The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 28 Jun 2011 02:16 AM PDT Having a journalist's observant eye helps when you want to create believable fictional characters. A MOTHER resigned to her fate. A father refusing to water someone else's garden. And a daughter struggling and ultimately breaking free of social and cultural traditions that bind her. These are some of the engrossing concerns addressed in Dipika Rai's debut novel, Someone Else's Garden. Set in rural India, Garden focuses on Mamta, the eldest of seven children in a low-caste family. Lacking in what is perceived as traditional "beauty", she is scorned and abused by a father who does not want to waste room or even food and water on a daughter who is essentially "someone else's garden". When a marriage is arranged for her, Mamta, like most young women, begins to dream of a better life. But this hope is cruelly shattered when her new husband not only abuses her, but sells one of her kidneys for money. When she realises that he plans to sell her other kidney as well, not caring if she dies, Mamta flees to the city in search of her two brothers who are there. This journey leads her on a road to freedom, independence and, ultimately, love. In a recent e-mail interview, I ask the Bali-based Rai what inspired her to write this story, wondering if she wanted to make any sort of social commentary; after all, the perception seems to be that Garden is a treatise on the exploitation of women. But the author is quite firm in dispelling that notion: "My inspiration came from my travels in rural India. I did not set about writing an expos̩ of the plight of women in India. I wanted to tell a gripping story that had an overwhelmingly redemptive element to it. "For my protagonist, I wanted to choose someone who had experienced incredible hardship in life and I chose to depict the life of a fictitious rural Indian woman." Rai makes very clear that not all women who live in rural India are exploited the way that Mamta is. "Mamta is a composite character, and the tendency to assume that all Indian rural women live like Mamta is incorrect," she says. "I have showcased the role of one exploited woman in my novel. One must not forget that my novel also includes strong women who aren't exploited, like Asmara Didi, Bibiji, and 'Eyebrows'. "I wanted to express that no matter how bad things get, there is always hope and a way out of even the most desperate circumstances. I wanted to talk about redemption and being able to climb out of one's 'place' in life or destiny and live well. I wanted to talk about the little miracles of life that occur unseen and unheard and make us who we are. "And because I wanted my message of redemption to be a powerful one, I had to make Mamta's circumstances desperate and life-threatening," she says. That they are, and they are a large part of Garden's draw, along with the book's characters, which are intriguing and seem to come alive on the page. Take Mamta's mother, Lata Bai, for instance; Rai has succeeded in creating a character that has many different facets to her personality Рa mother who only wants the best for her child, a woman who has resigned herself to her fate, and, later, a mother who disowns her daughter when Mamta refuses to resign herself to the same traditions and norms that bound Lata Bai. Mamta's brother Prem and Daku Manmohan, a local folk hero, are fascinating characters as well. Prem, who adores his older sister and was the only one in Mamta's family who knew that she had run away, is a complex creation that the reader will empathise with, while Daku Manmohan, who stars in all the village girls' fantasies, turns out to be an honourable man who ends up living a life of servitude to pay for his wrongdoings. Born and educated in India, Rai and her husband and two children moved to Bali, Indonesia, where she used to write about Indonesian art and culture for newspapers and magazines. As a journalist, she needed to be a keen observer of both people and situations, and she credits this ability for the creation of such well-rounded characters in Someone Else's Garden. Rai admits that it wasn't easy to get her novel published initially, as many of the publishers that she had approached felt that there was too much "Indian literature" already. But she persevered, and although it took her a year and a half, Someone Else's Garden was finally published. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| Posted: 28 Jun 2011 02:14 AM PDT DID you know you can vote via SMS in the Popular-The Star Readers' Choice Awards? In this fourth instalment of the only local literary award that rewards local authors as well as participating readers, registering your vote is as easy as texting from your phone. Choose your top three books from the lists below; that is, your top three fiction and top three non-fiction titles. If you are one of 100 readers whose ranking matches the overall vote, you will receive a RM50 gift voucher as well as a one-year-free-membership Popular card. And your favourite authors will be rewarded, too, with cash, trophies and certificates of recognition. If you haven't read all the books, check The Star Online's (thestar.com.my) 365-day archive for the last two Sundays' introduction of this year's fiction and non-fiction nominees. You can also go to popular.com.my to find out more about the books. And if you want to buy them, you can get a 20% discount on each of the 20 titles at any Popular or Harris bookstore nationwide until Oct 2, 2011. To vote via your phone, note that RCAF is the SMS code for fiction and RCAN is the code for non-fiction. Once you've decided on your choice, type RCAF(space)NRIC(space)CODES(space)SLOGAN (not more than 120 characters) and send to 36600. For non-fiction, type RCAN, followed by the rest. Here's an example of what your text message should look like: RCAF 123456011234 AFI Reading enriches the mind, heart and soul and can bring people, families and nations together. (Note that each SMS will cost RM0.30; terms and conditions apply.) Apart from SMS voting, you can also vote online at thestar.com.my (keep refreshing your screen until you see the contest banner). Also, look out for entry forms in Star2 On Sunday's Reads pages that you can mail in. Entry forms are also available at all Popular and Harris bookstores nationwide and can be downloaded from popular.com.my and bookfestmalaysia.com. The deadline for entries is July 17, 2010. Fiction (SMS code: RCAF) 1. Rojak: Bite-Sized Stories by Amir Muhammad (SMS code: A) 2. Madness Aboard! by Yvonne Lee (SMS code: B) 3. The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka (SMS code: C) 4. Kebaya Tales by Lee Su Kim (SMS code: D) 5. Orang Asli Animal Tales by Lim Boo Liat (SMS code: E) 6. The Embrace Of Harlots by David T.K. Wong (SMS code: F) 7. A Bit Of Earth by Lim Suchen (SMS code: G) 8. Inspector Singh Investigates: A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul by Shamini Flint (SMS code: H) 9. Sweet Offerings by Chan Ling Yap (SMS code: I) 10. Under The Sun by O Thiam Chin (SMS code: J) Non-fiction (SMS code: RCAN) 1. Lim Lian Geok: Soul Of The Malaysian Chinese by Dr Kua Kia Soong (SMS code: A) 2. Moving Forward: Malays For The 21st Century by Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad (SMS code: B) 3. The Man From Borneo: An Autobiography by Brother Michael Jacques (SMS code: C) 4. From Poor Migrant To Millionaire by Chan King Nui (SMS code: D) 5. Islam In Malaysia: Perceptions And Facts by Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin (SMS code: E) 6. Katz Tales: Living Under The Velvet Paw by Ellen Whyte (SMS code: F) 7. Behind That Shiny Resume by Jasmine Yow (SMS code: G) 8. Syed Hussein Alatas: The Life In The Writing by Masturah Alatas (SMS code: H) 9. The Quran And I by Anas Zubedy (SMS code: I) 10. Footprints In The Paddy Fields by Tina Kisil (SMS code: J) Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| Posted: 28 Jun 2011 02:10 AM PDT A venerable library opens up its treasure trove of books to the digital world. A TREATISE on a stuffed hippopotamus, an 18th century English primer for Danish sailors and a description of the first engine-driven submarine are among 250,000 books to be made available online in a deal between Google and the British Library. The agreement, announced last week, will let Internet users read, search, download and copy thousands of texts published between 1700 and 1870. It is a small step towards the library's goal of making the bulk of its 14 million books and one million periodicals available in digital form by 2020. "So far we have only been able to digitise a small fraction of the global collection," says the library's chief executive, Lynne Brindley. "There is a long way to go." The deal marks another step in Google's effort to make digital copies of the world's estimated 130 million books. The California-based company touts the ambitious project as a way to enable anyone with an Internet connection to tap a vast reservoir of knowledge. Google has scanned more than 15 million books into its search index during the past seven years, but has only been able to show snippets of many of them because of copyright restrictions. The company tried to remove the US copyright obstacles in a settlement of a class action lawsuit with authors and publishers only to have the agreement rejected by a federal judge three months ago. The books that Google will be scanning from the British library are no longer protected by copyright and are in the public domain. The books will be available on the websites of the British Library and Google Books. The deal with Google, which will see 40 million pages digitised over the next three years, will offer online researchers a selection of rarely seen works from an era of social, political, scientific and technological change that took in the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and the American war of independence. The books range from Georges Louis Leclerc's Natural History Of The Hippopotamus, Or River-horse – which includes a description of a stuffed animal owned by the Prince of Orange – to the 1858 work A Scheme For Underwater Seafaring, describing the first combustion engine-driven submarine. The books are more than scholarly curiosities. British Library curator Kristian Jensen says an 18th century guide to English for Danish mariners shows "how English began to emerge from being the language spoken by people over there on that island" to become the world's dominant tongue. Last year, the British Library announced plans to digitise up to 40 million pages of newspapers dating back three-and-a-half centuries, and it recently made thousands of 19th century books digitised and available as an app for iPhone and iPad devices. – AP Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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