Month: February 2017

“Women at War: Subhas Chandra Bose and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment” by Vera Hildebrand

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women-at-war

This is a book about extraordinary women caught up in events most extraordinary. Set in the early 1940s when World War II was raging across the globe, it traces the founding of the INA (Indian National Army) in Singapore, the remarkable role played by Subhas Chandra Bose, and the origin, activities and eventual disbanding of the all-woman Rani of Jhansi Regiment.

The best thing about this book is that it tells us of women we have never heard of before – women of Indian origin born elsewhere, who were nevertheless willing to lay down their lives for the freedom of an unseen motherland. In India, many of us have heard of Captain Lakshmi (Dr. Lakshmi Swaminathan Sehgal, daughter of Ammu Swaminathan and sister of danseuse Mrinalini Sarabhai) but the other names are new to us. Danish researcher and author, Vera Hildebrand, tracked down 22 surviving Ranis in India, Singapore, Malaysia and the United States and recorded their statements. She also interviewed male soldiers of the INA and Japanese co-fighters. She pored over piles of documents and her conclusions are presented in this book. (Interestingly, the Netaji Research Bureau housed in the Bose family home in Kolkata denied access to the voluminous records in their custody, including catalogues.)

On 22nd April 1945, Bose had ordered all INA documents destroyed. British Intelligence had interrogated all INA prisoners and defectors but the original reports seem to have disappeared. Copies made by Colonel Hugh C Toye and shipped to England are surviving. The author managed to view them at the British Library, UK. Five of the Ranis had unpublished memoirs or voluminous diaries – Janaki Thevar Athinahappan, Asha Bharati Sahay Choudhry, Aruna Ganguli Chattopadhya, Eva Jenny Murty Jothi and Dhanam Lakshmi Suppiah Ratnam.

The author critically examines Netaji’s contribution to Indian nationalism and the advancement of women’s equality. The book also mentions several women revolutionaries in India’s freedom struggle, whose names have largely been excluded from history books – Pritilata Waddedar, Kalpana Dutta, Bina Das, Suniti Chowdhury and Shanti Ghosh. Mrs. Lilavati Chaganlal Mehta and her two daughters, Neelam and Rama, were among the first to join the Ranis in Burma. The INA had about 50 Burma-born Ranis. From Malaya, there were many Tamil-speaking estate workers.

On the night of 4th April 1945, a group of 51 Ranis were retreating from their camp in Myanmar to relative safety in Thailand, escorted by Lieutenant Khushal Singh Rawat and led by Ponammah Navarednam and Janaki Bai. Two of these women fell to sniper bullets while on a freight train from Rangoon to Bangkok, and were buried on Burmese territory, somewhere along the railway line. Stella Thomas and Josephine died unhonoured, with no tributes, no memorials, and no customary encomiums. They were probably South Indians recruited from Malaya. While serving in Burma, Janaki Bai lost her father and Labanya Ganguli Chatterji was widowed barely six months after her wedding.

When the war ended, Labanya studied medicine as did Gian Kaur and Gauri Bhattacharya. All of them settled in India. Japan-born Asha Sahay settled in India along with her father, Anand Sahay. Dacca-born Anjuli Bhowmik had been only twelve years old when she joined the regiment along with her fourteen year old sister Shanthi. Manwati Pandey came from a family of Indian nationalists. Post independence she married Dr. K C Arya and settled in Kanpur. She is known as Lt. Manwati Arya and has authored several books including a few on the INA. While travelling from Rangoon to Maymyo in 1944 she had cut her long tresses short as most of the other Ranis did. In 2008 when the author asked her if the girls had regretted giving up their hair, Manwati replied with a hearty laugh, “We were ready to give our heads, so who cared about the hair!”

Overall Assessment: Very interesting.

Women at War: Subhas Chandra Bose and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment
AUTHOR: Vera Hildebrand
PUBLISHER: HarperCollins India
PUBLICATION DATE: December 2016

Contributor: Pushpa Kurup lives in Trivandrum, India and works in the IT sector.

“A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman

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A Man Called Ove.jpg

A Man Called Ove is one of those surprise hits that has spread entirely through word-of-mouth rather than by any kind of critical acclaim. It came to my attention when it was featured in one of the many year-end lists of “must-read” books that came out recently. I also found that it had very favorable reviews on Amazon—four and a half stars with as many as 10,356 reviews at the time of this writing!—which is what even many best-selling and critically acclaimed books do not get. Obviously, there had to be something to it, and once I was able to get a copy of it from the library, I could see what it was.

Set in Sweden and written by a Swedish author—in English—A Man Called Ove tells the heart-warming, even if somewhat predictable, story of an elderly man, Ove, who is a curmudgeon to the extreme and lashes out at everyone around him, but who, by the end of the book, finds some measure of peace, and even happiness, and comes to be loved dearly by those around him. Ove has always been somewhat anti-social and awkward around others, and things come to a head when his wife of 40 years—whom he loved dearly and who was pretty much his main reason for existence—dies of cancer. He has no kids because his wife got into a horrific bus crash shortly after they were married which left her paralyzed from the waist down, and while he continues to go to work after his wife’s death—because that is the kind of person that he is, a stickler for rules and doing what is right—once he gets laid off from his job, he finds no reason to go on living. So he draws up a meticulous plan to kill himself.

However, even the best-laid plans don’t always work, and Ove is thwarted every time he tries to commit suicide by being forced to come to the aid of people around him—his new neighbors, which is a family with a very pregnant mom who is from Iran, a stray cat who literally adopts herself as his, his once-upon-a-time best-friend-turned-enemy who now has Alzheimer’s and might be forced to live in a home, a gay young man disowned by his father who ends up living with him until he is accepted by his family, a random stranger he saves from the train tracks where has gone to actually get under the train himself, and a few others. Along the way, he reluctantly forges bonds with all these people, especially with the Iranian woman’s two little girls. And eventually, of course, as someone who is so needed and loved, Ove’s suicide plans are permanently put to rest. He does die after some years, but of natural causes.

As I said, the story is extremely predictable and you can tell how it will end from a mile off. Also, the writing is quite basic, with none of the literary finesse that would be needed for critics to sit up and take notice. Yet, the book has been such a hit that it is even being made into a movie. I can think of a couple of reasons for the book’s success. Most importantly, it is entirely a “feel-good” story, one that tugs at your heart-strings but which still ends happily rather than tragically. In our current anxiety-filled political climate, we appreciate these kind of heart-warming stories all the more. The fact that it is not highbrow at all means that more people can read it and enjoy it. I personally found it a good, fast read with even a bit of humor thrown in that I appreciated. (It pokes fun at the digital world we live in, with those into technology not capable of performing even basic chores and repairs.) It is not a book you can’t put down, but I did find it enjoyable enough to read it all the way up to the end.

A Man Called Ove
Author: Fredrik Backman
Publisher: Washington Square Press (US Edition)
Publication Date: 2012 in Sweden, 2013 in US

Contributor: Lachmi Khemlani runs a technology publication in the San Francisco Bay Area.