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HT Picks; New Reads
On this week’s reading list is a graphic novel about a girl who lives on the outskirts of a magical wilderness, Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s poetry translated into English,and a memoir that draws on the author’s work as a surgeon in rural and small town India
In the realm of monsters
What if our world was a lot more? Filled with unknown creatures -some friendly, some scary.An outcast to the world of humans, Maithili lives on the outskirts of a magical wilderness. But as she makes new friends in the realm of monsters, she must learn to be careful. Because some monsters are just like humans: mean, nasty and out for blood. Book 1 in the Outlandish Graphic Novel Series, Maithili and the Minotaur will be appreciated by fans of Hilda and Arthur and the Golden Rope. Maithili’s very first adventure in an outlandish world where nothing is as it seems is full of whimsical and wonderful illustrations to go brilliantly with the inventive storyline that features a friendly minotaur, vampire children, bridges of broken bones, and a cat with six tails, among other interesting creatures.*
Poems that celebrate what makes us human
Nabaneeta Dev Sen was one of the foremost Bengali writers of her generation – a poet, a novelist, a scholar, a humorist, a playwright. For the first time comes a translation of her poetry into English that gathers some of the deepest, most beautiful and revealing works she ever created.
These luminous poems explore the contours of first love, motherhood, loss and decay with a restless, tactile imagination, both picking apart and celebrating the rituals that make us human. And it shows Dev Sen – a fiery feminist, formidable academic and political activist – at her most human, most intimate. Stunningly translated with lightness and lyricism by her daughter Nandana Dev Sen, this radiant collection is at once compassionate and unsparing, conversational and symphonic.*
A doctor’s journey through the trickery of medicine
The miracles and tragedies of life, the compassion and cruelties of humanity are nowhere more visible than in the field of medicine. It is these that Kavery Nambisan – doctor and writer of immense sensitivity – explores in this memoir, drawing upon her work as a surgeon of over four decades in rural and small town India.
Through her patients’ stories, she depicts the highs and lows of medical practice: Sudha, in Mokama, Bihar, left immobilized waist down after being set on fire by her in-laws, but determined to walk; construction workers in Lonavala, Maharasthtra, who preferred the quick fix of the drip so that they wouldn’t miss their daily wage; four-year-old Pavana in the Anamallais, mauled by a leopard, who had to be driven over 40 kilometres of gutted roads to the nearest hospital. And in contrast, the friend of a Tamil Nadu chief minister who could summon a doctor repeatedly, at will, to attend to her stubbed tow. Settled in Kodagu, Karnataka ,after years of practice in hospitals, Kavery now works as a GP, and she writes about treating snake bites, skin diseases, tuberculosis, epileptic seizures and, lately, Covid-19; even as she helps some of her patients hide their meagre savings from alcoholic husbands.
Throughout, Kavery also examines the evolution of medical practice and the stat of India’s public health; and weaves in episodes from her and the state of India’s public health; and weaves in episodes from her personal life: learning from heroes, and rogues, coming into her own as a surgeon, and nursing her husband, the poet Vijay Nambisan, who was claimed by cancer.
Engaging, incisive and deeply felt, A Luxury Called Health shows, as few books have ever done, ‘The sincerity and the deception, the valour and the cowardice beneath the white coat.’*
*All copy from book flap.
