No Man’s Land by Jacqueline Druga Review

In a post-apocalyptic world where a virus of unknown origin had taken most of the world, No Man’s Land by Jacqueline Druga brings you the fascinating tale of a man’s struggle for survival. When the news first came out, many, like Calvin and Leah, dismissed it as a rumour. The virus, they were told spread through saliva, sex and bite. Some suggested it was airborne. An infected person, when died turned into a Former or a Vee, as they were called. People were advised to stay in their houses. They were advised to stay alert. All this sounded more like a zombie movie – too scary to be true. Even the Government was in denial. The news didn’t tell them the whole story. It was better to do as they suggested in the TV. Probably it would pass soon.

That would prove to be a fatal mistake.

Calvin had envisioned his wife, Leah lying in a clean bed in a hospital, surrounded by their loved ones holding a beautiful baby in her hand. Instead, they found her giving birth to their child in a tool shed, surrounded by the dead. And he realized that Leah won’t be around much longer. There was a gaping wound in her arms that just won’t heal. She had been bitten.

Leah passed away while giving birth to their son, Edward as Calvin later named him. But it was not long before she rose again – this time, she was one of them.

“The world was hell, and I just allowed a baby to be born into it.”

Would he be able to protect the child – a completely defenceless little thing – from the world that had suddenly turned into a violent and hostile place for humans? But that, Calvin decided, was his first priority. It was a mandate to kill Leah, to damage her brain, in order to put an end to this. But it was not easy to plunge a knife into someone you’ve loved all your life.

Dead, alive, infected, whatever... she ws still my wife.

Till the end of No Man’s Land by Jacqueline Druga, the main protagonist, Calvin would be shadowed by this moral conflict. It was imperative that he killed her. Yet, a part of him refused to do it to whatever remained of his deceased wife. A part of him told him it was wrong. His helplessness here touched me more than anything else in his character. Afterwards he’d invite graver dangers with this indecisiveness.

He just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead he held the baby in his arms and waited for further developments.

All I could do was sit there shivering, holding the baby, hammer at my side, while I watched Leah and waited for her to attack.

But this couldn’t go on forever. He had to leave her, for the sake of the child. The child was now his first priority. He had to do everything in his ability to let it live. And he couldn’t do it sitting in the tool shed with Leah. He would take his backpack and get to the car. To his utter shock, Leah would follow them. She wouldn’t attack or anything. She would just follow, as if saying, “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”

Calvin couldn’t leave her behind. He had tied her wrists and covered her mouth with duct tape. He put her inside the car and drove away. He was looking for a sanctuary. There was news that there are virus free zones, heavily protected by military. If he could just reach one of those places, he and Edward would be safe. He drove along, occasionally stopping for supplies that were items primarily scavenged from abandoned buildings. On his way, he spotted a church with fence around it. There were people living. He asked for shelter. Pastor Jim said it was the house of God and said took him to a back room. But then as Calvin tried to wash the child, it broke into full-blown newborn screams. It was too dangerous, because the noise would possibly lead the Formers right into the Church. Pastor Jim asked Calvin to leave immediately. Calvin and Edward were back on the streets once again.

It was then when he met Mr. Mill who agreed to put him up for the night. At night, he was robbed by those men. Edward was taken away from him. This is when he met Hannah, who had rescued Edward. After some debates, Calvin reluctantly agreed to take Hannah along with him. They took shelter in the abandoned residence of Daniel and Jennifer Harvey. Well, it was not entirely abandoned, as they later found out. The corpse of Jennifer was lying in the front yard. But what laid there, was no Jennifer anymore.

Her fingers extended and her one eye moved. Her mouth opened and closed, biting at nothing.

Here in this building, they would meet an extremely aggressive predator. He was not a Former, but a living human being, whom they let in when he cried out for help. The most fearsome enemies of No Man’s Land by Jacqueline Druga, most ironically were fellow survivors, who took this crisis as an opportunity to loot and rape with impunity. Would they reach their destination - the Sanctuary City? Would Calvin be able to save his son? What would happen to Leah who, till now followed them everywhere they went? We moved on with the story looking for the answers, and in the end what we get are just not answers but deep revelations.

One particular aspect of this novel, that makes it stand out from a series of novels in this genre, is its unique story-telling. The characters of No Man’s Land by Jacqueline Druga have their strengths and weaknesses. Even the hero, Calvin is far from being perfect. Unlike the gun-toting, sweaty-faced muscleman that you usually find in those stereotypical zombie novels, Calvin is quite an ordinary person like you and me. He couldn’t handle guns and was often nervous in the face of danger. However, that didn’t make him less of a hero. In that way his character became more realistic. There is a plot-twist in the end that is going to turn all your calculations and predictions upside down. But of course, I am not going to tell you anything about it. You have to find that out yourself.

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Literature and Fiction Bookshelf

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
The Honorable Miss Moonlight by Onoto Watanna
The Leaving of Things by Jay Ananti
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Uneasy Money by P. G. Wodehouse

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A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman Book Review

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman is about a quiet, fiercely honest and hardworking man called Ove. He is helpful by nature. However he is often extremely judgemental and grumpy. That’s why when Sonja, a gorgeous girl, fell in love with Ove, it surprised everyone. Sonja was sweet and amiable. What did a girl like her could possibly see anything good in someone as ‘bitter’ and ‘unfriendly as Ove? They had absolutely nothing in common – they thought.

Back then, Ove was working in railways as a night cleaner. That day after his shift he was about to take the train back home. Then she saw her on the platform with all her rich auburn hair and her blue eyes and all her effervescent laughter. He got back on the train.

Of course he didn’t quite know himself why he was doing it. He had never been spontaneous before in his life. But when he saw her it was as if something malfunctioned.

So when she turned to him and said ‘hello’, this lonely, taciturn young man said ‘hello’ back. Ove realised that he wanted to hear her talking and that he wanted it for the rest of his life. She came on the train every day. After ten or twenty kilometres she changed to another train, then a bus. For Ove it was a one and a half hour journey in the wrong direction. But he did it – did it every single day after his shift, and then came back home by the same route. He was too quiet to invite her to dinner, so Sonja invited herself.

May be he didn’t write her poems or serenade her with songs or come home with expensive gifts. But no other boy had gone the wrong way on the train for hours every day just because he liked sitting next to her while she spoke.

Few knew this side of Ove. They hardly understood that beneath the layers of ruggedness there was a warm and compassionate man. A man who lived only for Sonja. She was his whole world. She had a way of holding Ove’s hand. She folded her index finger into his palm, hiding it inside. Every time she did it, Ove felt that nothing in the world was impossible. She understood him. She loved the man – not just the ardent lover within him – but also all the layers of his imperfections. And that was just perfect for Ove. That was all he wished for.

People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was colour. All the colour he had.

But his happiness didn’t last. Something happened. It shouldn’t have happened. Even when you knew it had already happened, while reading this book, you’d desperately wish with all your heart that it shouldn’t happen. But it did happen. Sonja lost a long battle with Cancer. The world around Ove crumbled and fell apart. All his fights, his dreams – they lost meaning. After all those years of happiness and bliss, Ove was lonely once again. But this time it was too much to bear.

Within six months of the funeral, Ove had prepared everything. He paid for his place next to Sonja in the churchyard. He had called the lawyer and had made his will. He had paid all the bills, cancelled newspaper subscriptions. He had paid up his loans.

Now he was ready.

He misses her so much that sometimes he can’t bear existing in his own body.

But somehow his repeated attempts to end his life were all foiled. He tried to hang himself and the rope snapped. He tried to kill himself on a railway track, ended up saving another man’s life. He tried to shoot himself, and there walked in a boy seeking for shelter. Besides, there was constant interference from his neighbours. Sometimes it was his wife’s best friend and neighbour Anita. Sometimes it was the new neighbours Parvaneh, Patrick and their children. Sometimes it was the journalist who wanted to interview him, because Ove saved that man on the railway station. Even the Cat Annoyance wouldn’t let him die in peace. Every time he wanted to take his life, something happened and his plans kept getting postponed.

Slowly his life was beginning to take a new turn. He realises,

Before Parvaneh and that Patrick reversed into his post box he could barely remember saying a word to another human being since Sonja died.

Despite himself, he became more and more involved with those people around him. He helped them, thinking Sonja would have approved that. He nursed a homeless cat, because Sonja would have liked that. A process of transformation started inside him, without his knowing or acknowledging it. Eventually he would decide to live.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman is among some of the books you shouldn’t miss reading in your lifetime. The kind of book that you read, not once, but several times, to assure yourself that as long as humanity survives, there will be hope, there will be love. Once you start reading, you’re under total grip of the story. A Man Called Ove makes you smile, makes you cry and then smile again. There’s little you can do to prevent that. It’s one of the best books that I read this year, and I hope you’ll enjoy it as well.

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Karachi Halwa by Prabhu Dayal Book Review

Book Review of Karachi Halwa by Prabhu Dayal

Karachi Halwa is the memoir of Mr. Prabhu Dayal from the time when he was serving as an Indian diplomat in Pakistan during 1982-85. It was when the country, well deviated from Jinnah’s liberal policies, was slowly sinking into a mire of religious bigotry and wholesale corruption. The book contains many personal observations about the political system and foreign policy of President Zia and also some of his suggestions on how the relationship between India and Pakistan could improve.

India had fought wars against Pakistan in 1948, 1965 and 1971 and had achieved decisive victory in all them. When the author was informed that his next posting would be in Karachi, he had every reason to believe that the people of Pakistan would be hostile. This however, turned out to be only partially true. The people, to whom Pakistan was hostile, as the book would gradually reveal, were its very citizens.

Though Karachi had ceased to be the capital of Pakistan since 1958, it remained a leading city throbbing with industrial activities. The greatest share of its population consists of Muhajirs. They are the people displaced from various parts of India during Partition and now settled in Pakistan. They have relatives and friends still living in India. They are also the ones who frequently visit India. 

Processing their visa requests was significant amount of work. Indian Embassy in Pakistan has therefore a high degree of relevance. They adopted a liberal policy towards Muhajirs. However, Pakistan Embassy in India was not so free about giving away visas. When a Pakistani diplomat was asked about these restrictions, he gave a strange reply.

Because these applicants will stay back in Pakistan and will not go back to India as economic conditions are better here.

The premise on which Pakistan was established was that the Muslims of Indian sub-continent should have a separate homeland to live. So there should not be any objection if some of these people settle in Pakistan. When Prabhu Dayal pointed that out, the diplomat responded rather gruffly:

Don’t expect anything from us if you don’t give us Kashmir.

This fixation on Kashmir was rather, manufactured – a political ruse often frequently used by unscrupulous and incompetent leaders to divert attention from the real issues. The Kashmir conflict is playing havoc with the economy of both the countries. A large portion of their resources are being held up either fuelling or mitigating conflicts. In this deal the bigger casualty are the Pakistanis.

Sadly, instead of addressing the country’s own serious problems such as sectarianism, civil strife and grinding poverty, its politicians and generals seem to be obsessed with Jammu and Kashmir.

In Karachi Halwa by Prabhu Dayal, we come across many famous personalities. President Zia was one of them. The incidents described in this book give us some insight into his Machiavellian schemes. Zia was desperate and hungry for power. But he never lost his head over it. He knew how to reach where he wanted to reach and planned accordingly.

He was commanding the 2^nd Strike Corps at Multan when he invited Prime Minister Bhutto for an official visit. As part of the preparations, he got his tailor to stitch a Ceremonial Military uniform for Bhutto.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was thrilled. Moreover, he was also made to climb into a tank and shoot a target. Bhutto was under the impression that he himself had shot the target, whereas it was another tank arranged by Zia that hit the mark. This however served the purpose. Bhutto’s mountainous ego was satisfied and it served the purpose it was intended to. A few months later Bhutto appointed Zia as Chief of Army Staff superseding as many as seven more senior officers.

It was a grave mistake. (Years later, Nawaz Sharif would repeat the same mistake.)

On 5^th July 1977, Zia staged a military coup against Bhutto and put Pakistan under his dictatorship. The coup was ironically called Operation Fair Play. Things began to take a slide immediately after he assumed power.

Zia disbanded the Parliament in 1979 and replaced it with the Majlis Shoora, which was merely a consultative council to advise him on the process of Islamisation.

The radicalization was however, started well before Zia. Bhutto had already banned the drinking or selling of alcohol by Muslims, (though that prevented neither the drinking nor the selling, especially among rich Muslims). He had also banned gambling and horse racing. When Zia came to power, he drove the last nail into Jinnah’s ideology of secularism. Quaid-e-Azam had repeatedly warned against letting religion interfere into politics. In defiance to these beliefs, Zia vowed to enforce Nizam-e-Mustafa, an Islamic system with Sharia Law. He declared:

"Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and will continue to survive only if it sticks to Islam. That is why I consider the introduction of an Islamic system as an essential pre-requisite for the country."

Moreover, he effectively crippled all the cultural activities. With The Motion Picture Ordinance (1979) he banned all Pakistani films that had been made in the previous three years. Severe restriction was placed on Pakistani filmmakers. People who came out to protest were roughed up by Zia. Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who was considered Pakistan’s greatest poet, raised his voice against oppression, for which he was imprisoned and detained a number of times. It is believed that because of the restrictions on freedom of expression, poets like Faiz and Ahmad Faraz had chosen to go into self-exile.

After facing a long trial, that many believed was more of a farce, Bhutto was hanged at Central Jail Rawalpindi, on 4^th April 1979. Much of the Muslim world was shocked at Bhutto’s execution. Before being hanged Bhutto’s last words were: “Oh Lord, help me for... I am innocent.” Sri Lanka’s then Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike appealed to let Bhutto leave, but she was turned down. She had even offered to host Bhutto in exile in Colombo. Later, when mangoes were sent to her from Pakistan Embassy, she refused to accept them saying,

“Thank you for sending me these mangoes on behalf of President Zia ul Haq. However, I cannot accept a gift from a person whose hands have the blood of Pakistan’s elected Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto on them.”

Not surprisingly though, Zia received overwhelming support from the U.S. The plight of the people of Pakistan under the dictatorship of Zia mattered little to the Reagan Administration as long as Zia remained loyal to America and aided it in its tussle against Russia.

Under Reagan, the US-Pak interaction grew by leaps and bounds, with the CIA and the ISI working closely together.

An aid of a $3.2 billion spread over six years was signed. Military aid flew to Pakistan as never before. Zia gave false assurance to the U.S. that these resources were not used in building nuclear arsenal. And the administration continued to certify that. However, it was later revealed that they were aware that Zia was lying to them. U.S. Intelligence agencies, remarked Prabhu Dayal in Karachi Halwa, had provided them with enough evidence. But perhaps, the U.S. was somehow assured that all the military power of Pakistan was aimed at India, whereas American diplomatic interests during that time were only in Afghanistan. If India and Pakistan nuked each other to dust, why should that bother the U.S.?

Now why does America’s policy on Pakistan fail to surprise me? Because history shows that as long as it benefitted them in some way, the U.S. had always chosen to put aside all ethics. The Batista Government backedby the U.S. was practically run by Havana Nocturne, the mobsters. In case of Pakistan it was the mullahs. How does it matter if the people of these countries bled to death?

In an article that appeared in Liberty Voice on 22^nd January, 2014, Iftikhar Tariq Khanzada had aptly summarized the situation in Pakistan:

The feudal-military-mullah nexus has ruled the country for the majority of its history. This is the main reason that democracy, which is flourishing across the border, has not been able to establish its credentials here. Over 60 percent of Pakistan’s GDP goes towards meeting its defence needs, consequently the overall economy suffers. Education in Pakistan has never been a priority with any government, so has been the case with social security and well-being of its citizens. Rampant inflation, unemployment, the daily deepening energy crises, unchecked corruption and the alarming, deteriorating law and order situation have made Pakistan a favourite recruiting ground plus a safe haven for terrorists from all over the world. It did not come as a surprise that Osama Bin Laden was found living in Abottabad Cantonment in the failed state of Pakistan.

When he said a failed state, there was little exaggeration. Pakistan had been unjustly robbed by its own leaders. They were the victims of a series of policy paralyses. They had been brainwashed into believing that India is the origin of all its problems and that if they could just snatch away Kashmir from India that would solve all those problems. Does that even sound reasonable? This is for the people of Pakistan to decide.

While Prabhu Dayal, in his book Karachi Halwa, admits that a quick turn-around in Indo-Pak relationship may be too high an expectation, he maintains that by adhering to certain policy guidelines, the relationship can definitely improve. He made some propositions in that order. They may not be much difficult to achieve either. In both the countries, valuable resources have been used up in strengthening the defence. The conflict demands constant attention which is too exhausting and futile. With some cooperation from both India and Pakistan, the problems can be sorted out by peaceful means.

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ISIS Sex Slavery by Nicolas Lucont Book Review

Book Review of ISIS Sex Slavery Interviews with the Sex Slaves and War Brides of ISIS Militants by Nicolas Lucont

ISIS Sex Slavery by Nicolas Lucont is a collection of interviews with the sex slaves and war brides of ISIS militants. Some of the chapters contain graphic details and incidents of violence that readers may find disturbing. The book however presents true, firsthand accounts from people who were once the victims. The sex slavery is just a part of it. There are reckless and brutal killing, gang rapes and other violent acts that are day-to-day affair in ISIS occupied places.

The book has two main divisions – the war brides and the sex slaves – and several chapters with the interviews and also brief introduction to the life and philosophy of ISIS militants. When the militants arrived at the village, recounts Mustafa, a young Iraqi refugee, he overheard them talking about killing all the men. But they were very short on bullets. So they decided to cut these men up at the carpenters’. They didn’t do the killing themselves. Instead they lined up the men and asked the carpenters to saw their heads off. Mustafa’s uncle, who was a carpenter, was forced to saw his brother’s head off. The militants asked some of the older kids to gather the heads and put them in large baskets.

Another boy caught my father’s head but I got him to give it to me. I cleaned the blood from his face and I combed his hair before placing it in the row of severed head.

When everything was done to their satisfaction, they killed the carpenters too. They didn’t use bullets. They just beat them on the heads with clubs until the skull collapsed and the blood and brains came out. Mustafa ran home to find his mother being raped by some ISIS militants. When they left, he went inside the house where his mother was curled up in the bed. She asked him to run to his grandmother’s house and stay there. Mustafa went there but found the house empty. So he ran back home to discover that her mother had killed herself.

I went to my uncle’s home. He was one of the carpenters that were clubbed to death. When I got there my aunt was being raped by ISIS men.

The ISIS fighters were rewarded with the freedom to rape whomever they desired when they were in the battlefields. Nicolas Lucont here discussed the condition of the brides of ISIS fighters. Most of them were quite enthusiastic about marrying a soldier. After marriage however their life was no different than the sex slaves. The fighters could abuse them as much as they desired. Marital rape was a concept unknown to them. The wives were often treated like animals.

Yet these women volunteered. They had to study Quran and pass religious tests in order to become eligible to be married to an ISIS jihadist. They were often trained to nurse war wounds and also to clean rifles and guns. Once married these women were forced to take birth control. Though the birth control pills are forbidden in Islam, the ISIS mullahs gave an edict to that order. By not having children, they said, the women were doing Allah’s wishes to have their husbands be on the battlefield. ISIS leadership believed that when a militant had children, he would want to settle down. He would work on a farm, start a business or something like that.

The way they saw it if the women had children, ISIS lost a soldier.

The process through which militants chose their wives was akin to purchasing cattle from the market. The women were lined up – naked – and the militants get to choose. Fadyaa, a young Muslim woman now living in Paris, said she was very excited to become wife of a holy warrior. She was shocked when the mullah asked her to take her burqua off.

The soldiers picked some of the pretty women and left. Then the women were asked to take their robes off. Another group of men walked in. The mullah took a wooden spoon and started to beat the bottom of the women.

The men then picked for wives the women who screamed and cried in a way that brought them pleasure. I was very loud when my bottom was beaten so I was picked up first.

Fadyaa was married to a soldier who beat her every day. He enjoyed hearing her scream and said she was his songbird.

The mullahs issued diktats that were often contradictory but convenient. They had reduced the institution of marriage to the level of prostitution. When their husband died, an ISIS wife was quickly assigned to marry another militant, and often without allowing the woman to mourn. Fairuzza, now in France, had been married four times in a year. When she went to the matron’s quarter, the same mullah’s that forced her to marry four times threw her out. After four men, you weren’t good for any man anymore, she was told.

Most of these interviews revealed the gruesomeness of daily life of ISIS militants. Yemina, whose husband had the hobby of collecting skull, had to clean the human skulls on regular basis. This ISIS fighter had skulls all over the house, for decorations.

My favourite piece was the skull tower. At the bottom we had the biggest skull, then followed by a smaller skull on top and so on until you get to a child’s skull, then a toddler skull, then a baby skull, then finally a fetus skull on top.

Then there was Malika, a young ISIS wife, who was given by his husband to young men whom he would trick to come to his home. A cleric gave him a written fatwa that since he had given his body to fight for Allah, in order to do the duties of a married man, he could use another good man who believe in jihad to serve in his place in the bedroom. That he could let get other man have sex with his wife. He would put this fatwa in display in his room. This made the men interested.

He would dope them and then make them have sex with Malika. Then he would show them another fatwa that he got from his cleric that said that if he ever caught a man having sex with his wife, he was obliged to beat and torture him. So he would beat and torture them in the basement for days, for his own sadistic pleasure.

We never got into any trouble because we had fatwas covering all the angles and because my husband was a very important man in ISIS.

Even later when word got around about the routine, men and boys, hoping that he’d invite to his house, started to visit places where her husband hung out.

They were so eager to lose their virginity with a woman instead of a goat that they volunteered even knowing they would be tortured half to death.

It was the Yazidi women who were the prime victims of ISIS Sex Slavery. It is believed that Yazidi women are generally attractive. In 2014, ISIS mullahs gave permission to jihadists to kill Yazidi men and enslave the Yazidi women.

... many of the Yazidi women are strikingly beautiful and that’s the major reason the Yazidi were targeted for sexual slavery.

Some of the Yazidi women interviewed in this book were betrayed by their Muslim neighbours. Matin, a young Yazidi boy told about one Mr. Hashem, their neighbour who betrayed them to ISIS fighters just to be allowed to rape Matin’s 16 year old sister.

For his help he was going to get a big screen TV one of our Yazidi neighbours owned, my Xbox and all my games, and he would get to rape my sister.

But the ISIS men thought that Bada, as a virgin, would bring good money if they sold her as a slave. So they took her. But instead of shooting Matin’s mother, they were going to let her live so that Mr. Hashem could get a chance to rape her before they killed her.

There were love camps but they were not like the comfort camps run by Japanese soldiers during the world war. There was, says Nicolas Lucont, no love in these camps. Here women were trained to become sex slaves of rich businessmen or sheikhs. Katya, a Russian born woman was in charge of Eva Love Camp that was quite famous. Luna, a Yazidi woman was thus trained and afterwards sold to a businessman from Iraq, Mr. Zahadi. He already had two other love slaves. He didn’t have sex with them. Instead he watched them round-the-clock through peepholes strategically placed at various locations in his house. These maid-cum-slaves also had to entertain rich and powerful people who often visited Zahadi. One such important guest was Admiral McConrad, an American. Somehow Luna hoped that this man would save her, liberate her from her slavery.

Later when she was shamed and humiliated by this man who used her body in every way for his own sadistic pleasure, she became disillusioned. He was like all other men - she concluded. When they find out they can get away with rape, they happily joined in.

 The most heinous war crimes that are committed by ISIS Fighters are probably done against these Yazidis. The last few chapters were about Yazidi women. This is also the part of ISIS Sex Slavery: Interviews with the Sex Slaves and War Brides of ISIS Militants by Nicolas Lucont that’s the most difficult to go through. There are also instances where brave Yazidi women escaped the slavery and took refuge in other countries. There are women who took up arms against the ISIS atrocities. Most of them were either witnesses to the barbarism or were victims themselves. If you are one of the sensitive sort, you should not read this book. There is too much to challenge our sanity and endurance. This book can move you to tears; shock you beyond your wildest imaginations. Yet it all happened on the same earth where we live.

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I am Vidya: A Transgender's Journey by Living Smile Vidya

Book Review of I am Vidya by Living Smile Vidya

I am Vidya: A Transgender’s Journey by Living Smile Vidya is the story of a woman born in the body of a man. The stereotypical male-female categories in which we divided our society often show not our knowledge of human sexuality, but the lack of it. Call it a glitch in our mental process, but so far we have showed our demerits in defining ‘nature’ only through the scratchy glass of that wisdom. And we denied anything that doesn’t confirm our pet wisdom. The third gender is one such case. What we achieved with this denial is a stark social disparity, that we conveniently assume, doesn’t exist.

In a family with a crushing poverty, birth of a boy is a thing most longed for. Ramaswami shaved his head in pious offering at the Vayalur Murugan temple in Tiruchi and promised Lord Muruga that if he was blessed with a son this time, he’ll name the boy after the Lord. So when on 25^th March, 1982, the newborn child was named Saravanan which is one of the many names of the Lord. He was looked upon as a saviour. He was showered with affection and benevolence. Great care was taken to ensure that he studied well. The father worked as a sweeper and struggled to make ends meet. The mother and the daughters laboured at home. Yet the boy was shielded from all this drudgery, so that he could study. He did what he was expected to do, and did it quite well.

Little did the family know about the conflict that had already taken its root in the boy. Saravanan liked to dance and sing like the ladies he watched on television. He loved the way they wore their dresses. He wanted to try them himself. He loved to wear his sister’s skirts, bindis and bangles. He liked to wear them and dance. When no one was around, he did exactly that. He liked to think himself more as a girl. He liked to wrap a towel around his head and pretend it was his long hair. But all this was fraught with risk – the risk of being found out.

Sometimes, Radha or Uncle knocked at the door while I was still dancing. I then took off my sari in a flash and rushed breathlessly to open the door.

When the family come to know about this habit, they didn’t take it seriously. However the woman inside Saravanan tried to assert herself time and again. When this became somewhat conspicuous, he was ridiculed and teased for her effeminate ways. The conflict became more pronounced as he grew older.

I was a girl. Unfortunately, the world saw me as a boy. Inwardly I wanted to be a girl, by I made every effort possible to hide my feminity from the outside world.

The conflict tore him apart. It was like living the life of another person. Then Saravanan met Senthil, another transgender like himself. Senthil told him about an NGO where Saravanan later became a regular. There were others like him. Meeting them, talking to them proved to be liberating. Thus began his long arduous journey that finally ended his transforming into Vidya.

Reading the biography I am Vidya by Living Smile Vidya was a remarkable experience. But even that was an understatement. It was rather, enlightening, life-changing sort of experience. There is our world and then there is their world. These two worlds seldom intersected, but not without conflict, aggression or some sort of revulsion on our part. Perhaps we secretly do acknowledge them, and wish their path never crosses ours.

This book tells us about many things about the transgender community that most of us never knew. We often see transgender begging in trains, traffic signals. May be we think they are slackers and despise them for that. We want them to do something more meaningful – like a job or something. We want them to stop begging, stop clapping, because it’s just too annoying. Don’t think it is easy for them either.

For the first fifteen days of my begging career, my extreme diffidence made it difficult for me to put my hand out in supplication – especially for alms. Shame, fear, ego, my education, memories of awards and rewards and God knows what else made me pull back every time I tried.

The truth is, in the world of transgender, there are only two sources of income – begging or sex work. Then there is the humiliation and insult that shadow their every move. The government doesn’t acknowledge them. They don’t have a ration card or a voter card. They don’t get protection from police when they are assaulted. When they try to sell things on a train, the same people who used to give them alms, look away. Our world has absolutely no business if they survive or die. They didn’t choose the life of beggars. We forced it upon them.

The objective of I am Vidya: A Transgender’s Journey, however is not to arouse compassion. No, pitying them is the last thing they want you to do for them. What they want you is just to acknowledge them as they are.

My expectations were simple: I wanted to live a normal life like all men and women. My being a tirunangai was natural, just as men are men, women are women, and cats are cats. Trouble arises when people do not understand this simple truth.

In our country, minorities have rights. So do the backward castes. They can earn their livelihood. The fact that even transgender are human beings like us, had escaped our mind. That they are the citizens of this country as much as we are, had never occurred to us.

Perhaps after reading I am Vidya by Living Smile Vidya, one will be able to see things in a different light.

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Havana Nocturne by T. J. English Book Review

Book Review of Havana Nocturne How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It To The Revolution by T. J. English

Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution by T. J. English is a true account of taking over of Cuba by Havana Mob during the presidency of Fulgencio Batista. This was the time when Havana saw a staggering growth and development. Casinos, nightclubs, tourist resorts, and highways were constructed. Prostitution became rampant. During Prohibition, the flashy nightlife of Havana lured foreign investors and the economy exploded. However, the manufacturer of this new wave of development was Havana Mob. The country’s vital resources – sugar, oil, agriculture, refineries, and forestry – all were opened up to the world for exploitation. The massive yield was pocketed by a handful of people with dubious reputation. The outright looting of public by a government, which worked hand in glove with the gangsters, gradually set the stage for revolution.

When Charlie Lucky Luciano reunited with his old buddy Meyer Lansky, they already had a magnificent plan to establish a business empire in Cuba. Lansky, the more level-headed between the two, was a pupil of Arnold Rothstein, a criminal genius. Rothstein was the underworld’s central banking system. The shrewd gangster incorporated style in his work. He had a full-proof system to take in illegal money and then invest that money to produce more illegal money. He was so sophisticated and well-connected that despite being a stock swindler and con man of the highest order, he was never convicted of committing a single crime. Meyer Wolfsheim, the gangster immortalized in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece The Great Gatsby, was inspired by Arnold Rothstein.

It was from Rothstein that Meyer learned the most valuable lesson – it was important to bribe and cultivate the political powerhouse to stay in business – a lesson that he would later fine-tune and implement in Cuba.

In some quarters it was referred to as “the fix,” in others “the share-out”: a series of payoffs to high-ranking law enforcement officials and selected government legislators that made it possible for Lansky and his people to operate without undue harassment.”

Anything over the handle – the amount required to meet daily expenses in the business – went to the partners. Most of this extra money went to the fix.

All the muscle-power was provided by President Batista who was also supported by the then U. S. Government for its own reasons. 

The Platt Amendment was replaced by the “Good Neighbour” policy, which guaranteed Batista U.S. financial support as long as he continued to help make it possible for corporations such as United Fruit to garner huge profits on the island.

The political scenario is well documented in Havana Nocturne by T. J. English. The Great Depression, the Prohibition, and the World War – all had their roles in it. The relationship between the Havana Mob and Batista was hidden from scrutiny with much sophistication. Both Lansky and Batista knew what they want from the deal. There was no photo of Lansky and Batista together on record. There was no document that was signed jointly by them. The two men hardly met each other personally, yet they made each other filthy rich.

Batista earned millions through kickbacks, graft and fraudulent government contracts. Over the years he put the money aside in his offshore accounts. T. J. English remarked:

It is estimated that Batista plundered Cuba to the tune of three hundred million dollars.

However a portion of that money he had kept in Cuban bank. Before he could transfer it, it was seized by the revolutionaries. This money – no less than twenty million – was later used to help stabilise the new government.

The names of notorious gangsters like Alphonse “Big Al” Capone, Joe Stassi, Santo Trafficante, Albert Anastasia and many others came up as historical references. But that was only a part of Havana Nocturne. T. J. English didn’t spare anyone who was even remotely linked with the mob. Trafficante once told Frank Ragano that a senator from Massachusetts, who had a yen for the ladies, was about to visit him and Santo was to arrange a private sex party for him. The senator was J F Kennedy.

The mobster arranged for Kennedy to spend an afternoon with “three gorgeous prostitutes.”

The senator didn’t know that Trafficante and Garcia watched his tryst from another room through a two-way camera. Later Trafficante would express his frustration for having missed the opportunity to secretly film Kennedy’s dalliance. He would be disillusioned by the senator whose policies would weigh heavily on the Havana Mob.

The Mafia always had a keen interest in the entertainment industry, especially in Hollywood. T. J. English named most of the singers and movie stars who frequented Havana during this period. The famous singer Frank Sinatra’s nexus with the underworld also found mention in Havana Nocturne. Frank’s patron Willie Moretti was the influential bookmaker, extortionist and killer. Sinatra’s friend and fellow crooner Eddie Fisher once said about him:

“Frank wanted to be a hood. He once said, I’d rather be a don of the Mafia than President of the United States.’

By the mid-1950s, Hemingway became famous in Cuba. The Old Man and the Sea – a book that brought him the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 - was set in the fishing village of Cojimar, outside Havana. He dedicated his book to the people of Cojimar. Hemingway was a frequenter in Havana and even bought a home outside the city.

When the gambling business in Havana was in its peak, and its prime beneficiaries – the Mafia and the Batista government – were being literally flooded with cash, there came the most devastating blow – Fidel Castro. The revolution led by Castro, his brother Raul and the famous Che Guevara would sound the death knell for Havana Mob. In his Sierra Manifesto, Castro declared that the casinos were among the various targets of revolution.

... after Batista was overthrown and a revolutionary government was installed,  gambling and corruption would be eradicated.

This practically rocked the Havana Mob to its foundation. It did sound like war. Afterwards when Batista fled from Havana, the revolutionaries would materialise Castro’s words.  The revolution would later bulldoze the casinos and anything that symbolised Batista Government, to dust. The mafia bosses would be arrested frequently. Soon it would be too hot for them to stay in Cuba. Thus the reign of Havana Nocturne would end.

T. J. English is an Irish-American author and journalist who had penned many non-fiction books. He is mostly known for his seminal works on organized crime. Havana Nocturne: : How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution is his masterpiece. The book is well-researched, though it hardly reads like a non-fiction. It reveals many shocking details, and names many famous persons. It is a seminal work on Cuban revolution and the Havana Mob.

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Pachinko by Min Jin Lee Book Review

Book Review of Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

The story of Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is written against the backdrop of Japanese occupied colony of Korea. It begins on a small fishing village called Yeongdo in Busan, Korea where an ageing fisherman, his wife and their only son Hoonie ran a small boarding house. Hoonie was born with a cleft palate and a twisted foot. In 1910, Japan annexed Korea. The life of this small family became inseparably connected to the fate of the country. The story spreads across 5 generations that survived over 8 decades and in 3 different countries.

Shortly after the colonisation, the Imperial Government developed a system of methodical exploitation. Taxes were raised, freedom of speech curbed and any form of protest was ruthlessly suppressed.  Many landowners and farmers were forced to give up their lands. Many were reduced to penury. Hoonie, his wife Yangjin and their daughter Sunja tried their best to survive in their boardinghouse where most of the lodgers were poor fishermen. After Hoonie died of tuberculosis, the mother and the daughter continued the business. During this time, Sunja got involved with, Hansu – a yakuza, a gangster, who impregnated her, but refused to marry her, saying that he already had a wife and three daughters.

When pastor Baek Isak, arrived at the boardinghouse, he was suffering from tuberculosis. Yangjin and her daughter nursed him for days. During his stay, Isak came to know about Sunja’s pregnancy and offered to marry her. To this Sunja agreed. After they were married they left for Osaka. Here in Ikaino there was a ghetto where Koreans lived. Isak’s brother, Yoseb and his wife lived there. When Sunja met Yoseb’s wife Kyunghee and they became friends instantly. This precious friendship would last till the end. 

Yoseb worked as a foreman in a factory run by a Japanese. The wage was not enough to survive in Osaka. He did some odd machine-repairing for some extra cash. Isak joined as an assistant pastor in a church. There he met Pastor Yoo, who in his apt words described the deplorable conditions of immigrant Koreans in Japan,

No one will rent to the Koreans. As a pastor, you’ll get a chance to see how the Koreans live here. You can’t imagine: a dozen in a room that should be for two, men and families sleeping in shifts. Pigs and chickens inside homes. No running water. No heat. The Japanese think Koreans are filthy, but they have no choice but to live in squalor. I’ve seen aristocrats from Seoul reduced to nothing, with no money for bathhouses, wearing rags for clothing, shoeless, and unable to get work as porters in markets.

As the story moves on readers get glimpses of Korea’s colonial past through chinks and gaps of the plot. When we were told about racial discrimination and genocide we are reminded of a little book called MeinKampf and a stocky little man with toothbrush moustache. The images of concentration camps and ghettos prop up.  But there are other, more silent forms of torture and racial discrimination. There are very few races in this world that don’t have a bloodstained past of racism.

The Koreans immigrants in Japan had to take Japanese names. There was a visible disparity between the quality of education that a Korean received compared to that received by the Japanese. Public schools were practically closed for Koreans. Attempts were being made to crush Korean culture. The village teachers in Korea were forced out of jobs. The Koreans were assessed egregiously by the Japanese government and when they were unable to pay this exorbitant tax, their lands were confiscated. All this led to the revolt of March 1, 1919, and to quell the crowd Japanese officials called its military forces. Several thousands were massacred by them.

Yoseb had been an witness to all that. He had warned Isak,

Don’t get mixed up in politics, labor organizing, or any such nonsense. Keep your head down and work. Don’t pick up or accept any of the independence-movement or socialist tracts. If the police find that stuff on you, you’ll get picked up and put in jail.

Isak respected and loved his brother. Isak listened to his advice. Still he was picked up by the police, along with Pastor Yoo and Hu. By then, Sunja had already given birth her two sons – Noa and Mozasu. Noa was the son of Hansu and Mozasu of Isak. The arrest had a devastating effect on the family, particularly on Yoseb. Sunja and Kyunghee started peddling foods. Later, when they were given jobs in a local restaurant, their hardship lessened a bit. Noa proved to be an attentive student. Isak was freed, but Sunja found him in a condition that was more painful than death. Sunja had prepared herself for the worst.

The elders in her church had warned her that the Korean prisoners were usually sent home just as they were about to die, so that they would not die in jail. The prisoners were beaten, starved and made to go without clothing to weaken them.

Yoseb was inconsolable. Isak’s death was slow and painful. Noa still knew Isak was his father. His death was a terrible shock for Noa. It changed him. He lost his faith in God. But probably, that was not the worst.

Above all the other secrets that Noa could not speak of, the boy wanted to be Japanese; it was his dream to leave Ikaino and never to return.

In the face of social ostracism and economic exploitation, the family found itself slowly gravitating to the Pachinko business. Pachinko is a Japanese version of pinball game. Though gambling was illegal in Japan, this game was not officially considered gambling. When the player sends a ball to a particular hole, a jackpot is activated. The player is rewarded with more balls. In the end the balls can be taken to counters and exchanged for cash. In Japan, it is often associated with a shady business style and the owners are called yakuza.

Pachinko by  Min Jin Lee is as much about cruelty and discrimination as it is about humanity and forgiveness. This book is great, not only as a historical fiction, but also because of its literary value. It is something that you read over and over again, and every time you read it, it makes you bit different than what you were. Yes, it has the potential to change one’s of life.

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