HT Picks; New Reads
On the reading list this week is a book on how Sikh chiefs engaged with the British, the Marathas, the Jats and the Rohillas in the 18th century, an account of reporting violent political conflicts in South Asia, and a volume about 20 Indian architects and their iconic projects
A saga of resilience, faith and power
In Cauldron, Sword and Victory, author Sarbpreet Singh takes the reader on a journey through the fiery crucible in which the character of the Sikhs was forged. Seers and mystics, conquerors and kings rub shoulders in this heady tale of history and politics. They embark on never-ending quests for land, power and glory. Singh’s first volume on Sikh history told the story of the venerated Sikh Gurus. Starting with the rebellion of Banda Singh Bahadur, he now turns his attention to Nawab Kapur Singh and his cohort of doughty Sikh chiefs who became the masters of Punjab as the weakened Mughals of Delhi clashed with the powerful Ahmad Shah Abdali of Afghanistan. Bringing these swashbuckling characters to life in a manner most vivid and compelling, Singh transports us to the eighteenth-century Indian subcontinent as the Sikh chiefs engage with the British, the Marathas, the Jats and the Rohillas, sometimes as allies and sometimes as adversaries.
Based on a unique mix of eyewitness accounts, secondary sources as well as translations from Braj and Punjabi poetry, Singh’s narrative is both erudite and engaging ― a true saga of resilience, faith and power.*
Of mercenaries, middlemen and refugees
In The Company of Violent Men, investigative journalist Siddharthya Roy takes us on an unflinching and deeply personal journey into reporting violent political conflicts in South Asia. From the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, where drugs and human trafficking run rampant, to the forests of Chhattisgarh, where Maoist rebels and the Indian State have waged a war for half a century, on to the enduring conflict zone of Kashmir, caught between India and Pakistan, Roy narrates the cycles of brutality, exploitation, and injustice in which everyday people are caught.
From a genocide survivor — a little girl — who asks for nothing more than a hot meal to an aspiring suicide bomber with cannabis-laden dreams of global destruction, Roy paints kaleidoscopic and haunting portraits of mercenaries and middlemen, refugees and insurgents — each complex and morally ambiguous. As he navigates the minds of others, Roy often turns the lens inward with uncompromising honesty, examining his own evolution as a journalist and the ethical dilemmas he faces.
This part memoir, part reportage, crackles with the urgency of war dispatches. And yet, pausing and meditating, it peels back hurried headlines, making readers bear witness to what the reporter saw when he ‘looked beyond the burqa and the beard, beyond the olive-green of one fighter and the camo fatigue of the other, and talked to the humans who wear these facades’.*
Redefining cityscapes and landscapes
Take a tour through a select collection of homes across the length and breadth of India built by architects both new and experienced, conjured in diverse geographies. Hillside holiday homes, modern apartments in large metros, beachy villas opening out to views of the rolling surf – this book takes a look at well-designed homes crafted by architects working in India. Get the opportunity to look at everything from work-in-progress photos to sketches, blueprints and the final architecture of the home as it all comes together in the pages of the book. This book is about 20 architects, their iconic projects and how they are slowly redefining cityscapes and landscapes in the country.*
*All copy from book flap.