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books listed while some of them weren t a 5 star i genuinely believe they deserve more readership my goal for 2018 is to bridge my reading gaps by reading classics i have not read previously daddy long legs and the great gasby for instance 1 would you like some bread with that book and other instances of literary love by veena venugopal i love memoirs revolving around books and reading and this by an indian journalist and writer is so rooted in the places and emotions i m familiar with reading during school summer holidays reading in the mumbai locals and stalking authors on social media she also has a hilarious chapter on getting her daughter to love and read books while i read and loved nyt book editor pamela paul s my life with bob like so many others i loved that veena s book spoke directly to for me as an indian english language reader 2 standard deviation by katherine heiny this was a debut novel set in new york city about a couple and how they raise their son who has high functioning autism rib tickling yet poignant with a first wife thrown into the mix of things this book was highly memorable for its incredibly chalked out cast of characters there is the husband graham a venture capitalist with a propensity for order and stability audra the hilarious much younger wife with a colourful and quirky personality and ofcourse the son mathew whose exploits with origami form the meat of the narrative of the book the marriage reminded me a lot of jay and gloria s marriage in modern family 3 the secret diary of hendrik groen 83 1 4 years old by hendrik groen hester velmans translator originally a dutch bestseller i cannot be more thankful to the translator for the english version of this journal of an 83 year old man in a care home in amsterdam the real author of the book is apparently a 62 year old dutch librarian who wants to make no bones of the fact that he is a published author and would rather keep his identity a secret the book was immensely enjoyable with a tint of pungent humour while masterfully addressing issues such as aging public spending on old age welfare state of care homes euthanasia and elderly mental health certainly seems like a large mouthful of topics we would all rather ignore until it affects us personally but the book is narrated with a large serving of grace and humility in a light hearted diary format 4 something new tales from a makeshift bride by lucy knisley i rather love these graphical autobiographies i read knisley s relish way back in 2015 and loved its three way marriage of images food and stories knisley has delivered once again with this intimate potrait of her engagement and planning of a pinterest ing wedding i m hardly interested in weddings these days but her incredibly involved description of not just the event but also the social elements dilemmas of the modern day institution of american weddings mused through a feminist lens really scored this one high in my head that i could read the book s kindle version on my ipad also scored a brownie point on the subject of graphical autobiographies i finally read persepolis this year no kindle version though if you are a fan of this genre do let me know about any graphical autobiographies you have enjoyed 5 babies and bylines parenting on the move by pallavi aiyar i m a fan of pallavi aiyar s writing in the hindu from her beijing days i had read that she d written a parenting memoir a year or so ago bookmarked it in my head and promptly forgot about it thankfully i once again came across the book and immediately bought it to read later this year since then i have been vociferously recommending it to everyone who has had anything to do with a baby it is an irreverent and very honest account of parenting in the early years without being preachy or high brow or anything like that the book is also way more than just a parenting memoir it is a treatise on life and working while child rearing in this day and age it talks about the complex dual guilt that mothers in the workplace face both as employees and as parents and spouses it also touched upon universal topics like identity women working outside the home and marital partnerships heartwarming and intellectually charging in equal measure i hope this book gets its acclaim and readership it richly deserves i have also found the creative energy to do a tiny bit of writing outside of my regular work i wrote this piece to pay forward the immense benefits i received from my pre natal yoga instructors in april i found this incredible story telling grandmom and was privileged to be able to tell her story fyi she has since moved to the telegram app because the number of subscribers on whatsapp was way more than she was able to handle i received a fellowship from the dutch government that covered a 3 week course in the netherlands and sneaked in a weekend of travel to a booktown i promptly wrote about it here more such writing for 2018 is already in the works fingers crossed leave a comment posted in book review books uncategorized cost benefit analysis posted on february 9 2017 leave a comment this short story was my entry for the ids short story competition it didn t place but i really enjoyed this foray into fiction writing after a while it was almost cathartic for the phase i was going through this is a work of fiction but the characters and events are inspired by real life events and people happy reading and will be delighted to get feedback varsha tapped her fingers on the tribal design cover of her notebook it was yet another boring meeting in office to discuss the progress of the water hygiene and sanitation program her organization was implementing in a rural district sometimes varsha got the feeling that they spent more time reporting on the program rather than working on the program itself we must look to scale up our model said raghuram the de facto head of the program pressing his young reportees varsha and her colleagues who stared at him raghuram was a recent import into the csr division arriving from the organisation s commercial packaged drinking water division he could be ruthless about demanding numbers and results at times and varsha and her colleagues had spent many hours convincing him that managing development programs and milking results from them was a different beast from making and selling commercial products varsha knew that raghuram himself was under a lot of pressure to perform from their super boss it had all started during a strategic revamp of their organization the management had decided to focus a lot on the csr division and looked to running it like its business units an 18 month organization wide strategic transition meant that varsha saw several bored management consultants make a hundred powerpoint presentations to various people in the organization program personnel having to justify every field visit filling a lot of complicated excel sheets in the name of cost benefit analysis and having to keep your manager informed of every single program activity and constantly meeting bored government officials for added leverage after some quick customary discussion on scaling up raghuram wrapped up the meeting and varsha and her colleagues got back to their desks i need a smoke thought varsha as she excused herself from her desk and went to a little balcony at the edge of the floor the office s unofficial smoking corner she pulled out a lighter from her back pocket and lit up a cigarette and thought back to her graduate school days in the one of the world s best anthropology programs in the uk she had had so much of conviction in what she was setting out to do she was passionate about working with tribal communities in some naxalite prone regions in india and had had several ideas about piloting social enterprises that would generate a steady income stream for them she would use the surplus to create an indoor plumbing system for the community and make the entire area open defecation free in a couple of years she had spent six months with the community piloting enterprise models and was on her way of securing funding when things fell through with the funding agency they interfered too much in the making of the product and varsha felt uncomfortable with the aggression and scale they were expecting out of her and the community in such a short span of time frustrated she put the project on hold decided that she would work for a couple of years and use her own savings to fund the capital for the tribal enterprise she had dreamt up that is how she had landed this job a friend of a friend had heard of the opening and thought varsha would make a great member of the program team that was to launch and implement an ambitious wash program varsha agreed to interview skeptically she wasn t at all sure of how genuine businesses were when they claimed they wanted to participate in development her interview though went really well the program director at the time was an accomplished development practitioner who had spent years working on a foreign funded agriculture project varsha felt that they had struck a chord and that she would only gain a lot by working in his team however with the organisation s strategic transformation the man was subtly shown the door in the guise that he was less ambitious than the organisation s new ethos required him to be varsha missed him and the initial field visits with him to do scoping studies here was a man who knew how to work with communities understand their aspirations their mores and cultural ethos but no he was not good enough for the new order varsha s patience in the organization was stretching thin the only thing that held her back was the pay that ensured her that she d be able to save enough to work fulltime on that enterprise in a couple of years lately she had begun to feel like a robot merely taking instructions mechanically writing reports to please the powers to be all while smoking far more cigarettes than she ever had this job isn t the greatest thing to happen to me either for my spirit or my lungs she thought wondering which was more crushed shrugging she walked over to the ashtray dropped the cigarette butt on it and got back to her desk no sooner had she got back to her desk when she received a call from raghuram on her phone extension hi varsha could you come into my cabin please he said sure she said hanging up she collected her notebook and pen and started walking to raghuram s cabin varsha was surprised to see deepa the woman who headed the communications division sitting in raghuram s cabin and chatting animatedly with him she herself had very limited interaction with deepa and she wasn t sure why she was asked to join this communion between raghuram and deepa ah yes varsha raghuram acknowledged her with a head tilt waving her inside his cabin come in deepa here has some ideas on documenting our wash work especially because world water day is coming up he added deepa looked at varsha and said we were doing a media audit of the last world water day press coverage and apparently trust foundation had splashed all the national newspapers with their toilets construction work that s some incredibly good press our work completely went by unnoticed we really need to be bolder and louder with our intentions and activities raghuram nodded and said so varsha we thought it might be a good idea for the communications team to go with you next week to the project location and get some footage of our work and put together a short film would you be up to doing that varsha moved her forefinger over her lips as she often did while thinking and said actually most of the community sanitation workshops got over last week i m not sure what you could capture of it instead can we make a documentary on the activist abu sahu raghuram you do remember him right he led an uprising against the upper castes did much of the paper work and filed an rti i and now the lower castes are allowed access to the community toilets after almost two decades of exclusion our program unit based there helped him with the paperwork and in mobilizing the community it could make a great case to say that we emphasize on social equity through our programs most importantly it would be an ode to an ordinary community worker s spirit and relentless work she said we could interview some girls who could talk about what it is like for them to be able to access toilets without fear and threat she added hmmm sounds wonderful but i think we were looking for another angle cut deepa you guys did some wall paintings as part of the iec exercise right did our logo come out ok in them because that s key for our footage though i will ensure that our logo is plastered on every frame of the short film she added nonchalantly as if varsha hadn t made her suggestion at all absolutely deepa i m sure we can gather a few of the workshop resource people and some beneficiaries and reenact the workshop for the camera replied raghuram who also seemed to have completely ignored what varsha had said so that is settled then varsha coordinate with deepa s team and ensure that you plan the tickets and logistics for your trip please inform bharat and ask him to simulate a workshop setting and tell him that it will be captured on camera said raghuram deepa nodded meekly and went back to her desk she spent the rest of the day booking tickets organizing hotel rooms and discussing logistics with bharat bharat could you catch a few of the women s groups and tell them that we want to capture some footage i will check with the guy who facilitated the clts workshops if he can spare a day or two she said sighing as she hung up the phone after hearing bharat s affirmations feeling a tap on her shoulder she spun around looking at susan from the communications team hey varsha i ve worked on a storyboard and script for world water day deepa s given her in principle approval but i thought i d run it by you to iron out some programmatic details can we discuss it now asked susan sure susan replied varsha do we scout for a meeting room susan starts explaining the script to her so we can start with showing footage of how the community was before our intervention abundant cases of open defecation terrible sanitation conditions and poorly maintained toilets and how they were hardly used and then we can show groups of women and men sitting while our workshop facilitators explained to them the importance of handwashing excreting and urinating in the toilet susan reeled off unable to keep the anger out of her voice varsha snapped the community isn t a bunch of 2 year olds getting toilet trained by the workshop facilitator we did not use the workshops to preach and thankfully the facilitators did not use authoritative or top down approaches or tones she said but the crux of the project was that we improved the sanitation situation of the community right to put it crudely we showed them how to pee and poop properly right h...