Absolutely nostalgic … This is the precious picture of ‘BRIGHTWELL BUNGALOW SHILLONG’ which used to be our house in Shillong, now Meghalaya. I have myriads of smashing memories coming out of it, and some are quintessential … and par-excellence. I was schooling in St. Edmunds and running-riot in Brightwell Bungalow all my childhood. If you look beyond the bungalow there is a foothill. In the night many Malis, wood cutters while coming down the hill and the steep links used to sing in high-pitch, which I could hear from my room. They were mostly the daring and undeterred Biharis who often encountered wolf and jackals on their way down, just like pets. The morning sun was something to talk about. It used to enter the bungalow surreptitiously through the chinks in the curtains. Upon venturing out early in the morning, one could get to see the thick carpet of frost sprawled all over the lawns, sparkling as pearls. The sunset was early … Shillong being east, and it was over the straight line of the Lady-Haidari Park (picture above) that the sun sank into the yonder horizon. As time draws one can only reflect on memories that gave you flourish in life even if it was for some moments. Long live BRIGHTWELL BUNGALOW … long live Shillong.
Shravan Charity Mission is an NGO that works for poor children suffering from life threatening diseases especially cancer. Our posts are meant for our readers that includes both children and adults and it has a huge variety in terms of content. We also accept donations for our mission. Should you wish to donate for the cause. The bank details are given below:
NAME OF ACCOUNT: SHRAVAN CHARITY MISSION
Account no: 680510110004635 (BANK OF INDIA)
IFSC code: BKID0006805
*
Our publications
GLOOM BEHIND THE SMILE
(The book is about a young cancer patient. Now archived in 8 prestigious libraries of the US that includes Harvard College Library; Harvard University Library; Library of Congress; University of Washington, Seattle; University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Yale University, New Haven; University of Chicago; University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill University Libraries. It can also be accessed in MIT through Worldcat.org. Besides, it is also available for reading in libraries and archives of Canada, Cancer Aid and Research Foundation Mumbai and Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida, India)
ONE TO TANGO … RIA’S ODYSSEY
(Is a book on ‘singlehood’ about a Delhi girl now archived in Connemara Library, Chennai and Delhi Public Library, GOI, Ministry of Culture, Delhi; Available for reading in Indian National Bibliography, March 2016, in the literature section, in Central Reference Library, Ministry of Culture, India, Belvedere, Kolkata-700022)
AADAB LUCKNOW … FOND MEMORIES
(Is a fiction written around the great city of Nawabs—Lucknow. It describes Lucknow in great detail and also talks about its Hindu-Muslim amity. That happens to be the undying characteristics of Lucknow. The book was launched in Lucknow International Literary Festival of 2014. It is included for reading in Askews and Holts Library Services, Lancashire, U.K.)
REFRACTIONS … FROM THE PRISM OF GOD
(Co-published by Cankids–Kidscan, a pan India NGO and Shravan Charity Mission, that works for Child cancer in India. The book is endorsed by Ms Preetha Reddy, MD Apollo Hospitals Group. It was launched in Lucknow International Literary Festival 2016)
TYPICAL TALE OF AN INDIAN SALESMAN
(Is a story of an Indian salesman who is, humbly qualified. Yet he fights his ways through unceasing uncertainties to reach the top. A good read not only for salesmen. The book was launched on 10th February, 2018 in Gorakhpur Lit-Fest. Now available in Amazon, Flipkart and Onlinegatha)
RHYTHM … in poems
(Published in January 2019. The book contains 50 poems. The poems describe our day to day life. The book is available in Amazon, Flipkart and Onlinegatha)
MIRAGE
(Published in February 2020. The book is a collection of eight short stories available in Amazon, Flipkart and Notion Press)
Short stories and Articles published in Bhavan’s Journal: Reality and Perception, 15.10.19; Sending the Wrong Message, 31.5.20; Eagle versus Scholars June, 15 & 20 2020; Indica, 15.8.20; The Story of King Chitraketu, August 31 2020; Breaking Through the Chakravyuh, September 30 2020. The Questioning Spouse, October 31, 2020; Happy Days, November 15, 2020; The Karma Cycle of Paddy and Wheat, December 15,2020;
(ALL THE ABOVE TITLES ARE AVAILABLE FOR SALE IN AMAZON, FLIPKART AND OTHER ONLINE STORES OR YOU COULD EVEN WRITE TO US FOR A COPY)
This is only an attempt to create interest in reading. We may not get the time to read all the books in our lifetime. But such reviews, talk and synopsis will at least convey what the book is all about.
Wolf Totem is a 2004 Chinese semi-auto-biographical novel by Chinese author Lu Jiamin who wrote the book under the pseudonym Jiang Rong. The book was published in 2004 in China and since, has been translated into 30 languages. The author’s true identity did not become public until several years after the book’s publication. He has used auto fiction techniques that merges the auto-biographical and fictive elements of the story. It is about the experiences of a young student from Beijing who is sent to the countryside of Inner Mongolia, which is a Mongolic autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China. Its border includes, most of the length of China’s border with the country of Mongolia. The young student is sent there in 1967, at the height of China’s Cultural Revolution. Also referred as, ‘The Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement, often simply known as the Down to the Countryside Movement, was a policy instituted by the People’s Republic of China in the late 1960s and early 1970s. An offshoot of the pro-bourgeois thinking prevalent during the Cultural Revolution in China, in which, Chairman Mao Zedong had declared that certain privileged urban youth, would be sent to the mountainous areas or farming villages to learn from the workers and farmers there. In all, about 17 million youth were sent to the rural areas as a result of the movement.
Wolf Totem is narrated by the main character of the novel, Chen Zhen, who is a Chinese man in his late twenties, and who also, like the author, leaves his home in Beijing, China, to work in Inner Mongolia a province in China during the Cultural Revolution. Through descriptions of folk traditions, rituals, and life on the steppe, Wolf Totem, compares the culture of the ethnic Mongolian nomads, who are citizens of the People’s Republic of China, but are ethnic Mongols, and the Han Chinese farmers in the area. Han Chinese are East Asian ethnic group, historically native to the Yellow River Basin region of, modern China. They constitute the world’s largest ethnic group, making about 18% of the global population, speaking distinctive variety of Chinese languages.
According to some interpretations, the book praises, “Freedom, independence, respect, unyielding nature before hardship, teamwork and competition” of the nomads, and criticizes the “Confucian-inspired culture” of the latter, which was “sheep-like”. The book condemns the agricultural collectivisation, the collective farming imposed on the nomads by the settlers, and the ecological disasters it caused, and ends with a 60-page “call to action” that is disconnected from the main thread of the novel.
The author has mentioned that he got inspired to write Wolf Totem by accident. One day he ignored the advice of the clan chief of the group of nomads with whom he was staying, and accidentally stumbled into a pack of wolves. Terrified, he watched them, as the wolves chased a herd of sheep, off a cliff, then dragged their corpses into a cave. From then on, fascinated by the wolves, he began to study them and their relationship with the nomads more closely, and even attempted to domesticate one.
The book sold well, almost immediately, after its release, selling some 50,000 copies in just two weeks. Pirated editions began to appear five days after the book first appeared on the shelves. By March 2006, it had sold over four million copies in China, and was also broadcast, in an audiobook format in twelve parts during prime time on China Radio International. Jiang also released a children’s edition of the book in July 2005, cut down to roughly one-third the length.
Despite the author’s refusal to participate in marketing the book, deals for adaptations of the novel into other media and translations into other languages have set financial records. Penguin Books paid US$100,000 for the worldwide English rights, setting a record for the highest amount paid for the translation rights to a Chinese book. An unspecified Tokyo publisher paid US$300,000 for the rights to publish a manga (graphic) adaptation, and Bertelsmann bought the German-language rights for €20,000. The author believes that, “in the West they may understand his book more comprehensively than in China.”
Other writers took advantage of the author’s anonymity to write fake sequels to Wolf Totem, including two books titled, Wolf Totem 2, as well as Great Wolfof the Plains, all with the imprint of the Chang Jiang Arts Publishing House. As a result, in April 2007, the author issued a statement that denounced all such “sequels” as fraudulent. He indicated that he was doing research for another book, but would not be publishing anything new in the short term.
Wolf Totem has also been the subject of criticism. Charu Nivedita, in his review in The Asian Age, called the novel fascist. He wrote, “Won’t we all prefer a peaceful desert to a fascist grassland, where, one dominating race devours all other in a macabre ritual of bloodbath?” German sinologist Wolfgang Kubin described the book as “fascist” for its depiction and treatment of the farmers. Pankaj Mishra, reviewing the English translation for The New York Times, described Jiang’s writing as “full of set-piece didacticism.
Mongol writer Guo Xuebo a scholar of Mongolian literature and history, has said that the wolf was never a traditional totem used by ethnic Mongolians. On the contrary, the wolf is the biggest menace for their survival. His post to this effect on Sina Weibo a Chinese internet site, on 18 February 2015 was questioned by many others. On February 25, he wrote an open letter, condemning the novel and the film, saying they “humiliate the ancestry, distort the history and culture, and insult the Mongolian people.” Independent from his views some others wrote, the wolf is a revered animal, which is regarded as having a heavenly destiny in Mongolia. On 20 January 2016, the Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences, the leading academic and research institution in Inner Mongolia, said that the wolf totem does not exist in ethnic Mongolian belief. The institution found, remains of ancient Mongolian totem worship, in varying degrees, among some tribes in ethnic Mongolia, but concluded there is no unified ethnic totem for Mongolian people after a wide range of fieldwork from April until July 2015 in Inner Mongolia.
Film adaptation:Wolf Totem is a 2015 Chinese-language film based on the novel. Directed by French director Jean-Jacques Annaud who co-wrote with Alain Godard and John Collee. The Chinese-French co-production features a Chinese student who is sent to Inner Mongolia to teach shepherds and instead learns about the wolf population, which is under threat by a government apparatchik. An apparatchik was a full-time, professional functionary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the Soviet Government.
The Beijing Forbidden City Film Corporation initially sought to hire a Chinese director, but filming humans with real wolves was considered too difficult. New Zealand director Peter Jackson was therefore approached, but production did not take place. Annaud, whose 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet is banned in China, was hired despite the history. The film was finally produced by China Film Group and French-based Reperage. The French director, who had worked with animals on other films, acquired a dozen wolf pups in China and had them trained for several years by a Canadian animal trainer. With a production budget of US$40 million, Annaud filmed Wolf Totem in Inner Mongolia, where the book is set, for over a year.
The film premiered at the European Film Market on February 7, 2015. It was scheduled to be released in China on February 19, 2015, for the start of the Chinese New Year, and in France on February 25, 2015.
A good book has many takers just as this one that was also adapted into a movie. I would give the book seven out of ten.
Shravan Charity Mission is an NGO that works for poor children suffering from life threatening diseases especially cancer. Our posts are meant for our readers that includes both children and adults and it has a huge variety in terms of content. We also accept donations for our mission. Should you wish to donate for the cause. The bank details are given below:
NAME OF ACCOUNT: SHRAVAN CHARITY MISSION
Account no: 680510110004635 (BANK OF INDIA)
IFSC code: BKID0006805
*
Our publications
GLOOM BEHIND THE SMILE
(The book is about a young cancer patient. Now archived in 7 prestigious libraries of the US, including, Harvard University and Library of Congress. It can also be accessed in MIT through Worldcat.org. Besides, it is also available for reading in Libraries and archives of Canada and Cancer Aid and Research Foundation Mumbai)
ONE TO TANGO … RIA’S ODYSSEY
(Is a book on ‘singlehood’ about a Delhi girl now archived in Connemara Library, Chennai and Delhi Public Library, GOI, Ministry of Culture, Delhi)
AADAB LUCKNOW … FOND MEMORIES
(Is a fiction written around the great city of Nawabs—Lucknow. It describes Lucknow in great detail and also talks about its Hindu-Muslim amity. That happens to be the undying characteristics of Lucknow. The book was launched in Lucknow International Literary Festival of 2014. It is included for reading in Askews and Holts Library Services, Lancashire, U.K.)
REFRACTIONS … FROM THE PRISM OF GOD
(Co-published by Cankids–Kidscan, a pan India NGO and Shravan Charity Mission, that works for Child cancer in India. The book is endorsed by Ms Preetha Reddy, MD Apollo Hospitals Group. It was launched in Lucknow International Literary Festival 2016)
TYPICAL TALE OF AN INDIAN SALESMAN
(Is a story of an Indian salesman who is, humbly qualified. Yet he fights his ways through unceasing uncertainties to reach the top. A good read not only for salesmen. The book was launched on 10th February, 2018 in Gorakhpur Lit-Fest. Now available in Amazon, Flipkart and Onlinegatha)
RHYTHM … in poems
(Published in January 2019. The book contains 50 poems. The poems describe our day to day life. The book is available in Amazon, Flipkart and Onlinegatha)
MIRAGE
(Published in February 2020. The book is a collection of eight short stories. It is available in Amazon, Flipkart and Notion Press)
Short stories published in Bhavan’s Journal: Reality and Perception 15.10.19; Sending the Wrong Message 31.5.20; Eagle versus Scholars June 15 & 20 2020.
(ALL THE ABOVE TITLES ARE AVAILABLE FOR SALE IN AMAZON, FLIPKART AND OTHER ONLINE STORES OR YOU COULD EVEN WRITE TO US FOR A COPY)
This is an attempt to create interest in reading books. We may not get time to read all the books. But such reviews and synopsis will at least convey what the book is all about.
‘RIP VAN WINKLE’
WASHINGTON IRVING
It is an old American short story that takes you back in times. Luckily, I got an opportunity to read it once again after many years in a book titled, ‘Great American Short Stories’ published by Barnes & Noble that has around thirty four short stories. Where, I would like to introduce the publication, through this evergreen fable, titled—RIP VAN WINKLE. Maybe, some other time I’ll take you through some other stories too, out of the book. The volume is illustriously introduced by Jane Smiley who happens to be an American novelist. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992 for her novel ‘A Thousand Acres.’
The setting of the story is in and around the Kaatskill mountains above the Hudson river. At the foot of these fairy mountains there is this antique little village founded by some Dutch colonists. The country side was then still a province of Great Britian. Where, a simple good natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle lived. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Stuyvesant of New Netherland now in the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennysylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, and Delaware. But he inherited little of the martial character of his ancestors.
He was a simple good-natured man. A kind neighbour, and an obedient hen-pecked husband. He had a termagant wife by the name of Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles. He also told them long stories of ghosts, witches and Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was often surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on to his skirts.
The minus point in Rip’s composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of money making labour. He avoided work but spent time in helping others and gallivanting here and there for frivolous things.
Rip Van Winkle was one of those happy-go-lucky types, of well oiled dispositions. Who took the world to be easy, ate white bread or brown, whichever could be got with least thought or trouble. He would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. And his wife kept continually dining in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family.
Rip’s sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf. Who was as much hen-pecked as his master. For Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness. For a long while he consoled himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle persons of the village, which helped its sessions on a bench before a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of His Majesty George the Third. They often gossiped when some old newspaper fell in their hands from some passing traveller. And how solemnly, they would listen to Derrick Van Bummel the school master. The opinion of this junto were, completely controlled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morning till night.
Gradually, poor Rip was reduced to despair. His only alternative, to escape from the labour of the farm and clamour of his wife, was to take his gun in hand and saunter away into the woods. Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with wolf, with whom he sympatised as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. “Poor Wolf,” he would say, “thy mistress leads thee a dog’s life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee!”
One day while Rip was on a long ramble on a fine autumnal day. He had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill mountains. Where, he was at his favourite sport of squirrel shooting in the desolate solitudes that echoed and re-echoed with the reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon on a green knoll covered with mountain herbage from where he saw the brimming Hudson below him. Slowly the mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys. So he lay there musing on this scene. He visualized it would be dark before he reaches the village. So he heaved a long sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle.
And as he was about to, commence his descent, to the village. He heard a voice from a distance, hallooing, “Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!” He looked round, but could see nothing but for a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain. He thought his fancy must have deceived him, and turned to descend, when he again heard the same cry ring through the still evening air; “Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!” He turned around and was surprised to see any human being in this lonely and unfrequented place. He thought it was some neighbour asking for assistance. Is when Van Winkle saw a man wearing antiquated Dutch clothing; he was carrying a keg up the mountain and required help. Together, the men and Wolf proceed to a hollow in which Rip discovered the source of thunderous noises: a group of ornately dressed, silent, bearded men who were playing nine-pins.
Rip Van Winkle did not ask who they are or how they knew his name. Instead, he began to drink some of their jenever (liquor) and soon fell asleep. When, he awoke on the mountain. He discovered shocking changes: His musket was rotting and had become rusty, his beard was a foot long, and his dog was nowhere to be found. He returned to his village, where he recognized no one.
Rip had returned just after an election, and people were asking how he had voted. Never having cast a ballot in his life, he proclaimed himself as a faithful subject of King George III. Unaware, that the American Revolution had taken place. He nearly got himself into trouble with the townspeople. Until one elderly woman recognized him as the long forgotten and the long-lost Rip Van Winkle.
King George’s portrait on the inn’s sign had been replaced with one of George Washington. Rip learnt that most of his friends were killed while fighting in the American Revolution. He was also perplexed and disturbed when he found another man by the name of Rip Van Winkle. But surprisingly he turned out to be his own son, now grown up. Rip also discovered that his wife had died some time ago but was not saddened, by the sad news.
He learnt that the men he met in the mountains are rumoured to be the ghosts of Hendrick (Henry) Hudson’s crew. Which had vanished long ago, and that he had been away from the village for at least 20 years. His grown up daughter finally takes him home. He resumes his usual idleness. His strange tale is solemnly taken to heart by the Dutch settlers. Particularly by the children who say that whenever thunder is heard, the men in the mountains must be playing nine-pins. The henpecked husbands in the area often wish they could have had a sip of Van Winkle’s elixir to sleep through their own wives’ nagging.
In the ultimate analysis Rip Van Winkle suffered because of his laziness. His punishment was to remain asleep for 20 years, because a person asleep, naturally misses the advent of the setting change. So, he missed the change: Both the pre-revolutionary and post revolutionary America. And that happens to be the central theme of the short story.
Shravan Charity Mission is an NGO that works for poor children suffering from life threatening diseases especially cancer. Should you wish to donate for the cause. The bank details are given below:
Shravan Charity Mission is an NGO that works for poor children suffering from life threatening diseases. Should you wish to donate for the cause the bank details are given below:
NAME OF ACCOUNT: SHRAVAN CHARITY MISSION
Account no: 680510110004635 (BANK OF INDIA)
IFSC code: BKID0006805
*
Our publications
GLOOM BEHIND THE SMILE
(The book is about a young cancer patient. Now archived in 7 prestigious libraries of the US, including, Harvard University and Library of Congress. It can also be accessed in MIT through Worldcat.org. Besides, it is also available for reading in Libraries and archives of Canada and Cancer Aid and Research Foundation Mumbai)
ONE TO TANGO … RIA’S ODYSSEY
(Is a book on ‘singlehood’ about a Delhi girl now archived in Connemara Library, Chennai and Delhi Public Library, GOI, Ministry of Culture, Delhi)
AADAB LUCKNOW … FOND MEMORIES
(Is a fiction written around the great city of Nawabs—Lucknow. It describes Lucknow in great detail and also talks about its Hindu-Muslim amity. That happens to be its undying characteristic. The book was launched in Lucknow International Literary Festival of 2014)
REFRACTIONS … FROM THE PRISM OF GOD
(Co-published by Cankids–Kidscan, a pan India NGO and Shravan Charity Mission, that works for Child cancer in India. The book is endorsed by Ms Preetha Reddy, MD Apollo Hospitals Group. It was launched in Lucknow International Literary Festival 2016)
TYPICAL TALE OF AN INDIAN SALESMAN
(Is a story of an Indian salesman who is, humbly qualified. Yet he fights his ways through unceasing uncertainties to reach the top. A good read not only for salesmen. The book was launched on 10th February, 2018 in Gorakhpur Lit-Fest. Now available in Amazon, Flipkart and Onlinegatha
(ALL THE ABOVE TITLES ARE AVAILABLE FOR SALE IN AMAZON, FLIPKART AND OTHER ONLINE STORES OR YOU COULD EVEN WRITE TO US FOR A COPY)
Shravan charity mission 