എം.ടി.വാസുദേവന്‍ നായര്‍ക്ക് നന്ദി.
ഏതാണ്ട് ഇരുപത് വര്‍ഷങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് മുന്‍പ് ,താഴെ സൂചിപ്പിച്ച പുസ്തകത്തെ സംബന്ധിച്ച് ,(പ്രത്യേകിച്ച്ജവഹര്‍ലാല്‍ നെഹറു-ലേഡി മൌണ്ട് ബാറ്റന്‍ കഥ)താങ്കള്‍ എഴുതിയ ഒരു ലേഖനം ,ഈ സന്ദര്‍ഭത്തില്‍ ഓര്‍ക്കുന്നു.
ഒപ്പം,വായനയില്‍ മുന്‍പന്‍ അഴീക്കോട്''എന്ന പരാമര്‍ശം ,പരിഷ്കരിച്ച്''വായനയില്‍ സുകുമാര്‍ അഴീക്കോടും,എം.ടിയും മുന്‍പന്മാര്‍''
അഴീക്കോട് എന്‍റെ ഗുരുനാഥനെങ്കില്‍ ,എം.ടി.സാഹിത്യ ലോകത്ത് വെളിച്ചം പകര്‍ന്ന വഴി വിളക്ക്''
കെ.എം.രാധ
"Indian Summer"
Alex von Tunzelmann was educated at Oxford and lives in London.
She applied the Page 69 Test to her first book, Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire, and reported the following:
Indian Summer is the story of the end of the British Empire in India, told through the lives of the people at the center of events, and through their relationships with each other. The most dramatic of these are the enmity between independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru and Muslim figurehead Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the conspiratorial alliance between Jinnah and Winston Churchill, and the love affair between Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten, the wife of the last viceroy of India. Page 69 details a relationship of paramount importance, but a lower profile: the close friendship between Nehru and the icon of independence, Mohandas K. Gandhi.
On the face of it, the two men were profoundly different. Gandhi was principally a spiritual leader, who believed in returning India to a ‘golden age’ of feudal purity. Nehru was emphatically anti-religion, and hoped to move India into a future of socialism and industrialization. Page 69 brings up a more minor difference: their attitudes to sex. Gandhi saw sex as sinful and had become celibate. Nehru replied that such prohibition “can only lead to frustration, inhibition, neurosis, and all manner of physical and nervous ills.” The two men rarely held back from heated argument with each other, but the bond between them only got stronger.
There is a hint about why this might have been on this same page. Gandhi was twenty years older than Nehru. He had four sons, but had not found any political heir among them. On page 69, there is a sad story about how one son, Manilal, fell in love with a Muslim woman, provoking the wrath of his Hindu father. “Your desire is against your religion,” Gandhi wrote. “It would be like putting two swords in one scabbard.” Gandhi’s troubled relationships with his biological family contrast with the far closer connection to Nehru. That connection, I conclude, worked on an emotional and a practical level: “Gandhi needed a link to the temporal world; Nehru needed a guru.”
It’s a sidelight on the book’s main theme, but a revealing one. If you’re looking for an intimate story of how the ties between a handful of people can bring down a mighty empire, read on.
Indian Summer - Alex von TunzelmannSee larger image
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Indian Summer
The Secret History of the End of an Empire
Alex von Tunzelmann
ഏതാണ്ട് ഇരുപത് വര്‍ഷങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് മുന്‍പ് ,താഴെ സൂചിപ്പിച്ച പുസ്തകത്തെ സംബന്ധിച്ച് ,(പ്രത്യേകിച്ച്ജവഹര്‍ലാല്‍ നെഹറു-ലേഡി മൌണ്ട് ബാറ്റന്‍ കഥ)താങ്കള്‍ എഴുതിയ ഒരു ലേഖനം ,ഈ സന്ദര്‍ഭത്തില്‍ ഓര്‍ക്കുന്നു.
ഒപ്പം,വായനയില്‍ മുന്‍പന്‍ അഴീക്കോട്''എന്ന പരാമര്‍ശം ,പരിഷ്കരിച്ച്''വായനയില്‍ സുകുമാര്‍ അഴീക്കോടും,എം.ടിയും മുന്‍പന്മാര്‍''
അഴീക്കോട് എന്‍റെ ഗുരുനാഥനെങ്കില്‍ ,എം.ടി.സാഹിത്യ ലോകത്ത് വെളിച്ചം പകര്‍ന്ന വഴി വിളക്ക്''
കെ.എം.രാധ
"Indian Summer"
Alex von Tunzelmann was educated at Oxford and lives in London.
She applied the Page 69 Test to her first book, Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire, and reported the following:
Indian Summer is the story of the end of the British Empire in India, told through the lives of the people at the center of events, and through their relationships with each other. The most dramatic of these are the enmity between independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru and Muslim figurehead Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the conspiratorial alliance between Jinnah and Winston Churchill, and the love affair between Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten, the wife of the last viceroy of India. Page 69 details a relationship of paramount importance, but a lower profile: the close friendship between Nehru and the icon of independence, Mohandas K. Gandhi.
On the face of it, the two men were profoundly different. Gandhi was principally a spiritual leader, who believed in returning India to a ‘golden age’ of feudal purity. Nehru was emphatically anti-religion, and hoped to move India into a future of socialism and industrialization. Page 69 brings up a more minor difference: their attitudes to sex. Gandhi saw sex as sinful and had become celibate. Nehru replied that such prohibition “can only lead to frustration, inhibition, neurosis, and all manner of physical and nervous ills.” The two men rarely held back from heated argument with each other, but the bond between them only got stronger.
There is a hint about why this might have been on this same page. Gandhi was twenty years older than Nehru. He had four sons, but had not found any political heir among them. On page 69, there is a sad story about how one son, Manilal, fell in love with a Muslim woman, provoking the wrath of his Hindu father. “Your desire is against your religion,” Gandhi wrote. “It would be like putting two swords in one scabbard.” Gandhi’s troubled relationships with his biological family contrast with the far closer connection to Nehru. That connection, I conclude, worked on an emotional and a practical level: “Gandhi needed a link to the temporal world; Nehru needed a guru.”
It’s a sidelight on the book’s main theme, but a revealing one. If you’re looking for an intimate story of how the ties between a handful of people can bring down a mighty empire, read on.
Indian Summer - Alex von TunzelmannSee larger image
See Hi-Res Jpeg image
email/print
Indian Summer
The Secret History of the End of an Empire
Alex von Tunzelmann
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