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HT Picks; New Reads
On this week’s list of good reads is a story of people on the margins of the Indian republic, a forensic surgeon’s memoir, and an exploration of Hindustani classical music
A blend of family story and ecology
Shaken by the news of his mothers’ death, a man leaves his job in Delhi and returns to Assam. Twenty-five years ago, his father, a forest officer here, was found shot dead in his jeep. With the passing of his mother, the man learns new and startling details of his father’s life and trying to reclaim an entire life suddenly made unfamiliar, he starts digging into events from far back in time, visiting places where his father had served, in the foothills of the eastern Himalayas. But the forests he had once roamed as a boy with his father and his band of hard drinking, rugged companions, have long disappear. Settlers have moved in, and insurgents and security forces now prowl the area. Wandering what was once the Chariduar reserve forest, the man meets a kaleidoscopic cast of characters, people trying to find anchor in an uncertain world – some of whom are remnants of a rapidly disappearing past and some from the region’s turbulent present: foresters, elephant catchers, army contractors, insurgents, police commandos, drifters and double dealers. As he gets closer to the truth about his father, he finds himself drawn into a local conflict, a world of shifting realities from which he will struggle to disentangle himself. Wide, unhurried and immersive, The Forest Beneath the Mountains is a compelling blend of memory, family stories, ecology and history. It is a story of people and places at the margin of the Indian republic , and of the inevitable taming of wilderness by man.*
The memoir of a police surgeon
Can the dead tell their stories? In the hands of a good forensic surgeon, they certainly can.First published in 2010 in Malayalam as Oru Police Surgeonte Ormakkurippukal, this is the bestselling memoir of Kerala’s most famous forensic surgeon, Dr B Umadathan. Popularly known as the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Kerala’, Dr Umadathan revisits some of his strangest and most interesting cases, like the Chacko murder masterminded by Sukumara Kurup; the sensational Polakkulam case, and the baffling Panoor Soman case. Chilling, shocking and at times, downright bizarre, Dead Men Tell Tales is unputdownable.*
An improvisation on Indian music
By turns essay, memoir and cultural study, Finding the Raga is Amit Chaudhuri’s singular account f his discovery of, and enduring passion for, North Indian music: an ancient evolving tradition whose principles and practices will alter the reader’s notion of what music might, and can, be. In a deeply personal and revelatory exploration of Indian classical music, Chaudhuri dwells on its most distinctive and mysterious characteristics: its extraordinary approach to time, language and silence; its embrace of confoundment, and its ethos of evocation over representation. The result is a strange gift of a book, for musician and music lovers, and for any creative mind in search of diverse and transforming inspiration.*
*All copy from book flap.
