Ironically, we are living in the undefinable present that urges us to give up courage, make cowardice a virtue, and see that both real and virtual war doesn’t end.
There is no denying that we are living in anxious times, not knowing where we are treading from day to day. What prevails is a ubiquitous lack of substance with a deadly insubstantiality, which has left us with a painful sense of inadequacy. Much evolved though it may seem, both the society and the systems have instead invoked Nietzsche’s fateful phrase ‘Nothing is true, everything is allowed’.
It is the truth that beholds onto us, that revives the echoes of W H Auden’s The Age of Anxiety. In this context, Roberto Calasso’s The Unnamable Present is a brutal but meditative inquiry
into the undefinable present that urges us to give up courage, make cowardice a virtue, and see that both real and virtual war doesn’t end.
Pulling nuggets from literature and philosophy of the recent past, the book examines the ongoing project of dehumanization that has blurred the distinction between the tourists and the terrorists. Aren’t both out there to destroy the creation of nature, he asks? With algorithmic information eating into human consciousness, mythomania has become the new normal. We only need a plug into it to ensure its constant supply. I found compelling reasons to agree with Calasso’s proposition that, much like the world that made a partially successful attempt at annihilating itself during the Second World War, our unnamable present too is hurtling towards a murderous path. When was the last time we were shown such a hexed mirror?
Discomforting and disquieting, The Unnamable Present leaves a lot unsaid that the discerning reader can find strewn between the lines. One thing is clear that the past continues to haunt us. What may been seemingly been foregone returns in different form. Rightly said, people may have got rid of Hitler and Stalin but not the society that created them.
Creation of democracy as an antidote to dictatorship has come to reflect a wishful nothing, extending to everyone the privilege of access to things that are no longer there, which lugs within it the seeds of self-destruction. Not an easy read though, but The Unnamable Present should be credited for raising new questions on the obscure process of transformation happening in our society.
The Unnamable Present
by Roberto Calasso
Allen Lane, New Delhi
Extent: 193, Price: Rs. 799.
First published in the Hindustan Times, issue dated Dec 21, 2019.
Imagining geographical spaces through religion limits our understanding by imposing and justifying an ideology at the cost of ignoring its inherent richness.
Richard Eaton, who teaches history at Arizona University, argues that India was never a self-contained stagnant civilization as is often believed but one that evolved over centuries of intense engagement with other peoples and cultures. Starting from the conquest of Mahmud Ghazni to the exploits of Nadir Shah, Eaton reconstructs the most compelling but consequential historical accounts, from c.1100 to c.1765, which produced a hybridized composite civilization that has sustained its distinct identity. India in the Persianate Age defines those seven centuries as an epic period of engagement with the other regions, especially the Persian, which had contributed to producing a rather harmonious society. It was the British who reduced it to the Hindu-Muslim binary, thereby inflicting a deep divide that has continued to dominate socio-political discourse ever since.
In his brilliant exposition spanning the prolonged medieval period in history, Eaton questions the convention of seeing a diverse and vibrant culture through religious lens. ‘Imagining geographical spaces through religion limits our understanding by imposing and justifying an ideology at the cost of ignoring its inherent richness’. The reading of history in terms of mutually exclusive religions has only helped one form of nationalism, however, at an enormous recurring cost to the society. Decoupling history from such an assumption alone can provide an unbiased measure on acceptance of the political authority, notwithstanding a ruler’s own religion, by a socially, linguistically and religiously diverse Indian society.
What the colonial historians read as ‘Muslim conquest’ was indeed a period in history that had consolidated multiple ethnic identities viz., Rajputs, Marthas and Sikhs, and empowered them to define their terms of collaboration with then rulers. Far from acknowledging it, the self-serving Anglophone historians sought to paint the entire period as despotic and unjust to lay unilateral claim on pulling India from seven centuries of so-called Muslim subjugation towards modernity. It is no less than a historical conspiracy to erase that part of history as ‘dark and backward’, with the sinister aim of justifying the brutal suppression by the British as ‘mild and equitous’. Curiously, the colonial takeover was not branded as ‘Christian conquest’.
Challenging the colonial claims on introducing India to modernity, India in the Persianate Age provides comprehensive account of the cultural exchanges between the Sanskrit literary traditions and the Persian cosmopolitan outlook that led the Mughals to rationalize their empire by applying the secular outlook to the religious traditions of their subjects. Noticeable is the fact that both Sanskrit and Persian were not the ‘language of place’, and consequently expanded over much of Asia not by force of arms but by emulation, and without any governing centre. This is a significant take from the book which provides perfect backdrop to medieval India becoming the centre for the patronage of Persian literature and scholarship.
What makes Eaton’s assessment of the medieval history distinct and insightful is its treatment of the otherwise illustrious period on its own terms without today’s biases. From architecture to science and from trade to cuisine, the assimilation of the Sanskritic universe with its Persianate counterpart is well evident. The persistence of several Persian words including hukm (grace of God), langar (communal meal) and biryani (flavoured rice cuisine) in everyday usage signifies that it was a neutral language for daily correspondence and literary expression. Covering vast swathes of the Persian influence on the making of India, Eaton pays a fine tribute to the evolution of India as a compassionate civilization.
Ambitious in its undertaking, India in the Persianate Age has enough to ruffle the feathers of today’s nationalists. It is a fat but immensely readable volume that elaborates the long-term process of cultural interaction and assimilation that is reflected in language, literature, attire, science, art, music, governance and warfare. It goes to the rich cultural traditions of India that those who came to conquer it, in the end, were conquered by it.
India in the Persianate Age
by Richard M. Eaton
Allen Lane, New Delhi
Extent: 489, Price: Rs. 999.
First published in The Hindu, issue dated Dec 15, 2019.
Travel offer the thrills of impromptu encounters and the pleasures of unpredictability, provided one is ready for it.
Boondoggles got me thinking. How could the 'word' which by definition is considered 'wasteful' be a subject for a book by an academic known for his scholarship on William Blake? That the book was less about the idiosyncratic views of the noted British poet, painter and print-maker but more on the curious adventures of a Canadian professor from his extensive travels, which accrued to him on being a scholar on the noted genius, eased my task of engaging with the book. For the raconteur extraordinaire Jerry Bentley, boondoggle meant being paid for doing something which he wanted to do anyway. Lady luck played generous on him!
Travels offer the thrills of impromptu encounters and the pleasures of unpredictability, provided one is ready for such forays. Jerry was undoubtedly ready, armed with the talent of creating research pretexts to travel to the far corners of the globe. Converting such travels into smart writing is no less challenging; the reader must find the mosaic of personal experiences and encounters engagingly relatable. After all, it is not the stating of simple facts but what the reader can make out of it. Boondoggles is an edited volume of the diary entries of the travels of a restless professor by his daughters, Sarah and Julia, who found a reflection of beauty and empathy in their parents approach to life worth sharing.
Jerry helps the reader go back in time, from the 1950's to the 80's, when most of his travels were made. The world may have dramatically transformed over a short time, though. Back in the 50s, Jerry could not share a room with his wife Beth, both in Brussels and in Paris, as her maiden name was not matching in the passport. What’s more, getting the front desk at the hotels to read the amendment at the back of the passport was futile. Unlucky has a subjective connotation, as relationships between couples, straight or otherwise, draw multiple meanings today.
Boondoggles give the reader the liberty to read the book in parts, as countries offer distinct social and cultural underpinnings to reflect upon. It is partly a book of adventure as the author traveled
across continents with his young family in tow. To learn from a bear-researcher in Norway the art of coming out unscathed from wild bear encounters is gut-wrenching but educative. The book has lots on offer even on countries that a reader might have been to, as Jerry noted: ‘joy comes not from the fact but what you make of it’.
Perhaps what makes this book different from other travel writings of the kind is its treatment of the situations and encounters, swinging between plain anecdotes and curious reflections. That goes to its advantage too, as a reader can find quite a bit enmeshed between lines. Among
many, I was particularly intrigued by Jerry’s interpretation on the versatility of how a lungi is worn in southern India. It is not without reason that it is worn floor-length, knee-length, thigh-length or even shorter. Could it be a kind of emotional flag, flying at half mast or full-mast, reflective of its wearer’s mood? Amusingly, it could be anybody’s guess!
Boondoggles makes for interesting reading, reflective, amusing and educative. However, the shorter boondoggles could have been excluded, and the academic endeavors held back for another volume. It would have made Boondoggles a slimmer book with diverse flavors.
Boondoggles: Travels of a Restless Professor
by G E Bentley, Jr.
Friesen Press, Canada
Extent: 297, Price: $ 17.63.
Antibiotic resistance is currently the cause for an estimated 700,000 deaths globally, and a business-as-usual scenario may force this figure to swell to 10 million deaths per year by 2050.
Released in 1997, Richard Ashcroft’s emotive and string-filled ballad ‘the drugs don't work, they just make me worse' is now a ground reality, as resistance to drugs has thrown millions into the throes of the biggest medical emergency of our time. Assigning medical meanings to the lyrics, Professor Sally Davies had cautioned the world on the diminishing power of anti-microbial and anti-bacterial drugs in her 2013 book with similar title ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’. Alarming as it is, antibiotic resistance is currently the cause for an estimated 700,000 deaths globally, and a business-as-usual scenario may force this figure to swell to 10 million deaths per year by 2050. In other words, the superbugs evolved out of such resistance are consuming a staggering 32 Boeing 747’s full of people every week.
It has emerged as a man-made disaster since antibiotic development after Alexander Fleming’s accidental discovery of penicillin in the middle of 20th century did not keep pace with the growing microbial resistance, leaving the pipeline of drugs almost on the verge of drying up. Given in small doses over short courses, antibiotic research and development did not generate the profit margins for pharma companies, and consequently no new class of antibiotics has been discovered in the past three decades. In the meantime, bacteria mutated so fast that most antibiotics were left ineffective and redundant. However, for decades it remained the best-kept secret in medicine.
With anti-microbial resistance attaining global attention, it is no secret that the world is moving towards a dark, post-antibiotic future. It may already have, given that in 2017 only 41 anti-biotic drugs were in clinical development compared to more than 500 for cancer. Just when the world needs more antibiotics to fight infections, their development has shockingly come to a halt.
In these troubled times, Superbugs is a narrative of hope written from the front lines of clinical trials to fight resistant infections. Taking the readers on a ride through the troubled history and uncertain future of medicine, Matt McCarthy provides a gripping account of how he led a clinical trial to save Jackson, a gunshot infected victim, from a likely amputation or a possible loss of life. In an unnerving and unpleasant world of medicine that has held itself accountable to shareholders and not patients, McCarthy chartered a course of action to evoke Big Pharma to invest in the drugs than can save millions of lives and prove financial viable.
It was a sense of urgency that led McCarthy to avoid colistin, the last resort medicine to treat life-threatening infection, as it had proved ineffective (rather fatal) on patients on last two counts. However, to preserve colistin from becoming ineffective in humans anytime soon, the Indian government has already banned its manufacture, sale and use in the poultry industry. McCarthy had other reasons to put a new drug, Dalbavancin (or Dalba), on trial for which he needed volunteers to sign up. What followed is an educative and inspiring story of people like Ruth, George, Erwin, Gerard and Jennifer who had successfully volunteered to let future skin-infection patients, nearly twenty million develop a skin infection each year, deflect from the perils of the modern hospital.
Superbugs could not have better timed, as anti-microbial resistance has gained worldwide attention as an important public health challenge, with serious impact on economy and development. It is relevant for India, which is home to some deadly infections like diarrhea, pneumonia, typhoid, encephalitis and dengue with cumulative human casualty across different age groups in excess of five million each year. While the challenge is to get the most out of the existent formulations by avoiding overuse and false prescriptions, there is also a need for more focused process to hunt for antibiotics in most unlikely of places viz., sewage, polluted lakes, and the intestines of insects. After all, dalba was made by extracting a large molecule from a bacterium found in Indian soil in the 1980s during a hunt for antibiotics.
Essential take home from this path-breaking book is that microbes are engaged in making new chemicals under our feet that could eventually end-up saving millions of lives. Just beneath the topsoil are tiny molecules that could alleviate disease and stomp out epidemics. Researchers like Sean Brady at Rockefeller University have now confirmed that dirt is the best place to find antibiotics. Brady’s team found two dozen new drugs from the genes harbored in dirt from Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Instances like these are pointers towards developing a strategy to scan the most unexpected of places for next big breakthrough in medicine. For Davies, nothing less than economic incentive for the pharma industry will make it scan the dirt lying around.
McCarthy knack of storytelling comes handy in weaving an interesting narrative on unraveling the complexities of working among biomedical researchers, the pharmaceutical industry, and the drug administration. Superbugs are throwing new challenges and fresh opportunities as they pop up with equal ease in New Delhi and New York – overcrowding and insanitation being the common feature of urban living. Superbugs is a passionate account of one person’s quest for easing the tension between institutional bureaucracy and patient care, in testing a life-saving drug for the society at large. The story holds ethical and moral underpinnings, a compelling combination that allows the author to shed few tears as he describes the stories of his patients. It makes for an informative and absorbing reading, equally urgent and empathetic, on a subject that is close to our skin. Superbugs is a must read tale of medical ingenuity.
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Superbugs –The Race to Stop an Epidemic
by Matt McCarthy
HarperCollins, New Delhi
Extent: 290, Price: Rs. 599
What women need to understand is that they too have power to make a difference.
Ancient myths and legends relegate women as proverbial sacrificial lambs in the gendered narrative of our history. Yashodhara is one such, who was made to suffer protracted isolation as her husband abandoned her in his spiritual journey to attain enlightenment as the Buddha. Although forced to suffer for none of her doings, her sacrifice did not find a respectful place in the grand narrative, and neither her story features prominently in the religious histories. Could there be more to the story that has been told in numerous times over the centuries?
By giving a fictional spin to the grand old story, Sahitya Akademi award winning author P Lalitha Kumari aka Volga re imagines Yashodhara as a well-defined woman with a distinct spiritual mind, and an agency of her own. Far from being the victim that she has been made out to be, Yashodhara emerges as a woman of strong character who frees Siddhartha from family obligations to pursue the path of knowledge. ‘I must make the path of the pathfinder more comfortable for him to tread upon’. The young girl had a worldview that shaped the course of religious history, becoming the tower of strength behind Siddhartha.
Yashodhara is an example of propulsive storytelling, bursting at the seams with insights and reflections on empathy and compassion. An important figure in feminist literature, Volga’s retelling of Yashodhara story is a call for women to partake in intellectual learning, and not to be left behind. ‘What women need to understand is that they too have power to make a difference’. In her rewriting of mythical characters, Volga’s feminist exploration grants them the strength to outgrow their victimhood and take an exemplary role of their lives. Such empowering narratives need to be heard more often in these troubled times.
Reimaging the epics from the eyes of its leading women characters has evolved as a genre, leading to a gendered retelling of the history. From Draupadi’s version of Mahabharata in The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Divakaruni to Urmila’s assessment of Ramayana in Sita’s Sister by Kavita Kane, feminist writing has come a long way in interpreting religious histories for the modern readers. Having narrated Ramayana from the perspectives of its female characters in The Liberation of Sita, Volga has added Yashodhara to her repertoire. It is a welcome addition to this genre, for building a nuanced understanding of our past.
Yashodhara
by Volga
Harper Perennial, New Delhi
Extent: 176, Price: Rs. 299.
This review was commissioned by The Hindu.
