I Am an Ordinary Man
Edited by Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Aleph Book Company
Pp 456, Rs 999
This book completes Gandhi’s story that began in Restless as Mercury: My Life as a Young Man. That work contained the story of his life in his words from the time of his childhood until 1914 when, after launching the satyagraha in South Africa for redressing the wrongs suffered there by the Indian community, he returned to India. In this volume, we follow Gandhi’s story from the time he returned to India right up to the last day of his life.
Poorna Swaraj
MK Gandhi & Dhananjay Rai
Penguin Random House
Pp 280, Rs 599
Time and again, Mahatma Gandhi’s life, work and philosophy have played pivotal roles in bringing positive change in society. Poorna Swaraj, through its reading of the Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place, opens a window to his vision of attaining real and complete independence or ‘swaraj’ for India. With his ideas on unity, education, etc, this book brings to light Gandhi’s road map for an egalitarian society.
Becoming Gandhi
Perry Garfinkel
Simon & Schuster
Pp 288, Rs 599
In Becoming Gandhi, Perry Garfinkel sets out on a three-year quest to examine how Gandhi’s ideals have held up in a world beset with troubling trends. In one chilling admission, one of Gandhi’s own grandsons tells Garfinkel that humans will always retain a degree of violence. Where does this leave modern society? To many he was a beacon of hope, a true moral compass; to others, a divisive lightning rod for controversy.
Educating a Billion
Arjun Mohan
Penguin Random House
Pp 224, Rs 599
Educating a Billion is an insider’s take on how edtech companies in India are trying to solve the issues plaguing our education system and trying to deliver quality at scale. It covers the formative days of edtech start-ups and how they created products with a promise that made a difference. The growth of these start-ups is synonymous with the growth of venture capitalist-led capital deployment in privately-held Indian companies (private markets).
Burning Roses in My Garden
Taslima Nasrin
Penguin Random House
Pp 196, Rs 399
‘Have I not, having kept a man for years, learnt that it’s/ like raising a snake?/ So many animals on this earth, why keep a man of all things?’ writes Taslima Nasrin in her first-ever collection of poetry translated from the original Bangla into English. These poems carry a diction which is gentle and fierce, revealing the experiences of one woman while defining the existence of so many generations of women throughout time.