HT Picks; New Reads
On the reading list this week is a behind-the-scenes look at the Indian Railways, an account of seminal events in the country from Independence to the present, and selections from the work of an eminent art critic
Chronicle of a commercial clerk
Most of us have travelled by train and experienced true India, shared food and stories with our co-travellers, or reached the platform, gasping to find the train leaving with a merry whistle. And in a queue for tickets, dug through our wallets for exact change, complaining about the slow clerk. Few have thought about what goes on in the minds of the deadpan faces that peek through the grilled counter, mechanically issuing tickets to faraway places while rooted to their seats. In Platform Ticket, Sangeetha Vallat chronicles her time as a ‘commercial clerk’ in the Indian Railways. Between sleepless graveyard shifts and heart-warming moments with travellers, her life was far from dull. Her years of service, network of colleagues with varied experiences, and storytelling prowess guarantee an enjoyable behind-the-scenes look at the Indian railways.
A memoir and a personal history of India
This remarkable memoir, and history of India after Independence by one of India’s most distinguished public intellectuals, begins with his memories at the age of three, of the assassination of his paternal grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi. From this poignant opening note, the book expands into numerous encounters with personalities, both Indian and foreign ‘eminent’ as well as little known, and original insights into key events and turning points of modern Indian history, many of which he was an eyewitness to as secretary to presidents R Venkataraman and KR Narayanan and as governor of West Bengal and Bihar.
Deeply engaging and insightful, and illustrated with rare archival photographs from various sources, The Undying Light: A Personal History of Independent India is a magisterial account of seminal events in the country from Independence to the present day.
An overview of an art critic’s praxis
Art critic and curator Geeta Kapur’s oeuvre engages with modernity, emphasizing alongside the need to identify and polemicize the contradictions that undergird it. She traverses a situated discourse across categories such as the Third World, the postcolonial and the global South. Speech Acts contains select interviews that annotate Kapur’s contributions to modern Indian art criticism and trace her interrogations of the contemporary through various historical conjunctures. It also includes texts by her that enrich as well as complicate the relationship between art, subjectivity and the historical context. These writings and exchanges range from manifesto-like to the contemplative, offering an overview of a critic’s praxis through art-thinking.
All copy from book flap.
