A most Unsuitable Girl EXCERPTS

Excerpt from Preface to A MOST UNSUITABLE GIRL


'The plot appealed to someone like Ayeesha Karim, a lawyer-friend (this species is very rare) in Delhi, now practicing law in Dubai, who specialized in dealing with cases of dowry deaths. To my pleasurable amazement, the story struck a powerful chord in her; and she avidly pounced upon the idea of the sexual jealousy of mothers in law playing a much ignored but extremely significant role in the carrying out of these unspeakably bestial crimes...'

Excerpts from Preface to CONQUEST AT NOON


‘On the flight from New Delhi to Frankfurt, and thereafter to Munich and Skopje, capital of Macedonia I happened to re-read ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X'. Throughout the powerful discourse in the book, the protagonist Malcolm uses crude racial categories of white, black, brown and yellow. Did Malcolm X preach reverse racism for most of his life? Or did he merely endeavour to startle people out of their complacent, conditioned mindsets by deliberately making provocative statements and arguments...'

‘It seemed neo-colonial to Jutta - this benevolent administration by a multinational UN force. What struck me however was that a white population - neither the Albanian Muslims nor the Serbs can be distinguished in terms of physical characteristics from Europeans - was being administered, governed, ruled by a (partly) brown, black and yellow administration.'


 CONQUEST AT NOON

The Three Greens

Excerpt from THE THREE GREENS


‘All right then. Let me pinch your nose and let's see how long you can live.' Pravir put his index finger and thumb firmly against Roomy's nose and pressed hard.

‘Uhhhhh,' struggled Roomy. ‘Leave my nose, Pravir!'

‘All right' said Pravir. ‘Now do you admit that air is more important?'

‘No, it's not air that's important. It's breathing that's important' said Roomy.

‘That's a very fine distinction you are drawing, Roomy' said Pravir. ‘After all it's air that you are breathing. That way I could as well say that it's not food that important, it's eating that's important.'

Roomy was nonplussed and didn't know what to say to that.

‘I think what Roomy is trying to say is that air is there' said Monika, coming to her sister's defense. ‘You don't have to do anything, but with food you have to do something.'

‘Do something' said Pravir, sounding puzzled. ‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean, like cook it. Even if it is a fruit, you have to climb up a tree and pluck it. Its not freely available like air.'

‘Yes, that's what I meant' said Roomy. ‘You see you can take air for granted. With food and water you can't do that.'

‘I wonder now' said Pravir thoughtfully, ‘whether you can really take air for granted.'

‘You see bhaiya' said Roomy in an explaining tone, ‘air isn't going to simply disappear all of a sudden, is it?'

‘No, it wouldn't disappear' agreed Pravir, ‘but it could become poisonous.'

Poisonous air! What a scary thought. Monika felt a sense of shock. Pravir was right. Hadn't there been this horrible gas leak in Bhopal, which her Social Studies teacher had talked about in school, in which thousands of people had died. And hadn't she had this terrible, terrible experience just this very evening bus as they were coming back from their day long tour of the city.

Excerpt from Preface to THE THIRD SEX AND HUMAN RIGHTS


'I do remember noting however that they too were victims of so many commonly held prejudices about caste; community etc, despite being so marginalised themselves. Thus, one of the hijras with whom I spoke, who was from Andhra Pradesh spoke against hijras from Tamil Nadu, who banded together and lived separately from the others. Again, both of them, in the course of conversations with me, revealed how, succumbing to certain superstitions, they were exploited by certain self styled ‘gurus' and religious charlatans

'At first they thought that I wished to obtain some form of sexual gratification (one of them held my hand and twisted my fingers mischievously), and even indicated that they would be agreeable, which is of course extremely understandable, considering that as a result of neglect by the State, and ostracisation by mainstream society, many of them have been reduced to earning money through prostitution. With the onset of AIDS their plight has become even worse.'		 The Third Sex and Human Rights


Excerpt from Preface to COURTING INJUSTICE: THE TERRIBLE TRUTH ABOUT OUR COURTS

‘My publisher was talking about a How to Win Cases kind of book! I told him that I agreed with him that I should write the book in a simpler and down to earth fashion. At the same time, my problem was that I believe most overnight success books are fake, be they formula books on how to become a millionaire, how to get a woman into bed in ten easy stages (which by the way apart from being totally fake is also completely unethical) or even on how to win cases. I didn't want to write a book like that but at the same time it was important for me that this book not be purchased mainly by libraries where it would gather dust with other learned tomes and be read once in a while by a law student or a professor. (This may still happen in spite of my best efforts, or worse still, even the libraries may turn it down as not being learned enough).'
   
REVIEWS (extracts)

Excerpt from Review by Khushwant Singh of COURTING INJUSTICE: THE TERRIBLE TRUTH ABOUT OUR COURTS/ THE JUDICIARY ON TRIAL published in The Hindustan Times.

'There were two reasons why after four years study and seven years of practice I gave up the law. One was that I would not make a living out of it; the second, I realised soon enough that it had very little to do with justice. I told myself, 'Man, you have only one life to live,' and asked myself, 'Do you want to waste it making a living out of other peoples quarrels?' And the seven years I practiced in the lower and the High Court of Lahore
I was exposed to touts who fooled clients about my ability to win every case and took hefty cuts for doing so. Thereafter it was bribing court clerks, process servers and bailiffs. Many times my clients were able to pass money to magistrates, subordinate judges and even Sessions Judges and I was able to get them bail and often acquittals.

‘Far too often the guilty went free, the innocent went to the gallows. This was the state of affairs during British rule. Since independence they have got much worse: more bribery, more corruption, more delays in disposal of cases(arrears stand at the figure of ten million), thousands of innocent people languish in prisons without being brought to trial and telling lies is more common than telling the truth. What makes the law and justice scenario very gloomy is that no one knows what to do about it, many learned theses, many pious pronouncements by eminent jurists. No follow up, no improvement.

Our impotence in dealing with the problem was well illustrated in the case of Hussainara Khatoon versus the Home Secretary of the Government of Bihar decided by the Supreme Court in 1978. It came to light there were thousands of men and women who had spent longer years in Bihar jails waiting for their cases to be heard than the years they would have spent behind bars after being convicted. What was ironic about this case was that Chief Justice P N Bhagwati who waxes eloquent in miscarriages of justice in India was not over concerned by the fact that it took the Supreme Court 15 years to pronounce judgement after the case had been admitted for hearing.

Equally amazing was the case of Prem Chand Paniwala who spent years giving false evidence in cases whenever the police wanted him to do so. He prospered: from selling paanee he was able to buy houses and set up fruit juice stalls. At last he refused to continue perjuirng himself. Justice Krishna Iyer observed: 'On the factual situation we have no doubt that the petitioner who has given particulars of a large number of cases where he has been cited as witness is speaking the truth, even assuming that 3000 cases may be an exaggeration.' Passing severe strictures against the police department, the learned judge urged the State to issue appropriate orders to the police department to prevent such abuse of the judicial process.

I got this material from a most readable book Courting Injustice: The Terrible Truth about our Courts written by Rajesh Talwar who has taught law, written on it and practiced it for many years. This book is available from ABVA, PB No 5308, Delhi 53. It deserves to be widely read.'


Excerpt from Review by Amit Sen Gupta of SIMRAN, A NOVEL published in The Pioneer in February 1998.

'It's a common name in many Sikh families. Simran Kaur. Simran means, to remember. This book remembers her; idealistic, tempestuous, scholarly Simran hiding the hint of a hidden beauty, doing her Masters in Philosophy in Himachal University at Summerhill. in Shimla, obsessed with her thesis on the aesthetics of the human form.

'But her thesis remained unfinished. Simran died young. While traveling in a bus from Rishikesh to Gurdaspur. Her body blown to bits by a bomb planted by Khalistani terrorists. But she struggles to live in her friend and lover's memory, like an unspoken, hesitant dialogue, a solitary, invisible game. ‘It had been a favorite spot of ours. Sitting on that hillock, gazing across the vast space, watching the mist descend, I had a strange sensation. I felt her presence behind me, quite close. Yet, I was afraid to look. The game was that if you looked, she would disappear. I stayed there till it became dark.'

‘This is no great first novel by a great Indo-Anglian writer, marketed by a great publishing house along with cocktails and drooling media reviews... But this is an honest, deeply felt self-journey. It touches with its innocence, magnanimity and idealism; it leaves in its pages a slow wound, and the possibility of resurrection

'Delhi's streets and cafes emerge like accidental, ancient friendships. The tortured quest of Diamond and the ad hoc philosopher in the serene sadness of Shimla and Summerhill appear as a real, tormented landmark in the journey of life. No catharsis here. This is almost an incomplete book without drama or flourishing sentimentality. Incomplete, as the aesthetic quest of two young students in the search of memory, of fragrance, of beauty and body; also, of the body of the Idea.'

Excerpt from Review by Subajayanti B of THE THREE GREENS published in The Hindu on July 31st 2004


Driven by the consciousness to protect the earth, "The Three Greens" vow to sport T-shirts with slogans on pollution and spread awareness in public places. Rajesh Talwar in his book The Three Greens has tried to cover issues that threaten the environment with a storyline that is captivating.

www.hindu.com/yw/2004/07/31/stories/2004073100200400.htm