nayar has offered more details on some of the issues he has raised in this book in his autobiography. Primarily an attempt to string together some of the defining moments of independent India, the book highlights Nayar's own involvement in the scheme of things as political commentator, diplomat and Parliamentarian.
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