rajeshvora’s blog

Friends,

I am posting excerpts from the book, "Kutch ' Triumph of the Spirit" written by Randhir Khare. Even I couldn't have put it better about ourselves. None of the words written below are mine. They are totally that of the authors.

Excerpts :

From the introductory chapter in the book:

This book is not about the earthquake that wrecked the region of Kutch in 2001. Nor is it an activist's investigation into what happened after the disaster. Kutchi history is fraught with unimaginable disasters earthquakes, droughts, famines, invasions by rats, locusts, giant black ants, floods, the plague, invasions by warlords and oppression under successive rulers. The recent earthquake was just another occurrence of disaster that the people have had to bear with.

Instead this is the story of people, living in a region that is perpetually in a state of flux and change, with patience, inventiveness, inclusiveness and courageous openness to life. It is the story of craftsmen and craftswomen, musicians, farmers, shepherds, traders and all those we see as a population counts but never get to know as human beings. This is their story.

The photographer Susan Bullough and I had begun our travels through Kutch long before the earthquake happened, not with a view to produce an idyllic coffee-table book but instead to tell the story of how Kutchis have lived through times of change . Their memories, disasters and triumphs.

I don't claim to be either a sociologist, anthropologist, historian or any such authority. I am a writer who journeyed through Kutch, experiencing the people, the places, the memories and the timelessness of a mutating land and I have come back to you, dear reader, to share my experiences.

If you do get to read this book, please don't store it away on your shelf after you have finished the last page. Pass it to friends. Share it with others.

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From the various chapters in the book: -

My experiences in Kutch had taught me never to be surprised but to carry on accepting people and happenings as I encountered them. Yes, surprise is the keyword here. Surprise caused by constant flux. One moment everything is what you think it is and the very next it is something quite different. I realized that if I could not get used to that state of being, I would never get used to the Kutchi way of life.

Across the thousands and thousands of years in the life of Kutch, so much had happened. Earthquakes constantly changed the face of the land once pulling in the arm of the sea to make Kutch an island, then heaving the land up and pushing back the saline arm and welding the island to the mainland with the inhospitable tract called the Great Rann of Kutch, the river Indus and later lifting the slabs of earth to make the river flow backwards till it changed its course. The people of Kutch had got used to living with change, with surprise, and it was not just ground beneath their feet that shifted and altered itself but even those who passed through their lives. Kutch was a gateway, a passageway, a link, a bridge, and history has left a myriad footprints across not only her land but also the psyche of her people.

Here in Kutch, people have a relationship with the land they have been born on. There is an attachment. Probably that's what brought me here. This habit. I've often wondered about this attachment. And the only answer that has come to my mind is that people find Kutch a safe place. It is safe and secure here. There's a low crime rate and life has its own unhurried pace, but the people look inwards. They are known to be tolerant. I don't know if it's the inclement weather that has made them like this. They are tolerant to people ' that's one side of them. The other side is very complex.

Few historic legends in Kutch have happy endings. They are fraught with oppression, struggle, destruction and redemption. What is lost in life is gained in death and ultimate goodness or power is born like a phoenix from the ashes. Even sagas of romance are often tinted with similar shades. A people constantly reinventing themselves out of disaster and defeat, willing to give life and hope another chance.

The erosive forces of neglect have not only affected human life in Kutch but even archaeological sites. So strong is the need among the majority of the Kutchis to merely cope with everyday demands, that they don't have the time nor the inclination to bother about historical remains unless they have a direct relevance to religious deities, saints, heroes and associated festivals. Being strewn with Stone Age tools, ancient relics, carvings, inscriptions, seals, coins and countless crumbling structures, the region ought to have been a paradise for archaeologists, anthropologists and historians with a dynamic and constantly updated museum.

Standing there on the crossroads I felt a part of all that had passed that way, down the corridors of time and space. And for the first time in all my journeys through Kutch, I felt a stranger no more, but one of the many travelers who pitched tent and left with the dawn, leaving behind the cold ashes of a fireplace and a few scattered foot prints that would be swept away by the leveling winds of the Great Rann.

Today, at this moment, sitting here and writing these last few words, I cannot remember what happened after those moments, that day, standing among the ruins, surrounded by voices of the wind. That is the last memory that I hold on to, washed in a blaze of light.

Ok, this is actually not a review, but I am putting excerpts from the book. It will definitely make a good reading. Borrowing the term from Ash, "Life Gyaan", these words in the book do exactly that ' lessons in life.

I would definitely suggest this book to all book lovers. If you have not read this book, please do it at the first available opportunity. And if you already have read the book, then please post ur comments. Caught ya…!

The story is about a White man defending a Negro in a county of Alabama. This book actually is much more than the main theme of racism, and gives us lessons for life, as some of the excerpts below will tell you.

The book is told in a first person narrative ' from the eyes of a young girl Jean Louise Finch nicknamed Scout. The author is Harper Lee.

This is quite a long post, so I suggest you proceed to read only when you are free. But do read, no matter when.

Excerpts:

"If your father's anything, he's civilized in his heart. Marksmanship's a gift of God, a talent ' oh, you have to practice to make it perfect, but shootin's different from playing the piano or the like. I think maybe he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. I guess he decided he wouldn't shoot till he had to, and he had to today."

"Looks like he'd be proud of it."

"People in their right minds never take pride in their talents."

.

"When we went home I told Jem we'd really have something to talk about at school on Monday." Jem turned on me.

"Don't say anything about it, Scout," he said.

"What? I certainly am. Ain't everybody's Daddy the deadest shot in Maycomb County."

Jem said, "I reckon if he'd wanted us to know it, he'da told us. If he was proud of it, he'da told us."

"Maybe it just slipped his mind," I said.

"Naw, Scout, it's something you wouldn't understand. Atticus is real old, but I wouldn't care if he couldn't do anything ' I wouldn't care if he couldn't do a blessed thing … Atticus is a gentleman "

Of course, Jem antagonized me sometimes until I could kill him, but when it came down to it he was all I had.

.

"Scout," said Atticus, "when summer comes you'll have to keep your head about far worse things it's not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down ' well, all I can say is, when you and Jem are grown, may be you'll look back in this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn't let you down. This case, Tom Robinson's case, is something that goes to the essence of a man's conscience ' Scout, I couldn't go to Church and worship God if I didn't try to help that man."

"Atticus, you must be wrong.."

"How's that?"

"Well, most folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong "

"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions," said Atticus, "but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

..

"There is no point in saying you were sorry if you aren't," said Atticus.

..

"A lady?" Jem raised his head. His face was scarlet. "After all those things she said about you, a lady?"

"She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different from mine, maybe son, I told you that if you hadn't lost your head I'd have made you to read to her. I wanted you to see something about her ' I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew."

.

He jerked his head at Dill: "Things haven't caught up with that one's instinct yet. Let him get a little older and he won't get sick and cry. Maybe things'll strike him as being ' not  quite right, say, but he won't cry, not when he gets a few years on him."

"Cry about what, Mr. Raymond?" Dill's maleness was beginning to assert itself.

"Cry about the simple hell people give other people ' without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give coloured folks, without even stopping to think that they're people, too"

.

"But it's ok to hate Hitler?"

"it is not," he said. "Its not okay to hate anybody."

.

"Heck," Atticus's back was turned. "If this thing's to be hushed up it'll be a simple denial to Jem of the way I've tried to but I'm all they've got. Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I've tried to live so I can look squarely back to him If I connived at something like this, frankly I couldn't meet his eye. And the day I can't do that I'll know I've lost him. I don't want to lose him and Scout, because they're all I've got."

"Jem and Scout know what happened. If they hear me saying down town something different happened ' Heck, I won't have them any more. I can't live one way in town and another way in my home."

I know it would be far fetched to gather the meaning of the above paragraphs in entirety, but they nevertheless, shed light on some important aspects of life. At first the book might seem a bit boring to some people, but please don't put it off. And like I have said earlier, do not forget to tell me how you found the book ' interesting or not?

Please do me a favor friends If anyone has read the following two books '

The Remains of the Day ' Kazuo Ishiguro     and

Utz ' Bruce Chatwin

Please let me know the theme of the books. I can't seem to recollect, even though I wrote it myself in my wish list of books to read in my college diary (which I found last week after so many years). If you recommend them, I will definitely purchase them, otherwise I will refrain, I think.

Next Book - Catcher in the Rye.

I was a prolific reader since my early childhood. i can remember that even in my third standard - i always used to finish reading the next chapter (than the one being taught in the class) in English Non-Detail as also Hindi Prose. I vividly remember the english novels - the abridged versions of English classics like Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, Gulliver’s Travels, Oliver Twist, etc. that i used to read in the 3rd - 5th std.
Graduating from there i used to read lots of comics - like Amar Chitra Katha, Easops Fables, etc. I also used to read fiction a lot since those early days - Secret Seven, Famous Five, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew etc.
In between all this i always used to read comics of any kind - Tintin, Asterix, Archies, Mad, Phantom, Spiderman, Superman, Beatle Bailey, Peanuts, and upmteen other cartoons appearing in various newspapers.
Now it was time to graduate to bestsellers. I used to devour most of the books at the small neighboorhood library. My apetite for reading had also grown proprotionately. Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, Irwing Wallace, Mario Puzo, Wilbur Smith, Ayn Rand etc. gave me constand company thro their books. Most of the books by these authors are much better than when watching on the silver screen.
One should have a vivid imagination to enjoy books or reading for that matter. One should involve and put himself / herself under the character to get to the bottom of the story and experience it live. No director on Earth will be able to beat that thrilling experience which you get while reading.
I still read a lot. but the nature of content has changed. I barely get enought time to scan the scores of magazines that i subscribe. i now read very less fiction. Instead subjects like people, countries, cultures, politics etc. motivate me a lot. So my current love is reading magazines and other current affairs magazines as also most of the special columns on Rediff. i have saved most of the specials on my PC.
Over the past few years - these books have caught my imagination - Who Moved my Cheese, The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari, The Alchemist etc. I have not compiled any wishlist of those books that i would love to read but anyway here it is (it will serve a reminder for me also) - A Suitable Boy, The Namesake, War and Peace, The Da Vinci Code, Atlas Shrugged (i still cant figure out how i missed this one, my friends swear that this is by far one of the best books that they have read). There are more on my wishlist - i cant figure out where i have noted it down. If someone does suggest a good book, he/she would be doing me a great favour to me.