HT Picks; New Reads

This week’s pick of interesting reads includes a memoir of struggles against caste oppression, a book about the monstrous creatures in the myths and folklore of India’s various cultures, and a cautionary tale of environmental collapse

The Memoir of a Lapsed Revolutionary

The reading list this week includes a memoir, a book about the creatures in myths and folklore, and one on the exploitation of nature. (HT Team)

432pp, ₹499; Navayana (Gita Ramaswamy’s memoir is a story of struggles and victories)

It was the 1980s. In Ibrahimpatnam, Telangana, south India, landless Dalits were being exploited by the wealthy upper castes, who, like movie villains, brandished whips and guns.

Enter 30-year-old Gita Ramaswamy. In her teens, she had escaped her brahminical family, who had tried to “cure” her of Naxalism with shock treatment and sedation. She was disillusioned by the Emergency, but held on to hope.

Gita started living with agricultural labourers who were in bondage, cheated out of their land and rights. They were in the mood to fight. But together, they took on tyrannical landlords who had ruled despotically for generations. A revolution was in the making.

Best known for her work with the Hyderabad Book Trust that’s published over 400 titles since 1980, Gita Ramaswamy writes with relentless self-reflexivity. Her memoir is as much a story of struggles and victories as it is a testimony of personal failings and regrets.*

179pp, ₹499; Aleph (On monstrous creatures from the myths and folklore of India’s various cultures)

Meena Arora Nayak presents a selection of 55 magical and monstrous creatures from the myths and folklore of India’s various cultures. Divided into five sections, this book portrays familiar and unfamiliar beings that fly across stormy skies, swim in deep seas, burrow through the earth, tread softly on land, and live between these realms, sometimes even breathing fire.Adbhut hides within its pages creatures that are mysterious, terrible, and terrifying, yet fascinating and irresistible. These fantastical beings include the Manipuri python guardian god, Pakhangpa; Garuda, the king of birds; the immortal Kurma, the tortoise; Mahisa, the Buffalo King; Leviathan, the gigantic sea monster; Shamir, the Judaic stone-cutting worm; the Zoroastrian cosmic dragon, Azhi Dahaka; Nachash, the crafty serpent in the Garden of Eden; the shining Islamic al-Buraq; and the Harappan chimera whose origins remain a mystery.*

A fable for our times

35pp, ₹399; HarperCollins (A cautionary tale of environmental collapse)

A new story from internationally renowned author Amitav Ghosh, The Living Mountain is a cautionary tale of how we have systematically exploited nature, leading to an environmental collapse.Recounted as a dream, this is a fable about Mahaparbat, the Living Mountain; the indigenous valley dwellers who live and prosper in its shelter; the assault on the mountain for commercial benefit by the Anthropoi, humans whose sole aim is to reap the bounty of nature; and the disaster that unfolds as a result.The Living Mountain is especially relevant today when we have been battling a pandemic and are facing a climate catastrophe: both of which are products of our insufficient understanding of mankind’s relationship with nature, and our sustained appropriation and abuse of natural resources. This is a book of our times, for our times, and it will resonate strongly with readers of all ages.*

*All copy from book flap.