HT Picks; New Reads

This week’s pick of interesting reads includes a book that reveals the dangers posed by fake and processed foods to the environment and to human health, a courageous policeman’s first hand account of capturing dacoits and guarding prime ministers, and a volume that encourages a contemplation of Indian aesthetics

Partnering with the biosphere

On the reading list this week is a book that stresses the impact of ultra processed foods, a cop’s account of his daring adventures, and a meditation on Indian aesthetics. (HT Team)

161pp, ₹450; Women Unlimited (Revealing the dangers posed by fake and processed foods to the environment and to human health.)

Four billion years ago the earth was a hot, lifeless planet. Through evolution, the earth and her biodiversity reduced the carbon rich atmosphere of the planet from 4,000 ppm to 250 ppm; and her temperature from 290°C, without life, to 13°C, with biodiversity. And 200,000 years ago, she created the conditions for our species to evolve. In an age of climate catastrophes and extinction, we need to turn to the earth and to plants to learn, once again, how to live sustainably on earth, and sow the seeds of hope, the seeds of the future. Proposals put forward by Big Agriculture and Big Tech to solve the intertwined climate and food crises will exacerbate both, says the acclaimed environmental thinker, activist and writer, Vandana Shiva. Her detailed unpacking of the promises made by technology-oriented, lab-intensive digital agriculture reveals the dangers posed by fake and ultra-ultra-processed foods — to the environment; to increasing greenhouse gas emissions; to the health of animals; and to our health and food security. Food is the currency of life. The food web weaves the web of life, in co-operation and mutuality with the earth and nature. When this interdependence is ruptured, the conditions for what the author calls the ‘metabolic disorder’ for climate change come into being. Shiva argues powerfully for a food and climate future based on the regeneration of biodiversity, in partnership with the biosphere.*

A hero’s firsthand account

280pp, ₹695; Rupa Publications (A courageous policeman’s account of capturing dacoits, guarding prime ministers and circumnavigating the globe in a car.)

As a young cadet, when he heard a shopkeeper selling trophies say, “These medals are to be earned, not to be purchased,” Vijay Raman was secretly filled with the determination to earn his own medal. In the course of time, he not only earned the President’s Police Medal for Gallantry, but also went on to create history in each of his postings all over India.

He was a simple and straightforward cop, one who was extraordinarily courageous. His untimely demise in 2023 was preceded by many near-death situations — described in this book — which he was miraculously lucky to survive.

This is a real-life hero’s firsthand account of Paan Singh Tomar and his dacoit gang being decimated in a 14-hour dusk-to-dawn encounter; the surrenders of Daku Malkan Singh and Phoolan Devi; leading from the front and putting an end to the notorious terrorist Ghazi Baba; investigating the infamous Vyapam scam; dealing with the horror of the gas tragedy in Bhopal; guarding the life of four Indian prime ministers as one of the handpicked officers of the Special Protection Group; and beating the Guinness World Record for circumnavigating the globe in a car.

The chronicles of Vijay Raman form a book of adventure, of remarkable events — giving readers precious insights into the making of a legend. As he reviewed the book’s final chapters, he asked his wife Veena incredulously, “Did I Really Do All This?”*

Resting in an inner state of beauty

240pp, ₹499; Aleph (Encouraging a rediscovery of India by contemplating its creative vision)

Traditional Indian art lends itself to multiple levels of experience, from the creator to the created, from an initial objective sensation to a deeper contemplative subjective experience, from our two outer eyes to an inner or third eye. The Third Eye of Indian Art encourages a rediscovery of India by contemplating its creative vision. While the creation and enjoyment of beautiful objects, vastu, is central to the Indian world view, the discourse on Indian art or aesthetics, saundarya mimamsa, has suffered because we do not have an independent position on aesthetics and have had to borrow from many traditions to create an aesthetic discourse.

This book takes us on an enchanting and blissful aesthetic experience showing us how to use the third eye to not only recognize and celebrate what is objectively beautiful, but to rest in the inner, subjective, serene state of beauty. And as we taste beauty (sundaram) and experience truth (satya) through our third eye, there will be a smaranam — a remembrance of who we really are.*

*All copy from book flap.