Book watch

To health the Indian way

DORLING KINDERSLEY, a quarter-of-a-century-old name associated worldwide with practical information books, is back in India under the ever-growing Pearson group. Though DK has had a presence here for a while, this year's Valentine's Day saw the re-launch of its trade operations in India under the better known Penguin India banner.

And, DK's return was announced with an elaborately put together illustrated guide on yoga by Yogacharya B. K. S. Iyengar. Packed with 1,900 colour photographs, including "innovative 360 degree views of yoga asanas", the 400-odd - page book provides step-by- step sequences to the asanas with detailed instructions. Also thrown in is a 20-week yoga course.

But it is not just a how-to-do-it book. Before getting into the basics, Yogacharya Iyengar explains the aims and meaning of yoga, its philosophy, and the relationship between the guru and the yogi.

Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health, B. K. S. Iyengar, Dorling Kindersley, œ25, special Indian price œ18.

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Action replay

ONLY the language nature used to articulate its anger was different. Otherwise, any number of stark parallels can be drawn between the super-cyclone that all but washed parts of Orissa off the map in October 1999 and the earthquake that rocked Gujarat a little over a month ago.

The insensitivity and inability of the system to deliver as witnessed in Orissa during the cyclone was replayed - almost to precision - in Gujarat and the message was out loud and clear: The Indian system had learnt nothing from its mistakes in Orissa. This is the submission journalist Ruben Banerjee makes in his chronicle The Orissa Tragedy: A Cyclone of Calamity.

While few would have contested Banerjee's conclusion - based on his ringside view of the cyclone and the subsequent mismanagement of the situation - the quake in Gujarat has given him enough reason to rest his case. Not that he was looking for any evidence, going by the not-so-dispassionate account of Orissa in the year since the coastal districts of the State came in the eye of the storm.

Beginning with a description of the manner in which Orissa Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang closetted himself with astrologers to find out whether the storm brewing in the Bay of Bengal would pass his State by, Banerjee goes on to describe the dance of anarchy in the days after, and place on record the continuing vulnerability of the cyclone-struck areas.

The Orissa Tragedy: A Cyclone's Year of Tragedy, Ruben Banerjee, Books Today, Rs. 225.

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Fill in the blanks

SNATCHES of Sikh history - till date trapped in Persian sources - are now accessible to scholars and historians alike; courtesy the decision of the 60th Indian History Congress to put together "a collection of accurate translations of major Persian sources of Sikh history, down to 1765, when Sikh dominance over the Punjab came to be firmly established".

Edited by the Director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, J. S. Grewal, and fellow historian from Aligarh Muslim University, Irfan Habib, the book has been published with financial support from the Department of Culture of the Union Government, and the Anandpur Sahib Foundation.

While Grewal steered the project, translations were mainly done by Irfan Habib along with scholars associated with the Aligarh Historians Society. A part of the research and publication programmes of the Indian History Congress to commemorate the tercentenary of the Khalsa, these translations, it is hoped, will supplement the information preserved in the Gurumukhi traditions.

Still, by the translators' own admission, the book does not include everything written in Persian about the Sikhs before 1765. And even in the parts translated, some derogatory references to the Gurus and the community have been left out. But, keen as those in charge of this project were to ensure that the interests of history prevailed, these references have been brought to notice even in absentia with an asterisk.

Sikh History from Persian Sources, edited by J. S. Grewal and Irfan Habib, Tulika, Rs. 200.

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Maratha valour

SHIVAJI might be the best known Maratha warrior, but that can in no way rob the other brave son of the same soil, Peshwa Baji Rao, of his place in the sun. And giving him his due is E. Jaiwant Paul whose book on this warrior Peshwa is part of Roli's Lotus Collection.

Obviously in awe of Peshwa Baji Rao, the author hails him as the man who changed the map of India in the 18th Century and "transformed the Maratha nation state into an empire". Of the view that an untimely death stopped him from holding sway over the Indus, Paul's book is a narration of the battles on land and sea, and the backroom intrigue that was a staple of India those days.

And since the ascendancy of Peshwa Baji Rao coincides with the decline of the Mughal Empire and the consequent emergence of a number of pockets of strength, Paul's narrative naturally weaves in other historic figures. Woven in are life sketches of the founder of the Hyderabad State, Nizam-ul-Mulk; Sawai Jai Singh of Jaipur; and the daredevil Maratha admiral, Kanhoji Angre whose descendent, Sambhajirao Angre, is currently in the news over yet another battle royale.

Baji Rao: The Warrior Peshwa,

E. Jaiwant Paul, Roli Books, Rs. 275.

ANITA JOSHUA

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