Book Review Pages
The Kathmandu Post Review of Books
Vol. 3, No. 11
Issue Coordinator: Pratyoush Onta
Martin Chautari for
CSRD and The Kathmandu Post
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Essay
Reviews
- Conflict in the Himalayas: Onslaught from Three Directions (Mani Dixit)
- The Sacred Balance : Rediscovering Our Place in Nature (David Suzuki)
- A Strange and Sublime Address (Amit Chaudhuri)
Making Children Read
Joy Stephens
One commonly repeated myth says intelligence is all in the genes. We can't change it. Another myth says we go to school to learn facts, that the purpose of book is to provide factual information. None are entirely true. Learning is much more than learning facts. It is about discovery, working things out for ourselves, developing our powers of logic and analysis, and creative thinking.
There are many things parents can do to encourage the development of their child's intelligence. A child's brain is like an empty circuit. From birth the wiring begins. The more connections it makes, the better the brain works. Each touch, taste, look, smell, sound, action, adds connections. But it is not possible for one person to experience everything in this world. That is why books are so important. As a child grows older, the reading of books adds new depths to their experience and intelligence. Surveys have shown that children who read a lot of books at home perform well at school. The books do not have to be textbooks. In fact, it is better for them to be story books, because a child will enjoy them more. If a child at a young age learns to enjoy books, (s)he will become a good reader. Good readers will want to read more and more books, and their intelligence and understanding will expand through this.
Below are some tips to develop your child's reading skills at home.
0-2 years: At this age the most important thing you can do is talk to your child. The more you talk the better will be your child's language ability, which later plays a part in reading skills.
2-5 years: Nepal has a tradition of oral story telling. At this age your child will love to hear simple non-frightening stories, especially told by you, sitting on your lap, perhaps stories about your memories as a young child. Even though your child can't read yet (s)he will enjoy books and needs books, especially simple story books with lots of pictures. This should be a shared activity between parent and child. Choose a picture book with large print, sit your child on your lap, and flip through the pages. Repetition is very important at this age. Your child will enjoy hearing the same story over and over again. After you have read the story, let the child tell the story to you, helped by the pictures.
Your child is acquiring pre-reading skills. (S)he learns that letters are symbols for sounds, that groups of letters make a word, that a word has meaning, an object perhaps that (s)he can go and fetch e.g. cup. (S)he learns there is a front and a back to a book, and upside-down, and a right-way-up, that you start at the front and go through the pages in sequence to the end, that Nepali and English are written from left to right, and from top to bottom. After reading the same book several times, your child may learn the story by heart. (S)he will enjoy repeating the words with you. Help him/her by pointing to the printed words as you say them, and asking him/her to repeat them. This helps the connection in the brain between the sound of a word and its written shape. In this way (s)he will quickly learn to read simple words e.g. cat, dog, tree, toy, Mum, Dad, that are repeated in a story. Be careful, however, not to spoil the enjoyment of the story!
5-7 years: This is the age when most children learn to read, or if they have already learned, when they improve their fluency and vocabulary. Educators say a child should read at least one book a day at this age. The more books a child reads, the more their imagination flowers, and the greater their understanding and use of their intelligence. Reading is still a shared activity at this age: make time to hear your child read aloud.
If you don't have many books in your home, consider joining a library, or setting up a book-share system with your friends. Encourage your child to read signs on the street, on labels on bottles and packaged goods etc. Books for this age should still have oversize print, and plenty of pictures. The pictures are visual clues that help the child to read the words and understand the story. Make sure your child understands what (s)he is reading. From time to time ask a question about the story, or ask your child to predict what might happen next. In this way not only are their reading skills imporved, but also their power of logic, analysis, and creative thinking.
7-11 years: It is important that children establish a habit of reading and associate books with enjoyment. If you have followed the suggestions above, you will find that your child already loves books and reading. The problem is to find enough books to satisfy their appetites.
If early in life books are associated with pleasure, children will become good readers and discover the treasure of knowledge in books. The impact of this discovery is almost immeasurable. Children who have been stimulated by books from an early age perform well at school. They are more likely to have a creative approach to learning, something that is not currently emphasized in the education system of Nepal and which can hamper the achievements of otherwise very intelligent students.
Through intelligent reading and questioning, they will have developed much greater powers of logic and analysis. These are essential for a developing country such as Nepal, where many problems cannot be solved in traditional ways, and new, creative solutions are being sought. Thus investment in the reading skills of children will bring benefits to the whole country in the future as these children grow up to become problem-solvers and decision makers.
(J. Stephens is the author of Window on Annapurna)
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Conflict in the Himalayas: Onslaught from Three Directions
Author: Mani Dixit
Publisher: Ekta Books, Kathmandu, 1998
Price: Rs. 175.00
Telling a Tiresome Tale
C. K. Lal
The book starts on a very promising note. Author tells us in his foreword that he intends to narrate the tale of three tormented souls traveling in time and space to end up in the twentieth century Nepal.
The first flight is temporal as the reader is transported into the court of a Rana Maharaj, at the end of World War II. By the time the first chapter ends, the spatial sweep of the story spans across religious persecution in England to bitch Laika in space abroad a sputnik; with American Expeditionary Forces in France, a manor in Maine, massacres in Punjab, bonded labor in Ceylon, fighting in Afghanistan and winds of change in Nepal thrown in-between for good measure. Before beginning the second chapter, an average reader would need some rest. Only the loyal ones would have the energy left to take up the book again.
"The secret of being tiresome," says Voltaire, "is to tell every thing." Trust the master for an apt expression. The author has a lot to say and he wants to say it all in this book. The second chapter recounts the getting together of characters from various parts of the world. One of them, a certain Neeta, feels drowsy as the second chapter concludes. One can empathize. So does a reader by the onslaught of several twists in the tale. Only those who are determined not to fail the test of endurance persist with the third chapter and are rewarded with the gem of an observation about Kashimiri handicraft shops in Kathmandu, "Were such innocent looking commercial units just fronts to mask undertakings more sinister?"
That's the thread that binds this otherwise scattered story. The assertion is that Nepal is evolving into a center of terrorism, drug dealing and clandestine arms' bazaar of the region. How often have we heard that one before? That's exactly the charge Indians make every time they come to a negotiating table with the Nepalis. For the learned author of this book, "Wildest allegations of RAW / Are facts of Kathmandau."
Stalking on the trail in the fifth chapter is best done. There is a map, and even a snapshot of Himalayan peaks, to assist the understanding and appreciation of the narrative. Had the author not succumbed to the temptation of inanities like, "Morning ablutions or toiletries following this fourth night on the trail was easy for though they did not have hot water, it was certainly cold and running!" probably it would have been an easier and more enjoyable read. One has to go through innumerable 'apparentlys', 'in facts' and 'obviouslys' before coming back to square one towards the end of the book.
By the time the mess is cleared and loose ends are tied, the Kajakh is killed, Tamils commit suicide, the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing, the external espionage agency of the Indians) agent gets back to his wife, Neeta finds a foreign lover and everyone else make grand fools of themselves. The puppeteer who emerges with his power intact is a British gentleman. Remember the very first line of the book that had told us of Victory in Europe in World War II? Former Prime Minister of India Indra Gujral is wrong. England is not a third rate power. It's just a ploy to hold on. Sir Michaels of the old world still sip Camus as they plot to keep the Union Jack flying all over the world. Anyway, when the book ends, a reader takes a sigh of relief.
In his afterword, the author comes to a surprising conclusion. "In the context of Nepal, the fiefdoms of the Rajas and Rajautas, the Baises and Chaubises which King Prithvi Narayan had brought together as a nation is in the danger of being broken up," says he and worries that, "... it should not become another Bosnia Herzogovina or for that matter even Yugoslavia of Josef Broz Tito." Surprising, because such a thought does not arise anywhere in the main story of the book. One is left wondering why the idea crossed author's mind at all. If it's a hunch, let's wait for its elaboration in his next book.
Quite frankly, the book disappoints in totality. It takes a vast canvass and then paints it with tiny dots. There are too many characters and there is just not enough room for all of them to evolve and grow. The narration is rushed. It gives the impression that the author hasn't crafted it with love and affection but merely wanted to get this story out of his system as fast as possible. The spontaneity is lacking. Finally, no amount of narration can substitute a bit of emotion in a novel. The book is anti-septic no doubt, but that only ends up making it listless
On top of all that, the 'short-circuit' that the author alludes to in his note shows only too well. The prose is far from chiselled, let alone sand-papered. Rough edges are often visible. It appears like a first draft, and no one, however gifted, can produce a passable first draft. As it's often said, writing means re-writing. If the author lacks the patience to do the fine tuning, it's the reader who has to endure shifting through the maze. At the end of it all, you realize that you have just read one of the thickest hundred and fifty pages book that you had ever come across.
It's such a pity, because Nepali readers know that Mani Dixit is capable of doing much better. He is one of the very best local writers whose preferred language of expression is English and his mastery over that medium is almost unquestioned. Perhaps it's too taxing for a part-time writer to be so prolific? Otherwise, with such an enticing array of ingredients--mountains, arms, and an all international cast--the book could have been a heady mix guaranteed to set the pulse racing.
But even an inferior Mani creation is better than many of the best coming out of other local English authors. For one thing, his learning is stupendous. Secondly, he writes in the classic story-telling style, so one can read his books as many times as one wishes without getting bored by them. Whoever tires of listening to grand-father's tales again and again? And then there is an instinct of a teacher in him that wants to lift a reader to his level. Not so much fun, but very touching. That's the book for you.
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The Sacred Balance : Rediscovering Our Place in Nature
Author: David Suzuki
Publisher: Allen and Unwin, London, 1997
Traditional Worldviews for the Future
Jagannath Adhikari
In recent times, resource management policies all over the world have largely been shaped by the western thought of positivism which treats resources merely as physical entities. Resources have been treated as a means to fulfill the unlimited greed of human beings. This has led to a culture of consumerism, which is now commonly referred to as modernization. Various environmental and social problems have resulted from this process. Environmental degradation has reached such an extent that the ecosystem is on the verge of losing its resilience. Despite material progress in a few western countries, poverty has increased tremendously in developing countries.
In Sacred Balance, David Suzuki, a noted geneticist and environmentalist, questions the validity of positivism not only on the grounds of its impact on environment, but also on its inability to explain the balance in the total universe. He contends that as positive science is not able to comprehend the totality of the universe and the intricate interconnections among its various components, it has given us only an incomplete picture of our place in the universe. Even though that science is able to study the minute details of a part of the universe, the sum of this information, according to the author, is least useful for the understanding of total universe because of the synergetic relationships between various components.
The Sacred Balance, on the other hand, argues that traditional worldviews (i.e., the knowledge acquired and accumulated through generations of observation) take into account the whole universe and describe it in a way to reveal the interconnectedness of everything with everything else. These worldviews have considered the balance in universe as something sacred that has to be worshipped. Similarly, the utilization of resources or the various components of ecosystem in excess to basic requirements is considered sacrilegious. The book further argues that value systems and everyday practices of people, which are shaped by these traditional worldviews, are beneficial in preserving the ecosystem.
The book, apart from giving specific examples of environmentally friendly worldviews and value systems from traditional cultures, describes four basic elements (air, water, earth and fire) of life as listed by Greek philosophers (in Hindu tradition, there is one more element - sky). The basic conclusion that can be drawn from the discussion of these elements is that human beings are the creatures of the earth and are dependent on its gifts of air, water, soil and energy from sun. The diverse webs of living creatures help in replenishing air, water and soil and in capturing sunlight to vitalize the biosphere. Therefore, all species are partners of human beings. The author also adds three more elements (diversity in life form, loving relationships and spiritual connections) to the above list because of human beings' social, emotional and spiritual needs.
The author argues that diversity is created by the life form itself because of its adaptation to the natural conditions. As human beings are adapted to the natural conditions through their local communities, the author maintains that the key to human survival is autonomous, vibrant and self-reliant local communities that emphasize sharing, co-operation and living lightly on earth. As social animals, human beings have an absolute need for loving relationship. This provides the security, especially during childhood, which is essential for the psychological balance and for physical and mental growth. The author illustrates this fact with the help of very high incidence of mental retardation among children raised in childcare centers run by the state in communist Rumania.
Spiritual connection to the natural world is essential, the author explains, for the creation of harmony and in avoiding conflicts. Myths, shared beliefs, values and rituals, which are also the outer manifestations of spiritual connection to natural world, bind the communities together providing a source of inspiration and belongings to the inhabitants. Because of perceived spiritual connections to both animate and inanimate things, traditional cultures live in animate world and see the existential value of inanimate objects. This worldview helps in maintaining the natural world in its own form. The modern science until now has not recognized this sacred force. As a result, practices based on it have been instrumental in the destruction of the natural world.
Apart from important information on scientific as well as traditional knowledge on ecosystem, the book also provides important messages for development practitioners. Even though it is very critical of the industrialization model of development, which is emphasized by our politicians, it can help them overcome the weaknesses in the model. In its full spirit, the book suggests us to change our way of life so that we and our children can lead a quality life by living close to nature and by adopting the value system friendly to the 'sacred balance'. To this end, the author argues for the creation of self-sufficient and autonomous communities so that the diversity they have achieved in their process of adaptation to natural environment can be preserved. This can positively be achieved through decentralization and local governance. The centralized planning process imposing uniform intervention mechanism - this has been the common practice here - would destroy the biological and cultural diversity, the very foundations of human survival. By telling the stories of people who have been successful in creating a sustainable and just society, the book shows optimism and hope in the future.
It is also useful for the younger generation as it asks for a critical examination of the consumerism culture. Similarly, the book tells us to look back to our own traditional culture, values and knowledge system so that institutions that play positive social, economic and ecological functions can be identified and preserved. This would also provide a baseline for planning an intervention process to bring about the changes that are necessary for our own welfare and that of the coming generations. This is also validated from the experience gained from the resource management policies in Nepal as most policy disasters (e.g., nationalization of forests) have occurred because of the practice of overlooking the traditional knowledge and value system.
(J. Adhikari , author of The Beginnings of Agrarian Change, is currently doing research on food security)
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A Strange and Sublime Address
Author: Amit Chaudhuri
Publisher: William Heinemann Limited, 1991
Sareena Rai
I was over at a friend's once, for an evening drink and asked her to recommend me a book to read. "What kind of book do you want?" she asked. I replied "something neither American nor European, Japanese nor middle Eastern. I need to still be here". And this was how I entered the dreamscape of a strange and sublime address.
"He saw the lane. Small houses, unlovely and unremarkable" begins the book that offers not the usual string of verbose adjectives to seduce the reader into thinking that the greatest read should always contain the longest and most lush of vocabulary, but instead the more humble approach of seeing things as they so rightly are often ugly, often unremarkable. This book offers a magnified insight into the world of small worlds, of personalities we are all familiar with: neither 'heros' nor 'heroness', holding benign but absolute presence within a Hindu home in Calcutta; Calcutta where "the roads are always being dug up" where like a work of modern art that neither makes sense nor has utility, exists for some aesthetic reason "where the children and dogs sit doing nothing, where the saris are wonderful". I always try to make a point of saluting the writer who is brave enough to still describe something simply as 'wonderful'.
As you carefully read each prized page, you witness a young boy named Sandeep's vacation at the house of his maternal aunt. There is no gripping plot to encourage the reader to turn each page under the influence of anticipation. The action is that of the washer woman scrubbing clothes during hot afternoons, Sandeep's two cousins, "the slothful boys" innocently watching flies mating, Chhotomama's old car that heaves and splutters each morning as he goes to work, his aunt asleep on the big bed "her arms bent as if she were swimming to the edge of a lake".
There is much humor in this book if one can take an innocent look at an often confusingly ritual ridden, seemingly suppressive Hindu society. If one can see things as a child sees them, there is often absolute truth in the matter. There is no self conscious focus on religion and it's just part and parcel of life in Calcutta, like washing the clothes, sleeping in the afternoon. Writes Chaudhuri: "Mamima's midday-prayer was postponed to a later date. The gods were not fussy about punctuality; after all, they had all eternity at their disposal", as we often forget that they do, and "Sandeep liked (the god) Ganesh the best, because he seemed so content with his own appearance". Regarding the act of worship itself, what he enjoyed "was the general, dignified uselessness of the whole enterprise", prayer time was when adults were children again. Amit Chaudhuri cannot have consciously noted down all that he saw as a child so that later in life he could write a book on these peculiar activities that make up life. It must be that this writer has a gift for storing memories and turning them into the simplest forms of poetry.
What really might attract the reader to Chaudhuri is his honesty about the society in which he perhaps grew up. Chaudhuri is not afraid to state the obvious. Each character is given equal attention and has a function in the book, a function which they have in society on the whole. The women are at home, often cooking, talking about relatives and "murmuring conspiratorially about the colour of a sari". But we do not condemn his descriptions of their lives because of his honesty. The women aren't slotted into conventional roles in the service of his own romanticism, but more to the point that these women do not seem in the least bothered about where they stand in society and instead fulfil duties that have been laid down for centuries; these women are not any more special than men because they are strong and stand alone taking the burdens of society with them, but because this is where they most naturally fit in some societies. In the same way Sandeep's uncle is described as "an archetype of that familiar figure who is not often described in literature and the ordinary breadwinner in his moment of unlikely glory, transformed into the centre of his universe and his home". One cannot argue with that and pride comes with both the woman and the man of the house.
There is a gap that is filled by Amit Chaudhuri's writing that is not easy to come by nor easy to fulfill. He can look at middle class Bengali society and be in it, at the same time he can take a step back and see it as a world apart from others. In this way (being born in Calcutta and brought up in Bombay himself, not unlike Sandeep in the book) he can state things that a non-native can't without the accusations that fly with it. He also has an insatiable need to tell us just how it is, without the trappings of ëpolitical correctnessí or conventional wisdom.
His descriptions fit into place because of a simple choice of words with a whole history behind them. Just one sentence describing India contain all these things - humor, wit, reality, indifference: "The eye rested on no empty spaces: wherever one gazed, there was a fruit, or a vegetable, or a basket, or a dog, or a god". As if you were a fly on the wall, watching and listening amidst the drone of an overhead ceiling fan, the slumber of Calcutta's monsoon months takes you for an enchanting spin. The invisible 'plot' thus reveals itself before your own eyes in Amit Chaudhuri's own words: "This is what must have happened to Calcutta in the afternoon; the first man had casually walked away; the rest of Calcutta was still staring at that fascinating, non-existent point in the emptiness, waiting for the revelation." (The remaining pages at the back of A Strange and Sublime Address are filled with a handful of Chaudhuri's beautiful short stories.)
S. Rai is the editor of Earshot magazine
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