Intangible culture of the Himalayas; is it instrumental in conserving environment? | The Indian Express

Intangible culture of the Himalayas; is it instrumental in conserving environment? | The Indian Express

Intangible culture of the Himalayas; is it instrumental in conserving environment?

The Himalayas is one of the most biodiverse regions of the world and most communities living here revere nature. They have a repository of oral tales, legends and myths built around this intrinsic relationship which might be effective in protecting the environment.

Written by Pooja Chowdhary | New Delhi | Updated: April 30, 2018 12:11:55 am

Daya Prasad Gurung (R), and his wife Hosuba Gurung, in Khilang, an interior village in the Annapurna mountain range of Nepal. (Photo: Pooja Chowdhary)

“While it may look like any other forest to you, it is sacred to us. We revere and respect it”, explained Daya Prasad Gurung, while I sat and listened to him under a dim light in his house in Nepal.The 69-year-old, who lives with his wife Hosuba Gurung, in Khilang, an interior village in the Annapurna mountain range of Nepal, belongs to one of the many communities living in the Himalayas who is closely associated with the environment.

For those who aren’t aware, the Himalayas is one of the most biodiverse regions of the world. Most communities living here revere nature and have a repository of oral tales, legends and myths built around this intrinsic relationship. Co-existing comes easy to them and is further strengthened by their age-old narratives, some of which are so old that even the locals don’t know the time of its origin.

While some of the folklores have religious connotations, others are strong on beliefs, and cultural and traditional ties. Whether it’s Arunachal Pradesh in India, the locals of the Annapurna Mountain Range of Nepal or Bhutan, societies at large display a strong natural alignment towards their environment.

For people in Khilang, the patch of forestland overlooking the village is sacred. Popularly known as ‘Kuliphi’, it centres around the ‘Thanku asthan’ – a holy place which symbolises the abode of their deity ‘Thanku’. Locals believe that the ‘asthan’ was brought to its current location about 500 years ago from a place called ‘Komu’ in the Himalayas. At present, its resources are preserved and conserved to the best of their knowledge and ability. Similar is the story of the religious forest of Bajra Barahi which is located close to the city limits of Latitpur, a few kilometres from Kathmandu city.

The road less travelled: On the way to Sikles in Nepal, a Gurung village at a height of 2000m, also a part of the Annapurna Conservation Area. (Photo: Pooja Chowdhary)

The 16th-century temple of Bajra Barahi is surrounded by a thick green deciduous forest of approximately 19 hectares. The temple was built by King Shree Niwas Malla of Patan in 1666 AD in respect of Goddess Bajra Barahi, who is believed to be the guardian deity of the valley. This forest patch is conserved by the local communities and is maintained by a committee named Jyotidaya Sangh.

Dirang basti located in West Kameng district of western Arunachal Pradesh in India carries an age-old narrative of how animal sacrifice was banned in the area through an interesting challenge which took between the head priest of the people following Bon religion and a Buddhist lama Lopon Rinpoche visiting from Tibet.

While animal sacrifice was an important ritual of the Bons, Lopon Rinpoche advocated for non-killing of any beings. This soon resulted in a challenge to which both agreed – it was to reach the Dzangto Peri mountain first. The head priest of the Bons lost the challenge and thereby, promised never to sacrifice any animals during their religious performances, especially while worshipping their sacred mountains – ‘Bangle’ and ‘Dunphu’. Following this, till date, not only animal sacrifice is banned in the area but the killing of animals in the village for dietary consumption is also prohibited. Not far from Dirang Basti, there is the picturesque valley of Sangti where one can find oral narratives in abundance. Similar sentiments also echo in the mountains of Bhutan.

Taktshang Goemba, also known as the Tiger’s Nest Monastery in Bhutan. (Photo: Getty Images)

A common string which connects these places irrespective of their local and national boundaries is the fact that they are conserving their backyard forests and hence, the biodiversity. No resources from the sacred forests are taken out for personal or community use by the locals. There is an understanding that there should be no felling of trees or lopping of branches in the sacred groves. Such practices strengthen the eco-system and create an important refuge for biodiversity. Locals living in these areas seem to be interested in preserving their environment more for the reason of their ‘being’ than its economic or scientific value.

In a time when science-based conservation practices are prevalent, rekindling our past cultural ties with our natural surrounding is important so as to create a common language between the local communities and the modern-day conservationists. Developing such a language can open channels for establishing the much-needed balance between people, environment, science and culture.

Amongst many conservation initiatives which can be undertaken, documenting and preserving the oral narratives that connect people with the environment is a vital step. However, a brimming challenge in preserving them are the increasing dearth of storytellers in the region. With changing value systems and a shift towards individualistic society, these narratives might soon become a thing of the past. But what most don’t understand is that spreading the practice will not only help to preserve our culture but also strengthen people’s natural alignment towards the environment.

Pooja Chowdhary is an Asia Pacific Leadership Fellow of the East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii. She is a communications professional in India, documenting stories connecting people and nature. She is currently travelling in the Himalayas collecting oral narratives under her project ‘Whispers of Yore’.

For all the latest Lifestyle News, download Indian Express App

© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd

Chetan Bhagat signs six books deal with Amazon Publishing | The Indian Express

Chetan Bhagat signs six books deal with Amazon Publishing | The Indian Express

Chetan Bhagat signs six books deal with Amazon Publishing

"I am delighted to partner with Amazon Publishing as my publisher for my upcoming books. Amazon's online advantage and their commitment to reach every corner of India ties in well with my goals of inspiring every Indian to read books...While I will reveal details later, I am very excited about it," the author said.

By: PTI | New Delhi | Published: April 27, 2018 9:42:31 pm

While being excited for the deal, the bestselling author of ‘Five Point Someone’ and ‘2 States’ promised to reveal the details later.

English author Chetan Bhagat on Friday signed a global deal for next six books with Amazon Publishing with the first book releasing in October this year. According to a statement by the publishing company, the deal includes three fiction and three non-fiction books to be published globally in print, eBook and audio formats over the course of next five years.

While being excited for the deal, the bestselling author of ‘Five Point Someone’ and ‘2 States’ promised to reveal the details later. “I am delighted to partner with Amazon Publishing as my publisher for my upcoming books. Amazon’s online advantage and their commitment to reach every corner of India ties in well with my goals of inspiring every Indian to read books…While I will reveal details later, I am very excited about it,” the author said.

All the books are also planned to be available in multiple Indian languages. Westland, an Amazon company, will distribute the print editions in India, the company said. “Amazon Publishing is excited to work with Chetan and publish his books to a wider audience including readers both in India and abroad. Millions of readers have enjoyed Chetan’s work for over a decade. His books deftly weave together the everyday life of youngsters with the prevalent social milieu of our time,” Jeff Belle, Vice President, Amazon Publishing, said.

For all the latest Lifestyle News, download Indian Express App

Banking on our neighbour | The Indian Express

Banking on our neighbour | The Indian Express

Banking on our neighbour

A critical look at why Pakistan’s growth decelerated and what India can learn from it.

Written by Y V Reddy | Updated: April 28, 2018 12:28:47 am

“We, in India, have our own governance problems which are often ignored because of impressive growth in Gross Domestic Product.”

Book: Governing the Ungovernable: Institutional Reforms for Democratic Governance

Writer: Ishrat Husain

Publisher: OUP Pakistan

Page: 568 

Price: Rs 995

Dr Ishrat Husain, a former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, has exhibited courage in titling his book, describing his country as perceived to be “ungovernable”. The question posed is: “Is Pakistan preordained to remain ‘ungovernable’, mired in a state of ceaseless, recurring crises, or can it become ‘governable’ once more?”

There are no absolutes in governance. There are different degrees of imperfections or mis-governance. In a way, all countries are ungovernable in different degrees, but the difference matters. It matters a lot. This well-researched book by Husain, who is highly regarded globally, explains how governance matters in the case of Pakistan. We, in India, have our own governance problems which are often ignored because of impressive growth in Gross Domestic Product.

At one level, the book is very light reading, describing the challenges, achievements and shortcomings of Pakistan over the past seven decades. At another level, it is also very informative and appealing, backed by substantial research, analyses and insights — a very serious read on those counts, which concludes on an optimistic note, showing the way forward. There are many books on how countries have become richer, and how reforms can lead to growth and prosperity, but Husain explores the reasons for deceleration of economic growth. Why and how does a country get left behind?

The author is admired as a public intellectual in Pakistan, and I was familiar with his personal and professional reputation globally, even before I became Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, and we interacted closely as Governors in SAARC. His book, consisting of 18 chapters, can be divided into four parts. The first two chapters provide the background. The chapters on the economy, polity, society, provincial governments and local governments provide the macro picture. The components of governance are examined in detail over eight chapters, namely the civil services, judiciary, legislator, military, religious edifice, private sector, justice and external actors. Of the last three chapters, which suggest the way forward, the chapter titled ‘Lessons from the Experience of Other Countries’ is of particular significance for us in India.

The author provides a comparative picture of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India in relation to various governance rankings compiled by different organisations. He offers enough evidence to show that India remains one of the top performers among the emerging economies, despite weak governance and the frailty of institutions. The author refers to Devesh Kapur’s exploration of this paradox. The relevant question for us now is whether a high growth rate can be sustained in India with continued weak governance. One is left with the lurking fear that the weak governance standards in India may not be able to sustain high growth, and that the growth process will be under serious threat if the deteriorating trend is not immediately reversed. In brief, the challenge to India is to make its governance standards catch up with its ambitious development agenda.

While the author laments the immediate past, he gives hope for the future of Pakistan. At the same time, the book recognises contextual challenges, which are more complex now than they were 25 years ago. To quote the author: “Going forward, Pakistan’s economy has to face a myriad complex challenges arising from an uncertain global environment, an explosive knowledge economy, disruptive technologies, demographic transition and climate change.” This is a brilliant summary of challenges ahead. Are these challenges not totally valid for India, too?

The objective of the book, according to the author, is to generate debate on actions “necessary to arrest and reverse the process of institutional decay that is identified as critical for development.” Should we in India also be provoking a debate precisely on this subject?

Pakistan out-performed India till 1990. The critical question raised is: Why did a top performer till 1990 fall behind later? Husain dismisses common beliefs, with impressive evidence, as partially true, at best. They are: security deficit, availability of generous foreign assistance, global economic conditions, the garrison state syndrome and the nexus between the military and big corporates.

Husain’s conclusion is that institutions of governance matter. Are institutions of governance in India under stress now? For example, the functioning of the Supreme Court, the Reserve Bank of India and the Finance Commissions have thrown up unprecedented controversies recently.

The conclusion of the book is wise: It says, “Single-factor explanations are simplistic and misleading, although each of them is a contributory factor.” Just as there are multiple explanations for the deterioration in the economic performance of Pakistan in the last 25 years, there are multiple explanations for India’s prowess.

The most important explanation for India’s success is given in the summation. “In India, competitive federalism and administrative reorganisation of states lowered political tensions and mistrust, infusing a sense of unity and common purpose which proved beneficial to the economy.”

“Bangladesh also allowed non-governmental organisations to play an active role in the provision of basic social services such as education, health and micro credit, thus improving social indicators.”

The situation in Pakistan is explained thus: “Political uncertainty in Pakistan lowered the time horizon of the private economic actors who used their returns for investment in real estate and the stock market, or capital flight.” Husain adds, “Insecurity of life and property because of the terrorism during the post 2001 period also played havoc with the economy.”

The book is a good example of how extensive research, going beyond narrow economic policy, can contribute to appreciating the complex factors that explain a nation’s success, as well as the drift to a failed state. Husain has shown the way towards writing a similar book on India, but his book, in itself, is invaluable and strongly recommended reading.

YV Reddy is former governor of the Reserve Bank of India

For all the latest Lifestyle News, download Indian Express App

Hot Pursuit | The Indian Express

Hot Pursuit | The Indian Express

Hot Pursuit

The story of the tandoor case that fired up the nation’s imagination in the mid-90s.

Written by Mallica Joshi | Updated: April 28, 2018 1:19:46 am

The book gives chronological details of the case, which was extensively covered by the media.

Book: The Tandoor Murder – The crime that shook the nation and brought a government to its knees

Writer: Maxwell Pereira

Publisher: Context

Page: 280 

Price: Rs 599

A sensational murder, a body burnt inside a tandoor and the dogged determination of a cop — all elements that make for potent crime thriller fiction. On July 2, 1995, however, this is exactly what happened in reality at an upscale restaurant in Delhi.

Former Delhi Police Joint Commissioner Maxwell Pereira, who investigated the Naina Sahni murder case — dubbed the tandoor murder — has gone back to his meticulous case files and penned a page turner.

On July 2, 1995, Delhi Police Constable Abdul Nazir Kunju saw fire leaping from the Bagiya Barbeque restaurant in Ashok Yatri Niwas on Ashoka Road. The fire refused to die down, as did Kunju’s curiosity. Without Kunju’s determination, Pereira writes, the case might never have come to light. However, in interviews given several years after the case was cracked, Kunju expressed his disillusionment with the police force and the treatment meted out to him.

The book gives chronological details of the case, which was extensively covered by the media. The audacity of burning a body inside a tandoor in a restaurant, the coverups, and, the accused, Sushil Sharma, who was wont to theatrics — the book covers all these aspects in great detail. The events in the book are certainly hair-raising, and Pereira masterfully stays true to his case files without exaggeration — in fact, setting the record straight on a few exaggerations that were reported in the mid-90s. It also tackles myths about the post mortems the case entailed, the hurdles in catching Sharma and his surrender, and, blunders made by the police that later haunted them in court.

Beyond just the case details, however, the book talks about how India’s police force and criminal justice system works. It details the frustration of the cops at being played by Sharma several times in court, their helplessness as they tried to find reliable witnesses, and how the case was played out in media.

The tandoor case dragged on for eight years, and Sharma was sentenced to death in 2003. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court in 2013 and he was granted parole in 2015.

Pereira also talks about how the case was politicised and there were accusations that Sharma, a Congress party leader, was being shielded. Senior leaders spoke about the nexus between crime and politics, and opposition parties used the case to corner the ruling party — “The imbroglio in the wake of Naina Sahni’s killing helped bring down India’s national government and humbled the country’s dominant political party,” Pereira writes.

Pereira also touches upon the relations between Sharma and Sahni, and Sahni’s previous relationship with an NSUI member. The media frenzy surrounding the case meant there were several stories — true and concocted, sometime salacious — about Sahni.

For those who did not follow the case closely or for those who were too young to, at the time, The Tandoor Murder is a nail-biting thriller. For those who followed the case, it helps bust a few myths and provides perspective on why getting justice, in what could be called an open-and-shut case, sometimes takes years.

For all the latest Lifestyle News, download Indian Express App

Earth is elsewhere | The Indian Express

Earth is elsewhere | The Indian Express

Earth is elsewhere

A dummies guide to swimming to the distant shores of outer space and setting up shop on stars and planets.

Written by Pratik Kanjilal | Updated: April 28, 2018 1:19:37 am

The Future of Humanity stands on the reasonable premise that humans will have to leave their home planet behind to survive their own stupidity, or the the element of chance in an uncaring universe.

Book: The Future of Humanity

Author: Michio Kaku

Publisher: Allen Lane

Page: 336 

Price: Rs 799 (Hardcover)

Michio Kaku’s latest book is firmly anchored in science-fiction and futurism, which have sparked the imagination of generations of rocket men, cosmologists, astronomers and physicists. It begins with Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy (itself inspired by the history of the Roman Empire, he told Kaku in an interview) and ends with Asimov’s favourite from his own short stories, ‘The Last Question’, which looks at the end of the universe and sees a new beginning. The text is liberally strewn with Philip K Dick, Andy Weir, Larry Niven, CS Lewis, Ray Kurzweil, HG Wells and Olaf Stapledon. For variety, Giordano Bruno and the Loch Ness monster also find room here, instances of the grandeur and craziness, respectively, of the human imagination.

The Future of Humanity stands on the reasonable premise that humans will have to leave their home planet behind to survive their own stupidity, or the the element of chance in an uncaring universe. The question is no longer why, but when we choose to become a multiplanet species. It is well-timed, as the space race hots up again, the initiative having passed from governments to private enterprise after the end of the Cold War. Trailblazing space entrepreneurs share Kaku’s conviction that humanity must go off-world. Elon Musk aims to colonise Mars, and Jeff Bezos is shooting for life in orbit.

But if you expect the drama of the journey to the stars, the lyricism of Ray Bradbury or the minimalist beauty of Larry Niven, you’ve picked up the wrong book. There are some striking images, like the comparison of contemporary physics to a bundle of unrelated objects tied together with scotch tape. Indeed, it has failed to unite quantum theory, the science of the infinitesimally small, with gravity, which explains the behaviour of colossal bodies. But in general, the writing fails to move. One expects better from one of the most active science communicators of our times, who is a practitioner himself — Kaku is one of the two people who formalised string field theory.

Having dispensed with what the book is not, let us look at what it is — a crash course in the art of the possible in peopling planets, reaching for the stars, leaving behind our mortality and making contact with aliens. If you follow futurist literature and speculative fiction, you won’t find much here that you don’t know already. But you will find it all tidily organised, with goals, causes and effects. Kaku divides the flight to the stars into three sections. ‘Leaving the Earth’, starting with Robert Goddard, the father of multi-stage, liquid propellant rockets; ‘Voyage to the Stars’, starting with Total Recall; and ‘Life in the Universe’, which focuses on the generations that will hear the songs of distant earth.

In the last 20 years — precisely the time when the space race flagged — new technologies and insights have brought humanity within shooting distance of the stars. An enormous number of earthlike planets have been discovered. Reusable rocket stages have slashed costs. The concept of the ion drive, which can accelerate continuously for years, has brought distant worlds closer. And the idea is no longer to blast off from Florida — an ion drive won’t produce escape velocity initially — and head straight for Andromeda. It is now commonly accepted that space will be opened up in stages, and perhaps planetoids and asteroids will prove to be more rewarding real estate than the planets. An outward-bound project could first set up base on an asteroid, people it with robots, mine its minerals to make spacecraft, and its water, extract hydrogen fuel from some of it, and then step and repeat in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. And if other star systems have their own clouds of asteroids and space fragments, explorers could hop from rock to rock over vast distances, and over generations.

Futurist scenarios usually focus ecstatically on the technology, at the expense of human issues — what would such missions do to us as a species and as a society. What about our politics? These questions are generally left to science fiction, which has produced great work based on obvious realities. Such as, the first alien encounter would probably be with intelligent agents rather than organisms (2001: A Space Odyssey). Or, that the demand for space specialists would make GM humans inevitable (Sergei Lykyanenko’s The Genome). Or, that long-haul space fleets must have on-board governments (Battlestar Galactica). Kaku does venture into some of these reality checks, but he also draws attention to the most important factor in space missions: economics.

Space exploration is fuelled not by technological ability alone. It must make financial sense and return either strategic or business value. The colonisation of Mars has caught the popular imagination, but terraforming it — converting it to an earth-like habitat — is beyond our financial means. The orange businessman on Pennsylvania Avenue wants an American presence on Mars by the middle of next week, but does not understand that any large-scale movement of people off-world would break the back of a national economy. The world waited for commercial electronics and solar energy to become cheap. It must now wait for space travel to become affordable.

However, the financials are beginning to make sense, for prospectors. Elon Musk and Richard Branson are in the game because they understand future margins. Space has been declared a weapons-free zone, but there is no clarity about ownership of resources. There’s rare earths in them thar asteroids and as the torch passes from governments to corporates, Nasa’s motto, ‘ad astra’ (to the stars), takes on a new financial meaning, which provides a fresh impetus for leaving our world behind.

For all the latest Lifestyle News, download Indian Express App

Need new names | The Indian Express

Need new names | The Indian Express

Need new names

Sreelata Menon’s book on Dipa Karmakar seems to be the first baby step in this direction.

Written by Paromita Chakrabarti | Updated: April 28, 2018 1:19:30 am

This is a book that is important because it starts a long-needed conversation about our women athletes.

Book: Dipa Karmakar: In Perfect Balance

Author: Sreelata Menon and (Illustrations by) Sonal Gupta Vaswani

Publisher: Pratham Books

Page: 20 

Price: Rs 40

Appropriate for: 5+

Last year, while reading Rachel Ignotofsky’s Women in Sports: 50 Fearless Athletes Who Played to Win, one had hoped that there would come a time when Indian publishers would consider such a book on the considerable achievements of women athletes in India. After all, there have been reams written on mainstream male sports stars and the rise of sportswomen such as Sakshi Malik, Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu and Dipa Karmakar is a story worthy of being told in a country where women still fight enormous odds to come into their own.

Sreelata Menon’s book on Dipa Karmakar seems to be the first baby step in this direction. This slim volume takes readers through the arc of Karmakar’s life — the first Indian female gymnast to participate in the Olympics, and, whose bold decision to perform the risky Produnova almost fetched her a medal at the 2016 summer Olympics. Behind that near-miss is the story of a lifetime of discipline and a refusal to accede to roadblocks. Karmakar grew up in Agartala, a city not particularly known for its gymnastic culture. She had flat feet and no access to proper training facilities. But she had parents who believed that she could overcome all of these and coaches who worked with her to realise her true potential. This is a book that is important because it starts a long-needed conversation about our women athletes. Perhaps, its indie publisher Pratham Books might consider turning it into a mini series?

For all the latest Lifestyle News, download Indian Express App

A wide canvas | The Indian Express

A wide canvas | The Indian Express

A wide canvas

The book offers an overview of the various artistic traditions in India, tying it up with corresponding socio-political movements.

Written by Paromita Chakrabarti | Published: April 28, 2018 12:47:11 am

One of the most interesting chapters in the book is the section on folk art.

Book: A Brush With Indian Art: From Cave to Contemporary Paintings

Author: Mamta Nainy and (Illustration by) Aniruddha Mukherjee

Publisher: Puffin Books

Page: 123

Price: Rs 299

Appropriate for: 10+

Did you know that the enigmatic smile of Bani Thani, a beauty often featured in Rajasthan miniatures and inspired by a poem written by Raja Sawant Singh of Kishangarh, has often been compared to that of the Mona Lisa? Or, that the title of “Raja” was conferred on artist Ravi Varma in 1873, after he won the first prize at an art exhibition in Vienna?

These, and many other such interesting nuggets come together in Mamta Nainy’s book of Indian art history for pre-teens. In the last few years, the lacunae in publications on Indian art history for a younger readership has been addressed somewhat by some timely volumes. While writers Ritu Khoda and Vanita Pai have explored the modernist movements in Indian art in their excellent book, Eye Spy Indian Art, Nainy begins with the 14,000-years-old paintings on the roof of the Cave of Altamira in Spain and moves to cave art in parts of India such as Bhimbetka, Ajanta and Ellora.

The book offers an overview of the various artistic traditions in India, tying it up with corresponding socio-political movements. One of the most interesting chapters in the book is the section on folk art. While there’s narrative chronology, each chapter can be read in isolation as well. There’s only one grouse: a book on art would have benefitted from a more vibrant production quality and a greater representation of artwork.

For all the latest Lifestyle News, download Indian Express App