Sunday, September 29, 2013

The Painter




Title: The Painter – A Life of Ravi Varma
Author: Deepanjana Pal
Publisher: Random House, 2009 (First)
ISBN: 978-81-8400-064-1
Pages: 272

A must have book for those wishing to know the life and times of Raja Ravi Varma, the man known as the prince among painters and the painter among princes. In fact, the work contain so much information about the history of the period, the transition that gradually reached centre stage in painting, the social upheaval caused by reforming measures of the ruling British and the general uneasiness prevailed in the country in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the First War of Independence in 1857, leading up to a national movement spearheaded by middle class, western educated intelligentsia. Ravi Varma lived and painted in this atmosphere and his works reached every nook and cranny of the country, particularly his depictions of deities that moulded the concepts of divinity for the next three to four generations of ordinary Indians. Though much reprimanded by art critics for the bland, unimaginative character of his pictures even in his lifetime, to many of us, he still represents the epitome of Indian art that every child aspires to. The narration is safely ensconced with the author Deepanjana Pal who is a columnist working with Time Out in Mumbai and writes on art and literature.

As noted above, besides telling the life story of Ravi Varma, the book discloses the tremendous transformation happening in every facet of mid-19th century society. Establishment of British sovereignty after the 1857 war remoulded the decadent polity and economy in a new crucible. Monarchy was beginning to be bound by some form of control by elected representatives. Absolute monarchy became a thing of the past. Kings found it difficult to re-appropriate public funds for personal ostentation and extravagance. Printed media formed a bulwark against misrule. Though the renovations were a long time coming to Kerala, which was the princely state most steeped in superstition. As in the case of Ravi Varma, there arose alternatives to persona non grata of the kings. Ravi Varma faced this predicament twice. First, when he was ousted from court under suspicion that he was allying with the pretender to the throne of Ayilyam Thirunal, who was none other than his own brother Visakham Thirunal. Varma went to his wife’s home at Mavelikkara to wait for good times. After Ayilyam’s death a few years later, Visakham Thirunal indeed ascended the throne, but the painter’s career at his court was far from scintillating. There arose a tussle between him and the king during the visit of the Duke of Buckingham, Governor of Madras Presidency to Thiruvananthapuram who was an wholehearted admirer of the painter. He talked a lot with him at their meeting in the presence of the king who had had to stand all the time the conversation went. This was a bit difficult for him as he had an affliction of gout. He didn’t forget this slight and expelled Ravi Varma from the court again. If that incident had happened a century ago, it would have been the end of him, both for his career and his life. The changed circumstances enabled him to accept commissions from the royal houses of Baroda, Mysore and Pudukottai and thereby advance his reputation further.

Unlike people coming from conservative backgrounds like that of families allied to the royal household, Ravi Varma was pragmatic and was always ready to experiment. He broke ways with the Tanjore School of Indian art which flaunted water colours as its base and with a distinct set of rules about framing the composition. Varma followed European realistic style with oil as the medium. This was a far greater achievement than we can imagine now with a 150 years of tumultuous change in between. He had no schools open for him and not a teacher to turn to, to master the techniques of blending the colours. Those who possessed the skills jealously guarded it from all acolytes. Varma managed to learn the procedures covertly from the chief assistant of the court painter Ramaswamy Naicker, with whom he had fallen out earlier on the same issue. Unlike some artists who ply their trades only for the sake of art, Ravi Varma was shrewd enough to cash in as much as possible while the wind was favourable. The handsome amount he charged for privately commissioned paintings were on par with that of a master of his stature. He invested the money earned to start a press to mass produce his pictures in a bid to sell them to the public. The Ravi Varma Fine Art Lithographic Press which was established in Kalbadevi, Mumbai with German machinery and foreign technicians produced faithful reproductions of gods and goddesses that appealed to the public. The images of goddesses Lakshmi and Saraswati which still adorn the walls of many Indian homes, large or small, were produced in that press. However, Ravi Varma couldn’t manage the daily functioning of the outfit which eventually floundered.

Even though the result of an elaborative research, the author ought to have applied a little more earnestness in analyzing the social conditions of Kerala in the 19th century in which Ravi Varma was born. Otherwise, such gross errors in what she says about the caste structure, like “Traditionally, non-Brahmin girls like Ravi’s mother who was a Nair and belonged to the Kshatriya or warrior caste that came right below Brahmins, had two marriages” (p.18) would not have occurred. We have to note the double mistake in this statement. Ravi Varma’s mother was neither a Nair nor the Nairs belonged to Kshatriyas. Ravi Varma’s mother was indeed a Kshatriya but Nairs belonged to Shudras, the lowest rung in the Varna hierarchy whose sole function was to act as servants to Brahmins, which most of them took it upon themselves with gusto. Their women were also expected to provide sexual comfort for the Namboodiri Brahmins who often condescended to adopt formal rituals of a marriage which sometimes didn’t last longer than a few days.

The book is not an authorized biography in the strict sense of that term. Pal takes artistic freedom to elevate the narrative, dexterously interweaving threads of history with that of refined imagination. The author has taken special care to denote such portions of fiction in italics which turned out to be a delightful experience as otherwise the readers would have been quite unable to separate the fact from fiction because the two has been blended in so seamless a fashion. An illuminating example is the imaginary discourse between Ravi Varma and his uncle Raja Raja Varma about a painting by Gustave Boulanger titled ‘Ulysses recognized by his Nurse Euryclea’ on pages 32-34. Though the protagonists are unaware of the existence of the Greek classic Odyssey, from which the scene is inspired from, the careful and artistic regard with which they analyze the depicted scene and comes to the subtle interpretation conveyed by the painter. Pal has done a wonderful job in this brief, but extremely fine narrative.

The book is well thought out and written with lucidity, but the layout and attention to details cry for a lot to be desired. The numerous typos plaguing the pages don’t make the work any better. It also seems that the author was at a loss or in a hurry to describe the events leading to Ravi Varma’s death. Apart from a casual remark that he died due to diabetes, no effort has been made to convey the impact of the passing away of the famous painter at age 58. At the same time, the fraternal attachment between Ravi and his younger brother Raja who was also a gifted painter is brought out in heart-touching detail. It might not be a coincidence that the elder brother passed away after a little more than a year after his younger sibling’s death due to tumour affecting the intestines.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Plagues






Title: Plagues – Their Origin, History and Future
Author: Christopher Wills
Publisher: Flamingo, 1997 (First published 1996)
ISBN: 0-00-654869-5
Pages: 303

Every one of us is susceptible to disease once in a while and has to seek medical care or resort to long recuperation which puts us to great inconvenience. However, that phase soon passes and as the normal chores are resumed, we tend to forget about it. Basking in the successes of technology, we are oblivious to the immense damage some of the diseases have caused to mankind over the centuries. Any illness which has afflicted a large proportion of people in the society is called a plague. The author presents their origin, historical occurrences and speculates on the possible vistas which they may occupy in the future. Christopher Wills is a Professor of Biology and his research ranges from the question of human origins to the nature of human genetic variation and the mechanisms by which we resist diseases. He is the author of three books for the general reader in biology: The Wisdom of the Genes, Exons, Introns and Talking Genes and The Runaway Brain.

It may seem counter initiative to us but the fact remains true that killing of a host (the afflicted animal) is not in the best interests of a pathogen attacking it. Evolution cries for survival of an individual by better adaptation but not necessary to exterminate a host which provides it with nourishment. This explains why exceptionally virulent pathogens fail to propagate further after a nasty bout of plague. The death of the infected organism closes down the way of progress for the plague-causing entity too. More benign cousins of such pathogens then continue to live happily in symbiosis with the host. The trillions of bacteria and viruses that reside in the human body, in guts, mouth or other body part are genetically only a step away from virulent strains of similar genre. But they don’t cause any ill effects on us and we have learned to live in harmony with them. History also supports this argument. Bubonic plague, which devastated London in 1665-66 in its greatest incarnation, has not returned even though no specific countermeasure was adopted by the inhabitants. Similarly malaria receded from Northern Europe by mid 19th century, even before science established the connection between the disease and mosquitoes.

Whenever the term ‘plague’ is mentioned, we normally think of bubonic plague that devastated a great portion of humanity in 542 and 1348 CE, which may roughly thought to be the brackets of the medieval age. The disease is analysed in great detail in the book. The bacteria Yersinia pestis is the culprit which is in fact a genetically weakened cousin of the more deadly Yersinia pseudotuberculosis which affects animals. When it affects a human, the body goes into overdrive to produce phagocytes (white blood cells) to kill off the antigens, which causes the lymph nodes (buboes) to bulge extraordinarily in size, giving the disease its name. Mortality rate is usually high if untreated and when it transforms to pneumonic plague after it colonizes the lungs. Then it gets really virulent as the bacteria gets transferred between people through air by breath. The virus is vectored through rat fleas and the epidemic was thought to be extinct until it reappeared in Surat and Beed district of Maharashtra in 1994. Even though there is controversy regarding whether it was indeed the plague, the pestilence was stemmed with massive application of antibiotics and DDT.

In an amusing anecdote – if there can be anything which is even remotely amusing in the case of a deadly disease – Wills tells the case of a housemaid in New York who spread typhoid wherever she was employed and that caused many people to die. The bacteria which cause the disease, named Salmonella typhii takes a permanent residence in the gall bladders of some of the patients. While it does not result in any outward manifestation, the bacteria grow in their bladders and spill over to the environment through natural means. The maid in this case was christened ‘Typhoid Mary’ and she was arrested and quarantined. At first she escaped and found work elsewhere under an assumed name. Sudden appearances of the disease in the inhabitants of the house revealed the presence of Mary and she was again caught and incarcerated, this time for 28 years until her death. This case presents one of the gruesome aspects of man’s social life. Even though she has not committed any crime, and was being punished for no fault of hers, she suffered isolation for decades befitting a felon.

Wills goes on to describe many other diseases too like syphilis, tuberculosis and AIDS. We read of controversies among academicians over the origin of syphilis, which some of them believe to have originated in America and was introduced in Europe and elsewhere after the voyages of Columbus, who himself introduced many European diseases like smallpox and measles on the native populations in America. This is a good case of how societies often face unexpected challenges in its complex web of interactions with other people.

Wills confuses the historical provenance of some of the references he uses in the narrative. To establish the ancientness of plague, he quotes from Bhagvat Purana of India and arbitrarily assigns the date of 1500 BCE for it. This is certainly erroneous, as the Puranas are considered to be of much later origin by historians, sometimes placed around 500 CE. Similar tracing of the disease to central Asia or Africa is also unconvincing. Whatever may be the work’s advantages, historical accuracy is not one of them.

The book presents a disproportionately large mention of India and how the country is still home to a large number of deadly diseases. The narration is definitely unflattering but should serve a clear notice to clean up the house. Though often tinged with an air of condescension, Will’s description of the pathetic health infrastructure of the country is intended to open the eyes of impartial observers.

The book is somewhat dated as it was released 16 years ago and much work has been done in some areas like AIDS prevention declared to be of grave concern by Wills. Of course it is still grave, but the projected mortality figures are way of the mark, with the advantage of hindsight. A revised edition appears to be long due. One aspect the author should concern himself about is to include a primer on diseases, its methods of spread and ways of causing havoc and the essential differences between various agents of diseases. Readers like me who are confused about the differences between a bacteria and a virus remain as puzzled as ever after completing reading of the book. The glossary given at the end really is a positive point for the work and equally commendable is the conscious effort not to dabble too much with medical terms. A lengthy treatment given near the end of the book on how the species diversity of a rain forest helps to keep pathogens at bay is simply yawn-inspiring though many of the observations were collected by the author during his own academic research.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Monday, September 16, 2013

The World Until Yesterday







Title: The World Until Yesterday – What Can We Learn From Traditional Societies?
Author: Jared Diamond
Publisher: Allen Lane, 2012 (First)
ISBN: 978-1-846-14758-6
Pages: 466

This is Jared Diamond’s latest book, but no, it doesn’t come anywhere near Guns, Germs and Steel, which is his magnum opus and given a 5-star rating. This book explores traditional societies which still exist in mountain and island fastnesses from whom we get a glimpse of our own ancestors before they entered the agricultural stage in the slow progress towards modernity. The author is a noted polymath and his work has been influential in the fields of anthropology, biology, ornithology, ecology, and history, among others. Many ways are available to have a peek into the past of modern societies. Archeology is one of them, but imposes severe restrictions on its applicability since the available objects are lifeless. As humans progressed from hunter gatherer lifestyle to farming around 11000 years ago, it would be a good idea to look at tribal societies existing at various locations in various stages of development. It gives us a snapshot of the phases of societal development during the last 11000 years or so. Experts categorize societies into four stages in increasing order of organization as band, tribe, chiefdom and state. Our modern societies stand at the extreme end of this classification and the author has made detailed studies of human societies still occupying the other three divisions. Diamond states that we have to learn from the traditional societies if we want to study the present one in any depth. There is much we need to emulate from past societies and much more that we need to be thankful about because of their absences.

Jared Diamond has extensively studied tribal societies and the Papua New Guinean societies in particular. An aspect that he finds disturbing in such societies is the constant state of warfare between rival groups and the resultant blood feuds. These soon escalate into all out wars and the loss in terms of men inflicted on the societies is much more in proportion to the deaths suffered by modern societies during the Second World War, which was the most horrific in the history of mankind. The dispute resolution mechanisms are tenuous in tribal communities and people who had grown up on a diet of honour and obligations take up arms to attack real or perceived aggressors. In an exclusive illustration of the belligerent Dani community in New Guinea that appears to be a true representation of traditional societies elsewhere, the author concludes that the modern state offers a viable and welcome alternative. Here, use of force is monopolized by the state and individual disputes are mediated by professionals in law courts which decide on the right or wrong of the issue at hand. This never happens in a tribal setup where aggressions are always retaliated with like measures irrespective of the merit in them. The disconnection of justice from individual hands results in peaceful life for the members in a state community.

Readers get to know of the widely varying standards of treatment meted out to elders along the whole spectrum of primitive peoples. While some keep the elders absorbed in the main stream, some hunter gatherer societies tend to ignore them and thereby contrive in their deaths if they are weak and hence unable to move or hunt along with the group. Modern societies are no better by general appearance as old people are increasingly finding themselves ending up in retirement homes. Such wide variation exists in the case of children too. Some hunter gatherer groups pay great attention to their little ones, even allowing them to walk on their own feet only around the age of four, while some sedentary communities practice a laissez faire approach where young children are not at all restrained, even if they happen to be playing with fire or sharp weapons.

A great disappointment to any skeptical observer is to watch the educated and enlightened people in society pitching for the irrational and superstitious religious beliefs. One of the reasons for this sorry state of affairs is the lack of exposure to rational thought in their formative years. Authors of popular science books must structure their works in a way as not simply to elucidate the scientific outlook, but also to implant it on the readers’ minds. Diamond presents an exemplary illustration of how the irrational could be explained in a rational way in his discourse on the origin and role of religion which are defined as, supernatural explanation of things, defusing anxiety through rituals, providing comfort against pain and death, standardized organization, preaching political obedience, moral codes of behaviour towards strangers and justification of wars. With growth of science, religions’ function as an explanatory mechanism is fast losing ground, but still it thrives on supposing to provide a ‘meaning’ to life. Such notions of ‘meaning’ to life are meaningless in a rational point of view which regards life as a biochemical entity being propagated through DNA. Even though this point is only too evident to thinking people, man finds it impossible to accept the sobering principle that there is no meaning to his own existence except for the concepts codified by the society for its wellbeing.

Our urbanized societies anywhere in the world are beset with non-communicable diseases afflicting an unacceptably large percentage of the population. Two of them – hypertension and type 2 diabetes – are subjected to a thought provoking analysis by the author who exposes the pitfalls hidden in the transition to a westernized life style adopted by traditional societies and poor developing countries.  Salt intake is directly related to hypertension. The more salt we ingest from the salt shakers on the table, the more we are prone to high blood pressure. Such a direct correlation exists in the case of sugar intake and type 2 diabetes too. Consumption of sugar has increased many times over the last few centuries, from 2 kg per person per year in 1700 to 75 kg per person per year at present. Genes causing diabetes may help a tribal group to tide over bouts of starvation better, by sequestering fat effectively, but fail when subjected to food abundance offered by modernity. This is a case of a genetically selected feature turning on its heels to become a bane under changed environmental conditions. Out of the many contrasts between traditional and modern communities, the attitude to health can easily be practiced by modern people. Exercising, avoiding too much salt or sugar, inclusion of more fibrous foods on the menu, eating slowly, and even talking while eating so as to reduce intake may be some of the aspects which could be employed by the urban dwellers too.

The book is a must read for any category of readers. It envelops the entire spectrum of the life of a society, from its political organization, social relations, linguistic traits, medical concerns and cultural implications. So much is packed within the 466 pages of coverage resembling an encyclopedia on traditional societies that people in any walks of life may find something particularly suitable for their own field of interest. There is a big section recommending books for further reading for those inclined to follow up on the discussed points. It is also gifted with a nice collection of colour plates which add enriching visual detail to the text. The only drawback that can be raised is the author’s predilection to New Guinea in which country he had spent years of work over about five decades. He doesn’t appear to have firsthand knowledge of any other traditional group in the world. However, he more than compensates for this lack of exposure with references from other scholarly works.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Friday, September 6, 2013

Prisoner of the State




Title: Prisoner of the State – The Secret Journal of Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang
Author: Zhao Ziyang
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2009 (First)
ISBN: 978-1-84737-697-8
Pages: 287

China possesses a great cultural and scientific heritage spanning thousands of years which is the world’s envy. Unfortunately, the country now reels under an autocratic regime in which a bunch of hardened geriatrics control the fate of a billion people like what they should do, what they should buy and even what they should think. This is no exaggeration, but only the candid assessment one gets from this book written by a former premier of the state and general secretary of the all powerful Chinese Communist Party. Zhao Ziyang’s rise to prominence was quick, like in an autocracy when you happen to have powerful backers. Ziyang was elevated to the post of Prime Minister and then the party’s general secretary by Deng Xiaoping, the man who ruled China singlehandedly after the death of the tyrannical leader, Mao Zedong. The author paved the way for economic reforms in the country, but the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 ended up in a tussle between him and Deng Xiaoping who was not prepared to concede even an iota of democratic freedom to the people. He was removed from all official positions, placed under house arrest till his death in 2005, without any judicial procedure. This book is his journal under incarceration in which he audiotaped his experiences and thoughts and cleverly concealed them among his children’s toys. It came to light only after his death, waking up the world to a ringside view of the power politics and the farce that is going on in China in the name of socialism. Rule of Law is unheard of, and the party goes by the maxim of Rule by (a few) Men. The book is translated by Bao Pu, Renee Chiang and Adi Ignatius with a foreward by Roderick MacFarquhar.

The end of 1980s had been a bad time for China. Half-hearted reform measures initiated earlier ended up in inflation and widespread corruption. But the hardliners in the party were opposed to any suggestion of giving more freedom to the masses. Hu Yaobang, who was the party general secretary and an ardent reformer, but was later removed from office as he had ruffled some feathers of the coterie of elders in the party on whom all power was concentrated, died on April 15, 1989. His memorial services, attended by a large number of students suddenly turned into mass demonstrations attended even by people in other sectors like government departments and industry. China’s autocratic leaders panicked and issued a strongly worded condemnation in a People’s Daily editorial on April 26 with the approval of Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader, accusing the students of indulging in anti-party, anti-socialist activities. This infuriated the students who managed to stage hunger strikes in Tiananmen Square on May 15 onwards in connection with the visit of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet reformist leader. Against Ziyang’s opposition, Deng and others imposed martial law in Beijing. However, the army found it difficult to move in, as they were blocked at many places by old women and children. Ziyang’s opposition to tow the official line resulted in his ouster as the party’s general secretary. As the world watched in horror, tanks rolled into the square on June 4, pulverizing the protesting students under its wheels, thereby brutally crushing a popular revolt that threatened to shake the communist regime to the core.

We get a clear perception of the pitfalls centralized planning entails in any country by the examples illustrated by Ziyang. When he led a delegation to England and France, he was baffled by the clever transformation of adversities to advantages designed by those Western economies. The south of France had poor rainfall and hence not fit for grain cultivation. In such circumstances, Mao’s China would have gone for ‘changing the conditions defined by heaven and earth’ by investing in huge irrigation projects, but nevertheless ending up with poor yield. The French farmers cultivated grapes in the region and the wine industry made them very rich. Similarly, England employed animal husbandry on its western coast, doing wheat in the east. Ziyang did his homework and encouraged planting cotton in Shandong province of China where large scale irrigation programs had wiped out a large chunk of investment in a vain bid to produce more grain. Shandong developed a lucrative cotton trade as a result and excess cotton seed was converted to fertilizer to augment wheat production in other parts of the country.

The author presents in chilling detail how the notions of collective responsibility and accountability had collapsed in China’s communist regime. We read about the Polit Bureau feigning impotence in overturning the decision of the supreme leader, Deng Xiaoping in denouncing the student demonstrations. Had the Polit Bureau taken the decision to go forward, ignoring Deng’s stature, the situation would have eased. The supreme leader’s decisions also were sometimes taken by his children as we see occasions when his daughter Maomao dictating to party bosses how to word official resolutions without seeming to appear that Deng was against the youth.

Even with many years of experience of working in the party in various positions, the readers note with sympathetic amusement at Ziyang’s naïve assumption that the Communist Party would respect rules and regulations while removing one of the highest leaders like him. Here, we discover the scant regard to law exhibited by the party’s clique of functionaries who stick around Deng. If an official falls foul of the great man, he is doomed – summarily. Ziyang alleges that Deng allowed people who were not members of the polit bureau standing committee to vote on a resolution to oust Ziyang  who himself was not invited for the meeting. The party’s judicial process is also upside down as the author was first ousted from his post and then an investigation was called for. After three years of such a travesty of justice, it was abandoned, but he was not reinstated.

The book, even though noted for its impromptu narration of political events, is not interesting to read. It is riddled with dull diction, and unimaginative account of experiences. Sincerety and honesty of objective does not always translate to appealing style of writing. Long lists of committees appearing in the book and administrative mechanisms that plague Chinese society is a torture for the general reader.

The book is not recommended.

Rating: 2 Star